Tracing the history of the translation of the Bible into the Telugu language-4

Please see Part 1 here (please note the disclaimer at the top).
Please see Part 2 here 
Please see Part 3 here

Consolidation of translation groups:

The Madras (Auxiliary) Bible  Society was formed on 5th May 1820. There seems to be general agreement among the translation groups to yield to the direction of the Madras Bible Society regarding the future of Telugu Bible translation. The immediate concern for the society was to study and determine how the three groups of translation effort (Gordon, Pritchett and Serampore) could be reconciled and merged. The society concluded that the Serampore version was inferior to the other two and unusable. Based on this, and the introduction in today's Telugu Bible, people that ascribe their Telugu Bible to the work of William Carey are misguided. The next task of merging the work of Gordon and Pritchett took many decades and multiple committees.

Major contributors in the Society: 

John Hay led much of the effort as the chief translator. Records indicate his strenuous (regularly working on the translation from 3 AM to 3 PM), detailed, sustained work over many decades. Hay was assisted by John Smith Wardlaw.  Jacob Chamberlain, an American Reformed believer in the Lord Jesus, led the translation effort in the late 1800s in addition to a full evangelistic schedule (preaching 739 times in 1871). Lyman Jewett, an American Baptist believer in the Lord Jesus, also contributed using a Sanskrit version and a German translation. Other contributors include M.Ratnam, A.H Arden, H.C Schmidt, J. Clay, P. Jagganadam, A.V Timpany, F.N Alexander and E. Lewis (from "The missionary conference: South India and Ceylon, 1879 v2").

Issues faced by the committees:

The two predominant issues were:

• Identifying appropriate manuscripts: There were instructions to the society to adhere to the Textus Receptus but Hay and Wardlaw particularly resisted it. Merely thirty five years after the discovery of the Codex sinaiticus, Hay was using the Greek versions of Tischendorf and Lachmann. 
• Translating terms pertaining to Baptism: There was lively discussion around which telugu terms accurately capture Baptism. A.V Timpany detailed many of the problems (which incidentally still are relevant) here.

This captures translation effort until about 1905. For developments since 1905, access to recent journals are required, which is being pursued. If (or when) access is obtained, the next phase of this search will continue, Lord willing.

Concluding remarks for this phase of the study:

• The 1905 publication of the Telugu Bible by the Madras Society is based on the Received Text (for the NT). Today's published versions is not- it would be interesting to find out details on  this shift.
• Bible translation has always been about making the Bible readable for the common man- this was true for the King James Version, the English Standard Version and for the Telugu Bible. Unfortunately, this is may no longer be  true for the Telugu Bible. Today's Telugu Bible requires not only the teacher explaining terms but also restructuring sentences to make them understandable. There is a noticeable disparity between spoken language (regular conversations, News, public addresses) and today's Telugu Bible language structure and some terminology. It might be time to revise the language taking into account the complex current Telugu dialects network- a Christian Telugu linguist would have better insights into this.