"Guest or foreigner?" from the evangelical message (Mt 25, 31-46) to the Polish translations of the Bible : problems of equivalence

Streszcz. po ang., bibliogr.

The paper tries to draw attention to problems related to accurate conveyance in translation of certain forms and ideas contained in the Bible It focuses on a fragment of the parable of the final judgment from the Gospel of St Matthew (Mt 25, 31-46) which speaks about acts of love towards neighbours Besides the evangelical command to care for the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and imprisoned, it contains an order to accept a FOREIGNER, described in the Greek and Latin text of the Bible as ksénos and hospes, respectively The first goal of this paper is to attempt a reconstruction of the linguistic and cultural context in which those names for the FOREIGNER were used The second, essential, goal is to philologically evaluate a collection of native equivalents of those foreign words which appear in 34 Polish translations of the Gospel of St Matthew, from Old Polish to newer and contemporary renderings The remarks presented in the paper are philological in nature and primarily refer to linguistic descriptive procedures, with a necessary utilization of certain findings in the fields of exegesis and Biblical hermenutics.