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Bible Texts

Greek New Testament (Stephanus - 1550)
Stephanus (Robert Etienne's) 1550 edition, being an early and well-known Textus Receptus.

Greek New Testament (Scrivener - 1894)
Scrivener's 1894 edition, an attempt to reconstruct the Greek Vorlage for the KJV NT, insofar as this can be found in Greek MSS, without retranslating Vulgate readings back into unattested Greek.

Greek New Testament (Westcott-Hort)
Plain Westcott-Hort edition.

Hebrew Old Testament
This is the unpointed Tanach, from the Masoretic text. The word Tanach is a Hebrew acronymn for Torah (Law), Neviim (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings), the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible. The base for this Tanach was Steve Gross' ASCII Transliterated Tanach, stored at israel.nysernet.org.

Modern Bible Translations

Darby Translation
Darby's Holy Scriptures, A New Translation from the Original Languages was published originally in two parts: the New Testament (1884) and the New Testament (1890). These are English translations of a collation done on his earlier German and French translations. Both are posthumous, as John Nelson Darby himself died in 1882. This current e-text reflects the even more recent Guildford/London edition of 1961.

Douay-Rheims Version
The Douay Version is the foundation on which nearly all English Catholic versions are still based. It was translated by Gregory Martin, an Oxford-trained scholar, working in the circle of English Catholic exiles on the Continent, under the sponsorship of William (later Cardinal) Allen. The NT appeared at Rheims in 1582; the OT at Douay in 1609. The translation, although competent, exhibited a taste for Latinisms that was not uncommon in English writing of the time but has seemed excessive in the eyes of later generations. The NT influenced the Authorized Version. This edition of the text was been converted from the 1899 edition of the John Murphy Company, Baltimore, Maryland.

King James Version (KJV)
"In 1604, King James I of England authorized that a new translation of the Bible into English be started. It was finished in 1611, just 85 years after the first translation of the New Testament into English appeared (Tyndale, 1526). The Authorized Version, or King James Version, quickly became the standard for English-speaking Protestants. Its flowing language and prose rhythm has had a profound influence on the literature of the past 300 years."

New American Standard Version
In the history of English Bible translations, the King James Version is the most prestigious. This time-honored version of 1611, itself a revision of the Bishops' Bible of 1568, became the basis for the English Revised Version appearing in 1881 (New Testament) and 1885 (Old Testament). The American counterpart of this last work was published in 1901 as the American Standard Version. The ASV, a product of both British and American scholarship, has been highly regarded for its scholarship and accuracy. Recognizing the values of the American Standard Version, the Lockman Foundation felt an urgency to preserve these and other lasting values of the ASV by incorporating recent discoveries of Hebrew and Greek textual sources and by rendering it into more current English. Therefore, in 1959 a new translation project was launched, based on the time-honored principles of translation of the ASV and KJV. The result is the New American Standard Bible.

Translation work for the NASB was begun in 1959. In the preparation of this work numerous other translations have been consulted along with the linguistic tools and literature of biblical scholarship. Decisions about English renderings were made by consensus of a team composed of educators and pastors. Subsequently, review and evaluation by other Hebrew and Greek scholars outside the Editorial Board were sought and carefully considered.

World English Bible (WEB)
The WEB Bible as it might apear by the name is being translated specifically for the purpose of being distrubuted over the WEB. In the words of those working on the translation from the ASV 1901, "...there is NO OTHER complete translation of the Holy Bible in normal Modern English that can be freely copied (except for some limited "fair use") without payment of royalties. This is the vacuum that the World English Bible is trying to fill."

Young's Litteral Translation (YLT)
The Bible text designated YLT is from the 1898 Young's Literal Translation by Robert Young who also compiled Young's Analytical Concordance. This is an extremely literal translation that attempts to preserve the tense and word usage as found in the original Greek and Hebrew writings. The text was scanned from a reprint of the 1898 edition as published by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids Michigan. The book is still in print and may be ordered from Baker Book House. Obvious errors in spelling or inconsistent spellings of the same word were corrected in the computer edition of the text.

Ancient Translations

Greek Old Testament (Septuagint/LXX)
This text was extracted from the morphologically analyzed text of CATSS LXX prepared by CATSS under the direction of R. Kraft (Philadelphia team).

Latin Vulgate
The Latin Vulgate was translated by Jerome (c. 347-420), who began his work in 382. In 386 he moved to Bethlehem and worked on the Old Testament. He began on using the Greek LXX, but quickly decided to work directly from the Hebrew. In 405 the Old Testament, as well as the rest of the New Testament was completed. Dut to older Latin texts in circulation, Jerome's work was not widely popular until the ninth century. The influence of Jerome's Bible was quite extensive. For instance, the first knowledge of the Bible in the British Isles was from the Vulgate.

It should be noted Jerome translated Psalms from the Hebrew as well as the Greek. Accordingly, there were 2 Psalms texts. These can now both be viewed in parallel. Choose Latin Vulgate and -Psalms from Hebrew in the Versions and Parallel select boxes.

PRE REFORMATION RESTRICTIONS ON BIBLES

“The Holy Scripture is not to be translated into the vulgar tongue, nor a translation to be expounded, until it shall have been duly examined, under pain of excommunication and the stigma of heresy… We therefore enact and ordain that no one henceforth on his own authority translate any text of Holy Scripture into the English or other language, by way of a book, pamphlet, or tract, and that no book, pamphlet, or tract of this kind be read, either recently composed in the time of the said John Wyclif, or since then, or that may in future be composed, in part or in whole, publicly or privily, under pain of greater excommunication, until the translation itself shall have been approved by the diocesan of the place or if need be by a provincial council. Whoever shall do the contrary is to be punished in like manner as a supporter of heresy and error.” [Pollard, Alfred W., Records of the English Bible (London: Oxford University Press, 1911), 80-1.]

LIST OF BIBLE TRANSLATIONS