Partial

Bible translations The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. all of the Bible has been translated into 724 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,617 languages, and ...

into languages of the English people can be traced back to the late 7th century, including translations into Old and

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

. More than 100 complete translations into English have been written. In the United States, 55% of survey respondents who read the Bible reported using the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...

in 2014, followed by 19% for the

New International Version The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society). The ''NIV'' was created as a modern translation, by Bible scholars using the earliest an ...

, 18% for the three next most popular versions combined, and less than 10% for all other versions.

Old English

The Bible in its entirety was not translated into English until the

period, with John Wycliffe's translation in 1382. In the centuries before this, however, many had translated large portions of the Bible into English. Parts of the Bible were first translated from the

Latin Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels us ...

into Old English by a few monks and scholars. Such translations were generally in the form of prose or as

interlinear gloss In linguistics and pedagogy, an interlinear gloss is a gloss (series of brief explanations, such as definitions or pronunciations) placed between lines, such as between a line of original text and its translation into another language. When gloss ...

es (literal translations above the Latin words). Very few complete translations existed during that time. Most of the books of the Bible existed separately and were read as individual texts. Translations of the Bible often included the writer's own commentary on passages in addition to the literal translation.

Aldhelm Aldhelm ( ang, Ealdhelm, la, Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 63925 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the so ...

Bishop of Sherborne The Bishop of Sherborne is an episcopal title which takes its name from the market town of Sherborne in Dorset, England. The see of Sherborne was established in around 705 by St Aldhelm, the Abbot of Malmesbury. This see was the mother diocese of ...

and

Abbot of Malmesbury Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a religious house dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It was one of the few English houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the dissolution of the monasteri ...

(639–709), is thought to have written an Old English translation of the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...

(''c.'' 672–735) produced a translation of the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

into Old English, which he is said to have prepared shortly before his death. This translation is lost; we know of its existence from Cuthbert of Jarrow's account of Bede's death. In the 10th century an

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

translation of the Gospels was made in the

Lindisfarne Gospels The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, which is now in the B ...

: a word-for-word gloss inserted between the lines of the Latin text by Aldred, Provost of

Chester-le-Street Chester-le-Street (), also known as Chester, is a market town and civil parish in County Durham, England, around north of Durham and also close to Sunderland and Newcastle upon Tyne. It is located on the River Wear, which runs out to sea at ...

. This is the oldest extant translation of the Gospels into the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

. The ''

Wessex Gospels __NOTOC__ The ''Wessex Gospels'' (also known as the ''West-Saxon Gospels'') refer to a translation of the four gospels of the Christian Bible into a West Saxon dialect of Old English. Produced from approximately AD 990 to 1175 in present-day Engla ...

'' (also known as the ''West-Saxon Gospels'') are a full translation of the four

gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

into a West Saxon dialect of Old English. Produced in approximately 990, they are the first translation of all four gospels into English without the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

text. In the 11th century, Abbot

Ælfric Ælfric (Old English ', Middle English ''Elfric'') is an Anglo-Saxon given name. Churchmen *Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955–c. 1010), late 10th century Anglo-Saxon abbot and writer *Ælfric of Abingdon (died 1005), late 10th century Anglo-Saxon Archbi ...

translated much of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

into Old English. The ''

Old English Hexateuch The Old English Hexateuch is the collaborative project of the late Anglo-Saxon period that translated the six books of the Hexateuch into Old English, presumably under the editorship of Ælfric of Eynsham. It is the first English vernacular transla ...

'' is an

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...

of the first six books of the Old Testament (the

Hexateuch The Hexateuch ("six scrolls") is the first six books of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah (''Pentateuch'') and the book of Joshua. Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. Overview The term ''Hexateuch'' came into scholar ...

Middle English

The

Ormulum The ''Ormulum'' or ''Orrmulum'' is a twelfth-century work of biblical exegesis, written by an Augustinian canon named Orm (or Ormin) and consisting of just under 19,000 lines of early Middle English verse. Because of the unique phonemic orth ...

is in Middle English of the 12th century. Like its Old English precursor from

, an Abbot of Eynsham, it includes very little Biblical text, and focuses more on personal commentary. This style was adopted by many of the original English translators. For example, the story of the

Wedding at Cana The transformation of water into wine at the wedding at Cana (also called the marriage at Cana, wedding feast at Cana or marriage feast at Cana) is the first miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John. In the Gospel account, Jesus Chris ...

is almost 800 lines long, but fewer than 40 lines are the actual translation of the text. An unusual characteristic is that the translation mimics Latin verse, and so is similar to the better known and appreciated 14th-century English poem

Cursor Mundi The ''Cursor Mundi'' (or ‘Over-runner of the World’) is an early 14th-century religious poem written in Northumbrian Middle English that presents an extensive retelling of the history of Christianity from the creation to the doomsday.Morris ...

Richard Rolle Richard Rolle ( – 30 September 1349) was an English hermit, mystic, and religious writer. He is also known as Richard Rolle of Hampole or de Hampole, since at the end of his life he lived near a Cistercian nunnery in Hampole, now in Sou ...

(1290–1349) wrote an English Psalter. Many religious works are attributed to Rolle, but it has been questioned how many are genuinely from his hand. Many of his works were concerned with personal devotion, and some were used by the

Lollards Lollardy, also known as Lollardism or the Lollard movement, was a proto-Protestant Christian religious movement that existed from the mid-14th century until the 16th-century English Reformation. It was initially led by John Wycliffe, a Catholic ...

. Theologian

John Wycliffe John Wycliffe (; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, and other variants; 1328 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, biblical translator, reformer, Catholic priest, and a seminary professor at the University of ...

(c. 1320s–1384) is credited with translating what is now known as Wycliffe's Bible, though it is not clear how much of the translation he himself did. This translation came out in two different versions. The earlier text is characterised by a strong adherence to the word order of Latin, and might have been difficult for the layperson to comprehend. The later text made more concessions to the native grammar of English.

Early Modern and Modern English

Early Modern English

Early Modern English Bible translations are of between about 1500 and 1800, the period of

Early Modern English Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle E ...

. This was the first major period of Bible translation into the English language. This period began with the introduction of the

Tyndale Bible The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of Bible translations, biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English, made . Tyndale's Bible is credited with being the first Bible translation in the English language to work ...

. The first complete edition of his New Testament was in 1526.

William Tyndale William Tyndale (; sometimes spelled ''Tynsdale'', ''Tindall'', ''Tindill'', ''Tyndall''; – ) was an English biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execu ...

used the Greek and Hebrew texts of the New Testament (NT) and Old Testament (OT) in addition to

Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, th ...

's Latin translation. He was the first translator to use the

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...

– this enabled the distribution of several thousand copies of his New Testament translation throughout England. Tyndale did not complete his Old Testament translation. The first printed English translation of the whole Bible was produced by

Miles Coverdale Myles Coverdale, first name also spelt Miles (1488 – 20 January 1569), was an English ecclesiastical reformer chiefly known as a Bible translator, preacher and, briefly, Bishop of Exeter (1551–1553). In 1535, Coverdale produced the first c ...

in 1535, using Tyndale's work together with his own translations from the Latin Vulgate or German text. After much scholarly debate it is concluded that this was printed in Antwerp and the colophon gives the date as 4 October 1535. This first edition was adapted by Coverdale for his first "authorised version", known as the

Great Bible The Great Bible of 1539 was the first authorised edition of the Bible in English, authorised by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, worki ...

, of 1539. Other early printed versions were the Geneva Bible (1560), notable for being the first Bible divided into verses and which negated the Divine Right of Kings; the

Bishop's Bible The Bishops' Bible is an English translation of the Bible which was produced under the authority of the established Church of England in 1568. It was substantially revised in 1572, and the 1602 edition was prescribed as the base text for the King ...

(1568), which was an attempt by

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

to create a new authorised version; and the Authorized King James Version of 1611. The first complete

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Bible in English was the

Douay–Rheims Bible The Douay–Rheims Bible (, ), also known as the Douay–Rheims Version, Rheims–Douai Bible or Douai Bible, and abbreviated as D–R, DRB, and DRV, is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by member ...

, of which the New Testament portion was published in

Rheims Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by ...

in 1582 and the Old Testament somewhat later in Douay in Gallicant Flanders. The Old Testament was completed by the time the New Testament was published but, due to extenuating circumstances and financial issues, it was not published until nearly three decades later, in two editions: the first released in 1609, and the rest of the OT in 1610. In this version, the seven

deuterocanonical books The deuterocanonical books (from the Greek meaning "belonging to the second canon") are books and passages considered by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East to be ...

are amongst the other books, as in the Latin

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

, rather than kept separate in an appendix.

Modern English

While early English Bibles were generally based on a small number of Greek texts, or on Latin translations, modern English translations of the Bible are based on a wider variety of manuscripts in the original languages, mostly Greek and Hebrew. The translators put much scholarly effort into cross-checking the various sources such as the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...

Textus Receptus ''Textus Receptus'' (Latin: "received text") refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus's ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant denomi ...

, and

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

. Relatively recent discoveries such as the

Dead Sea scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the nor ...

provide additional reference information. Some controversy has existed over which texts should be used as a basis for translation, as some of the alternate sources do not include phrases (or sometimes entire verses) which are found only in the Textus Receptus.See the ''New International Version'', the ''Revised Standard Version'', The ''New King James Version'' and the ''New American Standard Version'' of the Bible. Some say the alternate sources were poorly representative of the texts used in their time, whereas others claim the Textus Receptus includes passages that were added to the alternate texts improperly. These controversial passages are not the basis for disputed issues of doctrine: they tend to be additional stories or snippets of phrases. Many modern English translations, such as the

, contain limited text notes indicating where differences occur in original sources. A somewhat greater number of textual differences are noted in the New King James Bible, indicating hundreds of New Testament differences between the

Nestle-Aland (''The New Testament in Greek'') is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical criticism. It is also known as the Nestle–Aland edition after its mos ...

, the

, and the Hodges edition of the

Majority Text In the textual criticism of the New Testament, the Byzantine text-type (also called Majority Text, Traditional Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Constantinopolitan Text, Antiocheian Text, or Syrian Text) is one of the main text types. It is the form fo ...

. The differences in the Old Testament are less well documented, but they do contain some references to differences between consonantal interpretations in the Masoretic Text, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Septuagint. Even with these hundreds of differences, however, a more complete listing is beyond the scope of most single-volume Bibles.

Individual translations

While most Bible translations are made by committees of scholars in order to avoid bias or idiosyncrasy, translations are sometimes made by individuals. The following, selected translations are largely the work of individual translators: * Noah

Webster's Bible Translation Noah Webster's 1833 limited revision of the King James Version, (more commonly called Webster Bible) focused mainly on replacing archaic words and making simple grammatical changes. For example: "why" instead of "wherefore", "its" instead of "h ...

(1833), *

Young's Literal Translation Young's Literal Translation (YLT) is a translation of the Bible into English, published in 1862. The translation was made by Robert Young, compiler of '' Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible'' and ''Concise Critical Comments on the New Te ...

(1862), *

Emphatic Diaglott The ''Emphatic Diaglott'' is a diaglot, or two-language polyglot translation, of the New Testament by Benjamin Wilson, first published in 1864. It is an interlinear translation with the original Greek text and a word-for-word English translatio ...

by Benjamin Wilson (1864), * Julia E. Smith Parker Translation (1876), "''Translated Literally''", * J.N. Darby's

Darby Bible The Darby Bible (DBY, formal title ''The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby'') refers to the Bible as translated from Hebrew and Greek by John Nelson Darby. History and principles Darby published a ...

(1890), * Modern Reader's Bible (1914) by Richard Moulton, * Five Pauline Epistles, New Translation (1900) by William Gunion Rutherford, * Bryant Rotherham's

Emphasized Bible Joseph Bryant Rotherham's Emphasized Bible (abbreviated EBR to avoid confusion with the REB) is a translation of the Bible which uses various methods, such as "emphatic idiom" and special diacritical marks, to bring out nuances of the underlyi ...

(1902), * S. H. Hooke's The

Bible in Basic English The ''Bible In Basic English'' (also known as the ''BBE'') is a translation of the Bible into Basic English. The BBE was translated by Professor S. H. Hooke using the standard 850 Basic English words. 100 words that were helpful to understand po ...

(1949), * R.A. Knox (1950), * J.B. Phillips (1958), * Verkuyl's

Berkeley Version The Berkeley Version is an English translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published by Zondervan Zondervan is an international Christian media and publishing company located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan is a founding member ...

(1959), * Holy Name Bible containing the Holy Name Version of the Old and New Testaments (1963) by

Angelo Traina Angelo Benedetto Traina (January 22, 1889 - November 4, 1971) was a biblical scholar, best known for his emphasis on what he called restoring "Semitic proper names to their Aramaic and Hebrew forms". Life Traina was born in Sicily into a Catho ...

, *

The Living Bible The Living Bible (TLB or LB) is a personal paraphrase, not a translation, of the Bible in English by Kenneth N. Taylor and first published in 1971. Taylor used the American Standard Version of 1901 as his base text. Origin In a 1979 interview ...

(1971) by Kenneth N. Taylor, *

The Bible in Living English The Bible in Living English is a translation of the Bible by Steven T. Byington. History Byington translated the Bible on his own for 45 years from 1898 to 1943, but was unable to have it published during his lifetime. After he died in 1957, t ...

(1972) by Stephen T. Byington, * Jay P.

Green's Literal Translation Green's Literal Translation or the Literal Translation of the Holy Bible (LITV) is a translation of the Bible by Jay P. Green, Sr., first published in 1985. The LITV takes a literal, formal equivalence approach to translation. The Masoretic Text ...

(1985), * Heinz Cassirer's translation (1989), * The

Complete Jewish Bible Messianic Bible translations are translations, or editions of translations, in English of the Christian Bible, some of which are widely used in the Messianic Judaism and Hebrew Roots communities. They are not the same as Jewish English Bible tra ...

(1998) by Dr. David H. Stern, * American King James Version (1999) by Michael Engelbrite, *

Eugene H. Peterson Eugene Hoiland Peterson (November 6, 1932 – October 22, 2018) was an American Presbyterian minister, scholar, theologian, author, and poet. He wrote over 30 books, including the Gold Medallion Book Award–winner '' The Message: The Bible in ...

's The Message (2002), * The Original Aramaic Bible in Plain English (2010) by David Bauscher, * Father Nicholas King's translation of the Greek Bible into English. * The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, by Robert Alter (2019) Others, such as

N. T. Wright Nicholas Thomas Wright (born 1 December 1948), known as N. T. Wright or Tom Wright, is an English New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010. He then became research profe ...

, have translated portions of the Bible.

Jewish translations

Jewish English Bible translations are

modern English Bible translations Modern English Bible translations consists of translations developed and published throughout the late modern period () to present-day (). A multitude of recent attempts have been made to translate the Bible into English. Most modern translations ...

that include the books of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

(

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''

, and according to the traditional division and order of

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...

Nevi'im Nevi'im (; he, נְבִיאִים ''Nəvīʾīm'', Tiberian: ''Năḇīʾīm,'' "Prophets", literally "spokespersons") is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the ''Tanakh''), lying between the Torah (instruction) and Ketuvim (wri ...

, and

Ketuvim The Ketuvim (; hbo, , Modern: ''Kəṯūvīm'', Tiberian: ''Kăṯūḇīm'' "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), after Torah (instruction) and Nevi'im (prophets). In English translations of the Hebrew Bi ...

. Jewish translations often also reflect traditional Jewish interpretations of the Bible, as opposed to the Christian understanding that is often reflected in non-Jewish translations. For example, Jewish translations translate עלמה ''‘almâh'' in Isaiah 7:14 as ''young woman'', while many Christian translations render the word as ''virgin''. While modern biblical scholarship is similar for both Christians and Jews, there are distinctive features of Jewish translations, even those created by academic scholars. These include the avoidance of Christological interpretations, adherence to the

(at least in the main body of the text, as in the new Jewish Publication Society (JPS) translation) and greater use of classical Jewish exegesis. Some translations prefer names transliterated from the Hebrew, though the majority of Jewish translations use the Anglicized forms of biblical names. The first English Jewish translation of the Bible into English was by

Isaac Leeser Isaac Leeser (December 12, 1806 – February 1, 1868) was an American Orthodox Jewish religious leader, teacher, scholar and publisher. He helped found the Jewish press of America, produced the first Jewish translation of the Bible into English, ...

in the 19th century. The JPS produced two of the most popular Jewish translations, namely the JPS ''The Holy Scriptures'' of 1917 and the NJPS ''Tanakh'' (first printed in a single volume in 1985, second edition in 1999). Since the 1980s there have been multiple efforts among Orthodox publishers to produce translations that are not only Jewish, but also adhere to Orthodox norms. Among these are

The Living Torah and Nach ''The Living Torah'' and ''The Living Nach'' are popular, clear and modern English translations of the Tanakh based on traditional Jewish sources, along with extensive notes, maps, illustrations, diagrams, charts, bibliography, and index. A 2006 ...

Aryeh Kaplan Aryeh Moshe Eliyahu Kaplan ( he, אריה משה אליהו קפלן; October 23, 1934 – January 28, 1983) was an American Orthodox rabbi, author, and translator, best known for his Living Torah edition of the Torah. He became well known as ...

and others, the

and other portions in an ongoing project by Everett Fox, and the

ArtScroll ArtScroll is an imprint of translations, books and commentaries from an Orthodox Jewish perspective published by Mesorah Publications, Ltd., a publishing company based in Rahway, New Jersey. Rabbi Nosson Scherman is the general editor. ArtScroll' ...

Tanakh.

Approaches to translation

Modern translations take different approaches to the rendering of the original languages of approaches. The approaches can usually be considered to be somewhere on a scale between the two extremes: *

Formal equivalence The terms dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence, coined by Eugene Nida, are associated with two dissimilar translation approaches that are employed to achieve different levels of literalness between the source and target text, as evidenc ...

(sometimes called

literal translation Literal translation, direct translation or word-for-word translation, is a translation of a text done by translating each word separately, without looking at how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence. In Translation studies, trans ...

) in which the greatest effort is made to preserve the meaning of individual words and phrases in the original, with relatively less regard for its understandability by modern readers. Examples include the

English Standard Version The English Standard Version (ESV) is an English translation of the Bible. Published in 2001 by Crossway, the ESV was "created by a team of more than 100 leading evangelical scholars and pastors." The ESV relies on recently published critic ...

Literal Standard Version The Literal Standard Version (LSV) is a Modern English translation of the protocanonical books of the Bible with a number of distinctive features. It describes itself as the most literal translation of the Bible into the modern English language. ...

Revised Standard Version The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. This translation itself is a revision of the Ameri ...

New Revised Standard Version The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches.New American Standard Bible The New American Standard Bible (NASB) is an English translation of the Bible. Published by the Lockman Foundation, the complete NASB was released in 1971. The NASB relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew and Gre ...

. *

Dynamic equivalence The terms dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence, coined by Eugene Nida, are associated with two dissimilar translation approaches that are employed to achieve different levels of literalness between the source and target text, as evidenc ...

(or functional equivalence, sometimes paraphrastic translation) in which the translator attempts to render the sense and intent of the original. Examples include

and The Message. Some translations have been motivated by a strong theological distinctive. In the

Sacred Name Bibles Sacred Name Bibles are Bible translations that consistently use Hebraic forms of the God of Israel's personal name, instead of its English language translation, in both the Old and New Testaments. Some Bible versions, such as the Jerusalem Bi ...

the conviction that God's name be preserved in a Semitic form is followed. The

Purified Translation of the Bible ''The Holy Bible: A Purified Translation'' is an edition of the New Testament which was published in 2000. A year earlier, 40,000 copies of the Gospel of John from this translation had been mailed to Southern Baptist pastors. It was translated b ...

promotes the idea that Jesus and early Christians drink grape juice not wine. The

Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...

' ''

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) is a translation of the Bible published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society; it is used and distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses. The New Testament portion was released first, in 1950, ...

'' renders the

tetragrammaton The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew language, Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', ''he (l ...

as ''Jehovah'' throughout the Old Testament, and it uses the form ''Jehovah'' in the New Testament including — but not limited to — passages quoting the Old Testament even though it does not appear in the Greek text.

Single source translations

While most translations attempt to synthesize the various texts in the original languages, some translations also translate one specific textual source, generally for scholarly reasons. A single volume example for the Old Testament is ''The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible'' () by Martin Abegg, Peter Flint and Eugene Ulrich. ''The Comprehensive New Testament'' () by T. E. Clontz and J. Clontz presents a scholarly view of the New Testament text by conforming to the Nestle-Aland 27th edition and extensively annotating the translation to fully explain different textual sources and possible alternative translations. ''A Comparative Psalter'' () edited by John Kohlenberger presents a comparative diglot translation of the Psalms of the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint, using the Revised Standard Version and the New English Translation of the Septuagint. R. A.

Knox's Translation of the Vulgate ''The Holy Bible: A Translation From the Latin Vulgate in the Light of the Hebrew and Greek Originals'' is a Catholic version of the Bible in three volumes (later published in one volume editions) translated by Monsignor Ronald Knox, the English ...

into English is another example of a single source translation.

Alternative approaches

Most translations make the translators' best attempt at a single rendering of the original, relying on footnotes where there might be alternative translations or textual variants. An alternative is taken by the

Amplified Bible ''The Amplified Bible'' (AMP) is an English language translation of the Bible produced jointly by Zondervan and The Lockman Foundation. The first edition as a complete volume was published in 1965. “Amplifications” are words or phrases int ...

. In cases where a word or phrase admits of more than one meaning the Amplified Bible presents all the possible interpretations, allowing the reader to choose one. For example, the first two verses of the Amplified Bible read:

In the beginning God (Elohim) created y forming from nothingthe heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void ''or'' a waste and emptiness, and darkness was upon the face of the deep rimeval ocean that covered the unformed earth The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters.

Popularity in USA

The

Evangelical Christian Publishers Association The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) is an international non-profit trade association A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association, sector association or industry body, is an organizati ...

lists the most popular versions of the Bible sold by their members in the United States. Through November 2022, the top five best-selling translations were as follows: #

New Living Translation The New Living Translation (NLT) is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Bible. The origin of the NLT came from a project aiming to revise ''The Living Bible'' (TLB). This effort eventually led to the creation of the ...

# New King James Version Sales are affected by denomination and religious affiliation. For example, the most popular Jewish version would not compete with rankings of a larger audience. Sales data can be affected by the method of marketing. Some translations are directly marketed to particular denominations or local churches, and many Christian booksellers only offer

Protestant Bible A Protestant Bible is a Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestants. Such Bibles comprise 39 books of the Old Testament (according to the Hebrew Bible canon, known especially to non-Protestants as the protocanonica ...

s, so books in other

biblical canon A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Greek , meaning " rule" or "measuring stick". The use ...

s (such as

and

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

Bibles) may not appear as high on the CBA rank. A study published in 2014 by The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University and Purdue University found that Americans read versions of the Bible as follows:Philip Goff, Arthur E. Farnsley II, Peter J. Thuesen. March 6, 201
The Bible in American Life: A National Study by The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
#

(55%) #

(19%) #

New Revised Standard Version The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches.New American Bible (6%) #

(5%) # All other translations (8%)

References

External links

Certified Translation Service
*
Great and Manifold: A Celebration of the Bible in English
' digital collection, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto
A timeline and chart of various editions and translations of the Bible
in

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...

* A collection of links o
the Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy
mainly from a perspective opposing Gender-Neutral translations. *

, an article comparing literal and dynamically equivalent translations from a retailer of and with a bias for the

English Bible History
with links to historic bibles
modern World English Bible for iPhone and iPad
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bible translations into English Biblical criticism