Joseph Bryant Rotherham's Emphasized Bible (abbreviated EBR to avoid confusion with the

REB Common meanings * Johnny Reb, personification of a Confederate soldier in the American Civil War * Reb (Yiddish), an honorific title for a teacher People * Reb Anderson (born 1943), American Zen Buddhist teacher and writer * Reb Beach (born 1963), ...

) is a translation of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

which uses various methods, such as "emphatic idiom" and special diacritical marks, to bring out nuances of the underlying Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts. Rotherham was a Bible scholar and minister of the

Churches of Christ The Churches of Christ is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations based on the ''sola scriptura'' doctrine. Their practices are based on Bible texts and draw on the early Christian church as described in the New Testament. T ...

, who described his goal as "placing the reader of the present time in as good a position as that occupied by the reader of the first century for understanding the Apostolic Writings". The ''New Testament Critically Emphasised'' was first published in 1872. However, great changes occurred in

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in ...

during the second half of the 19th century, culminating in Brooke Foss Westcott's and Fenton John Anthony Hort's Greek text of the New Testament. This led Rotherham to revise his New Testament twice, in 1878 and 1897, to stay abreast of scholarly developments. The entire Bible with 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 ...

appeared in 1902. Rotherham based his Old Testament translation on Dr. C.D. Ginsburg's comprehensive ''Masoretico-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible'', which anticipated readings now widely accepted. Rotherham's translation has stayed in print over the years because of the wealth of information it presents. John R Kohlenberger III says in his preface to the 1994 printing, "''The Emphasized Bible'' is one of the most innovative and thoroughly researched translations ever done by a single individual. Its presentation of emphases and grammatical features of the original languages still reward careful study."

References

*Rotherham, Joseph Bryant. ''Rotherham's Emphasized Bible'' (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1994). *Rotherham, Joseph George
Reminiscences extending over a period of more than seventy years
(London: H. R. Allenson, Ltd., 1922).

External links

The Emphasized Bible searchable textThe Emphasized Bible 1902 edition
GoogleBooks copy.
The Emphasized Bible Online (at jw.org)
{{English Bible translation navbox Bible translations into English Churches of Christ Restoration Movement 1902 non-fiction books 1902 in Christianity