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Green's Literal Translation or the Literal Translation of the Holy Bible (LITV) is a translation of the
Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
by Jay P. Green Sr., first published in 1985. The LITV takes a literal, formal equivalence approach to translation. The
Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or ๐•ธ; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...
is used as the
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''สฟรŽbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
basis for the
Old Testament The Old Testament (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 and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
, and the
Textus Receptus The (Latin for 'received text') is the succession of printed Greek New Testament texts starting with Erasmus' ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) and including the editions of Robert Estienne, Stephanus, Theodore Beza, Beza, the House of Elzevir ...
is used as the
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
basis for the
New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
. This translation is available in book form and is freely available online for use with the e-Sword software program. Some also refer to it as the "KJ3" or "KJV3" (KJ = King James). The translation was integrated into the 1986 edition of Green's Hebrew-English-Greek '' Interlinear Bible''.


Translation philosophy

Explaining his translation philosophy for the LITV, the Green stated, regarding the Old Testament:
The Hebrews were basically a pastoral people. Their language originally was pictorial, and as such it was descriptive by nature. For example, their place names were descriptive: 'The Graves of Lust; The Valley of the Giants,' etc. In this volume these true meanings are revealed, not mere
transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek โ†’ and โ†’ the digraph , Cyrillic โ†’ , Armenian โ†’ or L ...
of the Hebrew letters being made to suffice. The personification of everything (there were no neuters to the Hebrews, nor any merely secular objects), gleams through a
literal translation Literal translation, direct translation, or word-for-word translation is the translation of a text done by translating each word separately without analysing how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence. In translation theory, anoth ...
-- for all things and all men were perceived in relation to God Almighty. This literal translation tends to bring the reader into the frame of mind that existed in the times the Biblical words were written. That then promotes a full understanding.
Green's translation renders the
Tetragrammaton The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliteration, transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from ...
(ื™ื”ื•ื” YHWH) as
Jehovah Jehovah () is a Romanization, Latinization of the Hebrew language, Hebrew , one Tiberian vocalization, vocalization of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), the proper name of the God in Judaism, God of Israel in the Hebrew BibleOld Testament. The Tetr ...
in 6,866 places throughout the Old Testament. With respect to the transliteration of the Tetragrammaton, Green opined that the worst approach was to transliterate the name as ''LORD'', writing that "Every nation had their lords, but only Israel had ''Jehovah'' as their God. All other countries were ''the nations.''" Regarding his translation philosophy and the New Testament, the author stated:
As for the Greek, it is noted as a language that has a word for every occasion. This vivid variety of expression is evident in the Holy Scriptures. Yet the Greek commonly in use, rather than the
classical Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archa ...
, was written by
Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...
the unlearned fisherman, Luke the learned Physician, and by Paul the trained theologian. In conveying to the Bible student the commands and principles of God, it is important that the translator also convey in literal, simple English what God has written for His people. A translation of the Bible is no place to show off the vocabulary and erudition of the translator. In addition, every precaution was taken to preserve the particulars of the text; each verb is carefully scrutinized to maintain its tense, number, voice and mood; the case of each noun examined to retain its proper function in sentence; each participle carefully translated to preserve its aspect. Sense words (words added by the translator to make a sentence more intelligible) are kept to an absolute minimum without sacrificing readability, and when used are always bracketed so that you know which words are God's and which are the translator's. You won't find a more literal rendition of the very words of God in any other version (not even in the NASB)! There are mysterious things, things hard to understand (2 Peter 3:15,16) in the Scriptures, but it is not the literal meanings of the Hebrew or Greek words that cause this to be so. The "different gospel" preached by those "troubling you and desiring to pervert the gospel of Christ," cannot be justly derived from the literal words written by the Divine penmen, for these holy men were "borne along by the Holy Spirit," ( 1 Peter 1:21). This plan of this volume is not to lead (or mislead) the reader, but to bring him or her face to face with God by simply giving the literal meanings of the words which He had written for our spiritual direction. In doing this we adhere to His maxim, "Let God be true, and every man a liar" (Romans 3:4).The purpose and plan of the Literal Translation of the Bibl


Comparisons

Examples comparing the LITV to the
King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English Bible translations, Early Modern English translation of the Christianity, Christian Bible for the Church of England, wh ...
and other Bible versions based on the same Hebrew and Greek manuscripts:


References


External links


LITV on StudyBible.info
{{English Bible translation navbox 1985 books 1985 in Christianity Bible translations into English