Young's Literal Translation
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Young's Literal Translation (YLT) 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 ...
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 Testament''. Young used 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 ...
(TR) and the Masoretic Text (MT) as the basis for his translation. He wrote in the preface to the first edition, "It has been no part of the Translator's plan to attempt to form a New Hebrew or Greek Text—he has therefore somewhat rigidly adhered to the received ones." Young produced a "Revised Version" of his translation in 1887, but he stuck with the Received Text. He wrote in the preface to the Revised Edition, "The Greek Text followed is that generally recognized as the 'Received Text,' not because it is thought perfect, but because the department of Translation is quite distinct from that of
textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may rang ...
, and few are qualified for both. If the original text be altered by a translator, (except he give his reasons for and against each emendation,) the reader is left in uncertainty whether the translation given is to be considered as that of the old or of the new reading." A new Revised Edition was released ten years after Robert Young's death on October 14, 1888. The 1898 version was based on the TR, easily confirmed by the word "bathe" in Revelation 1:5 and the word "again" in Revelation 20:5. The "Publishers' Note to the Third Edition" explains, "The work has been subjected to a fresh revision, making no alteration on the principles on which the Translation proceeds, but endeavouring to make it as nearly perfect in point of accuracy on its present lines as possible." A major revision of Young's Literal Translation in contemporary English, called the Literal Standard Version, was released in 2020.


Translation philosophy

The ''Literal Translation'' is, as the name implies, a very literal translation of the original
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') 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 ...
and Greek texts. The Preface to the Second Edition states: Therefore, Young used the present tense in many places in which other translations use the past tense, particularly in narratives. For example, the YLT version of Genesis begins as follows: Young's Literal Translation in the 1898 edition also consistently renders the Hebrew
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 ...
(divine name) throughout the Old Testament 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 ...
", instead of the traditional practice of representing the tetragrammaton in English as "" in small capitals, but editions prior to 1898 do say "" in small capitals.


Assessment

Young's translation is closer to the Hebrew than the better-known versions of this passage in English. The Revised Standard Version (RSV), which is based on Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, for example, treats verses 1–3 in this way: Young's usage of English present tense rather than past tense has been supported by scholars ranging from the medieval Jewish rabbi
Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi (). Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...
(who advised, " fyou are going to interpret his passagein its plain sense, interpret it thus: At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth, when the earth was (or the earth being) unformed and void ..God said, 'Let there be light.) to Richard Elliott Friedman in his translation of the Pentateuch in '' The Bible with Sources Revealed'' (2002). The translation is not perfectly literal. It renders one passage as "And on the first of the Sabbaths" while it translates another as "And on the first of the week" even though the two phrases are identical in the Greek texts. To quote the preface, "Every effort has been made to secure a comparative degree of uniformity in rendering the original words and phrases. Thus, for example, the Hebrew verb (נתן "give, put, set, etc."), which is rendered by the King James' translators in different ways... has been restricted and reduced to , and so with many others. It is the Translator's ever-growing conviction, that even this smaller number may be reduced still further." David Dewey, in ''A User's Guide to Bible Translations'', mentions that Young's "method of translating Hebrew tenses makes his Old Testament in places virtually unreadable."


''Eternity'' or ''age''

Another important feature of YLT is its treatment of the
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') 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 ...
word () and the Greek word (). These two words have basically the same meaning, and YLT translates them and their derivatives as "age" or "age-enduring". Other English versions most often translate them to indicate eternality (eternal, everlasting, forever, etc.). However, there are notable exceptions to this in all major translations, such as: "I am with you always, to the end of the age" (NRSV), the word "age" being a translation of . Rendering to indicate eternality in this verse would result in the contradictory phrase "end of
eternity Eternity, in common parlance, is an Infinity, infinite amount of time that never ends or the quality, condition or fact of being everlasting or eternal. Classical philosophy, however, defines eternity as what is timeless or exists outside tim ...
", so the question arises whether it should ever be so. Proponents of universal reconciliation point out that this has significant implications for
soteriology Soteriology (; ' "salvation" from wikt:σωτήρ, σωτήρ ' "savior, preserver" and wikt:λόγος, λόγος ' "study" or "word") is the study of Doctrine, religious doctrines of salvation. Salvation theory occupies a place of special sign ...
and the problem of hell. However, "age" and "age-enduring" imply indeterminacy which may be either timeless and atemporal or pertaining to an indefinite period of time, the former (but not the latter) meaning having been acquired by the words "
eternity Eternity, in common parlance, is an Infinity, infinite amount of time that never ends or the quality, condition or fact of being everlasting or eternal. Classical philosophy, however, defines eternity as what is timeless or exists outside tim ...
" and " eternal". While it has been argued that "eternity" and "eternal" also have other meanings including "endless period of time" and "endless in time" respectively, this is rarely the case in late antique texts, where the word would be used to designate endless duration. Ilaria L. E. Ramelli & David Konstan: Terms for Eternity: Aiônios and Aïdios in Classical and Christian Texts (Gorgias Press 2007) Compare the following passages, quoted from YLT with words corresponding to "age" or "age-enduring" emphasised:


See also

* Geneva Bible * Green's Literal Translation * Julia E. Smith Parker Translation * Literal Standard Version * Tyndale Bible


References


External links


Young's Literal Translation
complete text online

complete text online * Downloadable PDF o
Young's Literal Translation (3rd ed.)
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