Translation for Translators

I haven't found much information yet on this new translation by Ellis W. Deibler, Jr. I caught a mention of it in the comments section of a blog post on Better Bible Blog. It appears that it should be or will be online at this Bible Translation web site. A newsletter from St. Giles Presbyterian Church says "Some of the key features of this "Translation for Translators" are shorter sentences, and simpler vocabulary. Abstract nouns are made into full clauses, and rhetorical questions are translated into statements. There is also a good bit of otherwise implicit information supplied in italics." A companion volume, A Translator's Translation, for the general public is also to be published. If anyone has more information or a website (with samples?) please let me know.

Weird google searches....

     All right, now some searches shouldn't work. After all, I'm just imagining what MIGHT exist and looking around for it. But Google will find it if it's out there. And this one is out there....
     The Gospel of Elvis is the New Testament retold starring Elvis as Jesus. (I searched for "New Testament for Elvis fans.") You can read it yourself on Google Books.
     It is a parody, not intended to be a real presentation of the Gospel (of course). So be warned that some will find it offensive. It is a harmonized account with "Vernon" instead of "Joseph" and "Gladys" replacing "Mary." Instead of ending up in Nazareth, they wind up in Nashvile. The whole thing is a transculturation, with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as Pharisees and Sid Vicious as the man possessed with demons. While this may have been an attempt at a humorous parody, it turns quickly into an attack on Christian values. Some verses even have Elvis arguing with Jesus' teachings.

Easy English Bible in Print

The Wycliffe Associates have self-published the books of Luke and Acts on Lulu.com. The book is titled The Good News / The First Christians. The print version is $8.89 and a PDF download is free. If you are not familiar with the Easy English Bible project, visit them at www.easyenglish.info.
A sample:
Great things have happened in our country. Many people have tried to write about them. Some people were present when these things started to happen. They saw everything that happened. They told us what they had seen. And they told us what they had heard. They are the people who told the Good News (Luke 1:1-2).

Bible Rap

I ran across this recently, though it was published some time ago. It was written by Stephen Amato and published in 2003. It doesn't look much like Rap to me, but I'm not an expert on that particular form (I am comparing it to the The Script by Fred Lynch). It appears to be more of a rhyming paraphrase. You can preview Amato's work on Google Books.
Sample:
Who puts a lamp under a bed?
Doesn't he put it on a stand instead?
For there's nothing hid that will not be revealed
All will be known which was once concealed
            Matthew 5:14-15

Psalms with Yahweh's Holy Name Restored

On the way to my daughter's wedding I passed a sign for Yahweh's Assembly in Yahshuah. I had my wife write down the web address since so many "sacred name" type congregations produce revisions of the scriptures. Sure enough, this group has also been working on the scriptures. It is the Psalms with Yahweh's Holy Name Restored copyrighted in 2007. It uses "Yahweh" for God's name. The revision itself is at this link. A sample: "Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want" (Psalm 23:1).

Comprehensive New Testament Update

Bill Chamberlin was kind enough to send me information he'd recently received about the Comprehensive New Testament. It is translated by Timothy E. Clontz, who also translated the Common Edition New Testament in 1999. This is an "exact representation of the Nestle-Aland 27th edition in a readable English format." It also measures the accuracy of 20 other versions against the Nestle Aland 27th edition of the Greek. This is the second in a a series of three New Testaments. The first was the Common Edition and the third will be the Comprehensive Orthodox New Testament (possibly ready as early as 2009.


That answered one of the questions on my research page (thank you, Bill!). The updated page of questions for you Bible Gurus is here. Please take a look and see - if you could help answer some questions I'd be most grateful.

Keter Crown Bible preview

There is a preview of the Keter Crown Bible available on Google. The English translation is by Ravi Shahar.

The Tabloid Bible

Another "oldy" that I just ran across today. This one is by Nick Page, published in 1998. He presents major stories of the Bible as though they were tabloid newspaper articles. There is a preview of it on Amazon.com. Here's a sample:

Oi! Mind that Flaming Sword!

Angels Guard the Garden Gates
Following the dramatic fall of Adam and Eve, angels have been put on duty at the entrance to the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:24).

American Standard Version Edition Errors?

Has anyone run across information showing errors in editions of the American Standard Version? I had an undated, unreferenced note in my old notebook that I'm now trying to follow up on. It mentions that "many copies of the ASV have errors, such as adding "who" in Galatians 5:4. All the ASV versions I have here both paper and electronic have that "who," in Galatians 5:4b, "...ye who would be justified by the law..." Some online versions do not have it, Bible Sites Online, asvbible.com and others.


Please e-mail me if you are familiar with these differences!

American Bible Union

One section I really wanted to update in my Encyclopedia of English Bible Versions was the one on the American Bible Union Versions. Thanks to the administrator of the Internet Bible Catalog I now have better information. Visit his website for an incredible online catalogue of Bible versions.

What I didn't know is that he has also scanned some of the old Bibles in his collection and offers facsimile prints on lulu.com. He has done the book of Philemon from 1860 and Job from 1857. Both are very reasonably priced.

Buddhist Essene Gospel of Jesus

Yep, that caught my eye too. "What?"

Take a look here at volume I. There is an excerpt from the work here. Information on volume II is here. It is a translation from the Armaic and includes extensive commentary. An appendix includes "The diet of the Essene Jesus." This is to be a three volume series, published by Paradisian publications and is written by Dr. Johnny Lovewisdom.

Itty Bitty Bible

Microfiche Bibles have been around for a while, but here is nicer presentation of one. They call it the "Itty Bitty Bible." It is available via the web site Amazing Faith. It is available in King James Version and in a Catholic Latin version. You can view an animation zooming in on the little Bible here. Oh, break out your microscope or microfiche reader - that's the only way you can read this....

Online Versions (Panin, ASV)

I ran across these tonight and thought you might be interested. The first time I've seen Ivan Panin's New Testament according to numerics online is at Unleavened Bread Ministries. They've got it in text format PDF.


FreeASV.org has the ASV in audio format for download. It is run by Unleavened Bread Ministries too.

Psalm Translations

I know of several people who are studying and/or translating the Psalms. In working on my collection of links to Bible versions, I am also arranging them by categories. I thought it might be helpful to list all the Psalm translations I've found so far for you.

     I will also add a recommendation for my friend's book. It is the Catalogue of English Bible Translations: A Classified Bibliography of Versions and Editions Including Books, Parts, and Old and New Testament Apocrypha and Apocryphal Books by William J. Chamberlin. It is the most thorough Bibliography of English Bible versions available. The Psalms listings cover over 70 pages! The Psalm Selections (portions of the Book of Psalms) cover another almost 40 pages!

Psalm Versions Online

     American version of the Psalms of David by Abijah Davis. Published in 1813. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Anagrammed Psalms by Richard Brodie. Download this at this link.

     Book of Psalms by Thomas Kelly Cheyne. Published in 1884. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Book of Psalms, A New English Translation by Horace Howard Furness. Published in 1898. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Book of Psalms: A New Translation by John James Stewart Perowne. Published in 1870. Volume 1(Archive.org) Volume 2(Archive.org). Facsimile.

     Book of Psalms: The Annagrammatic Version by Richard Brodie. EEBV Catalog number CN00478. Download this at this link. Facsimile.

     Church psalmist; or Psalms and hymns designed for the public. Published in 1849. Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Lyrics from the Psalter by Edward Augustus Collier. Published in 1907. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     New Version of the Psalms in Blank Verse by Thomas Dennis. Published in 1808. Download this at Google Books. Facsimile.

     New Version of the Psalms of David by Nicholas Brady. Published in 1751. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     New translation of the Psalms: with a plea for revisal of our versions by Richard Cunningham Didham. Published in 1869. Possibly just volume 1 of 2. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     New version of the Psalms, in blank verse by Thomas John Dennis. Published in 1808. Download this at Google Books. Facsimile.

     Odes and Psalms of Solomon by James Rendell Harris. Published in 1916. Volume 1(Archive.org) Volume 2(Archive.org). Facsimile.

     Parallel Psalter, being the Prayerbook version of the Psalms and a new version.. by Samuel Rolles Driver. Published in 1904. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalms by James Merrick. Published in 1765. Download this at this link. Facsimile.

     Psalms by Thomas Kelly Cheyne. Published in 1884. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalms Chronologically Treated With A New Translation by Moses Buttenweiser. Published in 1938. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalms and Hymns..Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in North America. Published in 1848. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalms and hymns, .. Reformed Dutch Church in North America. Published in 1838. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalms in Metre by Charles Bagot Cayley. Published in 1860. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalms in Modern Speech by John Edgar McFayden. EEBV Catalog number CN00578. Published in 1916. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalms in a new version : fitted to the tunes used in churches by M Montagu. Published in 1851. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament by Isaac Watts. EEBV Catalog number CN00327. Published in 1821. Download this at Google Books. Facsimile.

     Psalms, Paraphrase According to the New Testament Interpretation by John Barclay. Published in 1776. Download this at Google Books. Facsimile.

     Psalms, Whole Book Of by T. Stenhold, I. Hopkins, W. Whittingham. Published in 1583. color. Download this at Schonberg Center for Elecronic Text and Image. Facsimile.

     Psalms, books of Wisdom, and Canticle of Canticles by Francis Patrick Kenrick. Published in 1857. Translated from the Latin Vulgate. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalms, in metre, selected from the Psalms of David. Published in 1833. Protestant Episcopal Press. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Psalter; or, Psalms of David, in English verse by John Keble. Published in 1840. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Sacred poetry: consisting of psalms and hymns. Published in 1812. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     Translation of the Psalms and Canticles with commentary by James McSwiney. Published in 1901. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     West Saxon Psalms. EEBV Catalog number CN00509. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

     book of Psalms, translated into English verse by George Burgess. Published in 1840. Download this at Archive.org. Facsimile.

Bits and Pieces

Today I've just got some bits and pieces I ran across last night.

• For those of you that frequent or have visited chat rooms, you might be interested in The IRC Bible. IRC stands for "Internet Relay Chat." This one went offline, but is archived at archive.org here.
  
• This page has the Lord's prayer in Ebonics.
  
• Here is the ten commandments in Cajun.
  
• This is the New Testament according to Dr. Seuss.
  

Texas Standard Version

There are many websites that convert text into "Texan," "Hillbilly," and other funny accents. Here is one being done "by hand" - the "Texas Standard Version (TSV)." This is a revision of the King James Version. The use of the plural you - "y'all" is of course there. Also, "the Kingdom of Heaven" is replaced with "Heaven's Empire." Pronouns that refer to God are capitalized, ones referring to Jesus are not capitalized until after the resurrection. The book of Matthew and 1 John are finished. Take a look here.

Trends in Bible Translations

     It is no secret (for those who've seen my web site or this Blog) that I love to collect and read Bible versions. One thing I have enjoyed doing over the past 10 years is observing trends in Bible translations. As a Christian, some concern me deeply, since they affect the actual words of the Scriptures.

     I narrow my focus to English versions of the Bible. One general trend I'd like to focus on today is simply how many new versions are coming out each year. I began tracking the list in a spreadsheet somewhere around 1995. That soon proved to be too cumbersome and I moved to a database (Visual Foxpro). Once the data was stored I was soon able to develop graphs, categorize lists and suddenly the Bible Version Encyclopedia was born.

     To make graphs reasonable in size, I grouped dates by decades. Thus the decade from 1520 to 1529 shows just 1 new translation - William Tyndale's New Testament. The next several decades were not busy ones either (in terms of numbers). I also separate Old Testament, New Testaments and Full Bibles. The decade of 1860 to 1869 saw 1 Old Testament, 11 New Testament and 5 full Bibles.

     The numbers change if we include revisions of versions separately. For instance, the New Living Translation (1996) has a second edition from 2004 and was updated again in 2007. I call these revisions "sub-versions" meaning they are still the NLT, but are different texts.

So the 1900s and our current decade look like this:

1900 to 1909, 0 OT, 11 NT, 5 Bibles

          0 OT, 15 NT, 6 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

1910 to 1919, 2 OT, 5 NT, 4 Bibles

          2 OT, 7 NT, 6 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

1920 to 1929, 2 OT, 9 NT, 4 Bibles

          2 OT, 12 NT, 4 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

1930 to 1939, 0 OT, 10 NT, 3 Bibles

          0 OT, 13 NT, 6 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

1940 to 1949, 0 OT, 5 NT, 2 Bibles

          0 OT, 5 NT, 7 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

1950 to 1959, 1 OT, 11 NT, 4 Bibles

          1 OT, 12 NT, 4 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

1960 to 1969, 0 OT, 12 NT, 9 Bibles

          0 OT, 12 NT, 11 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

1970 to 1979, 2 OT, 9 NT, 13 Bibles

          2 OT, 11 NT, 18 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

1980 to 1989, 2 OT, 10 NT, 12 Bibles

          2 OT, 20 NT, 20 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

1990 to 1999, 3 OT, 29 NT, 22 Bibles

          3 OT, 35 NT, 33 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

2000 to 2009, 7 OT, 41 NT, 49 Bibles

          9 OT, 48 NT, 67 Bibles (counting sub-versions)

     Clearly, our modern age is seeing a great increase in the number of Bible versions being produced. Part of this is explained by use of computers: First, it is very easy to use a word processor's search/replace feature to make one of the "Updated..." versions, a "sacred name" version or one of several slang Bibles. Second, web "publishing" means nearly anyone can get a new version of the Bible into the public eye.

     To see several of the new Bibles that have been produced, visit the Bible Reader's Museum and click on "Links", then "Date Sorted" to see even more versions. My statistics only count full testaments and Bibles while the links list shows partial translations as well.

     Whether the increased number of versions is a blessing or a curse is a topic of great debate. But I look forward to doing more work in providing information that can be grist for the debate mill!

     To see the graphs of Testaments and Bibles produced by decades, please take a look at this PDF chart. The chart looks better printed out than it does on the screen unless you zoom in. Please do not use this chart or the data without permission.

Online Bible Links

I've made a change to the Bible Reader's Museum links listing. In an effort to gather together all the links of online Bibles I have consolidated the facsimiles, texts, and samples. The complete list is given in 3 separate ways: 1) Sorted by Titles, 2) Sorted by Authors, 3) Sorted by Dates. I will keep working to improve the list. Click on my website above and then click "Links."

Besorah of Yahusha

This version is being done by the Natsarim Translation Project. It is a sacred name translation rendering God's name in the "original ancient Hebrew form as He wrote it."

New Millennium Bible

The full title of this work is New Millennium Bible, A Visionary and Holistic Translation of the Ancient Hebrew Scriptures for the 21st Century. It is translated by Rabbi Gershon Winkler and illustrated by Carol Shireena Sakai. There is more information about it on Sakai's web site.

Scripture Sample: "And the Contrary was the most uninhibited of all the creatures of the field that Infinite One, Source of All Powers, had made. And it spoke to Fire Being and said: “Did the Source of All Powers instruct you to not eat from any of the trees in the garden?” And the Fire Being replied to the Contrary: “No, for we are permitted to eat from the fruit of trees in the garden. Only from the fruit of the tree that stands in the middle of the garden did the Source of all Powers instruct us not to eat and not to touch, or else we might die." And the Contrary said to the Fire Being: “You will not die. Rather the Source of All Powers knows well that on the day that you eat from this tree your perception will become opened and so broadened that you will become like the Source of All Powers in that you will possess the secret knowledge of Good and Bad” (Genesis 3:1-5)"

Manna Bible

This Bible is primarily an audio Bible project, but also includes a written text. Produced by the "Jesus the Rock Project," it is a revision of the World English Bible. Visit their heavy multimedia site for a sample.

Scripture sample: "Jesus, knowing all the things that were happening to him, went, and said to them, "Who are you looking for?" They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus said to them, "I am he." Judas also, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When he said to them, "I am he," they went backward, and fell to the ground (John 18:4-6)."

Scriptures in Blank Verse

Day Williams has rendered the story of King David, the New Testament Letters and the Gospels into blank verse. Visit his page at Lulu.com to preview his work.

Sample:

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem

     Within Judea, when King Herod reigned,

     A party of astrologers came from



The east, arriving in Jerusalem.

     They asked, "where is the child who has been born

     The Jewish king? For we have seen his star

Jesus: The New Testament

This is a revision of the New Testament from The American Standard Version by Paul A. Rosenberg. More information is available at the publisher, Vera Verba. Presented in paragraph format without chapter and verse numbers. This is available as a bit torrent on the web site Legal Torrents. If you know how to download bit torrents, visit here to get it.

Scripture sample: Every scripture inspired of God is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness. That the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17)