Bible versions
Hebrew
What Christians call the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, with a few passages in Daniel and Habakkuk in Aramaic (but written in Hebrew characters).
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Torah
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Prophets Former Prophets
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Writings Poetic Writings
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External websites:
Greek
Septuagint translation of the Old Testament
The Septuagint
is a translation of the Old Testament of the Bible into common (Koine) Greek, made by Jews living in the Ptolemaic Empire in the third and second centuries BC. The title Septuagint refers to translation by seventy people, often abbreviated LXX, 70 in Roman numerals. They translated 54 books, some of which (*) do not appear in the Hebrew Old Testament.
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The Septuagint uses a different numbering of the Psalms from the numbering used by Hebrew scholars adopted by Luther and later translators.
External websites:
New Testament
The New Testament was originally written in common (koine) Greek, a widely used language in the Roman Empire of the first century.
Latin
Vulgate
The Vulgate Bible is the Latin translation attributed to Jerome, who translated most of it from the Greek in 382-384.
The title “Vulgate” is currently applied to three distinct texts which can be found from various sources on the Internet. Which text is used can be ascertained from the spelling of Eve’s name in Genesis 3:20.
- Heva: the Clementine Vulgate.
- Hava: the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate.
- Eva: the New Vulgate.
Clementine Vulgate
This was the official Latin Bible of the Roman Catholic Church from 1592 to 1979, commissioned by the Council of Trent; it lent its Psalm texts and numbering of the psalms to many compositions. Following list format: Clementine-Book-Name (Other-Name) "Can"-if-in-Hebrew-Canon (Translator) (source)
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- Footnotes. a. Translated from Hebrew canon. b. Translated from Aramaic. c. Verbatim from Vetus Latina. d. Revised from Vetus Latina and original Greek. e. Revised from Vetus Latina. f. Translated from Greek Septuagint. g. Translation from Hebrew and/or other sources. h. Translated from Greek of Theodotion. *. Translators may be Pelagian groups, Rufinus the Syrian, or Rufinus of Aquileia.
Stuttgart Vulgate
The Stuttgart Vulgate is a critical edition of Jerome's Vulgate, published in 1969 and restoring many readings older than the Clementine Vulgate. This edition seeks to recover a text as close as possible to that of early manuscripts, especially in respect of the removal of many interpolated readings that found their way into the Clementine Vulgate. It contains two Psalters, the Roman and Gallician, regarded as Jerome's first and second drafts, respectively.
New Vulgate
The New Vulgate or Nova Vulgata is the current official Latin Bible of the Roman Catholic Church since 1979. Amended and modified; it is in some passages more a new version rather than a revision. The current Nova Vulgata restores the Masoretic numbering (of Psalms) familiar to non-Catholic readers of the bible.
External websites:
- Online Clementine Vulgate
- Online Stuttgart Vulgate
- Wikipedia article on Latin Psalters
- Online New Vulgate
German
English
Wycliffe's Bible (1380-1395)
This was a series of manuscript translations comprising the whole Bible made under the direction John Wycliffe in the late fourteenth century, translating the Latin Vulgate. Several translators have been suggested in addition to Wycliffe himself. These manuscripts were popular, but they were actively suppressed by the English king and the Catholic church. This led in the fifteenth century to severe religious censorship laws in England, under which translation had to be under the direction and approval of the church.
Tyndale Bible (1523-1537)
After William Tyndale suggested translation of the Bible, he met opposition from the church, whereupon he fled to Europe and went into hiding. He proceeded to translate the New Testament from the Greek, as recently published by Erasmus. Tyndale's first translation to be printed was Matthew's gospel, printed in Köln in 1525 (Arber 1871). Only one copy survives, and it is incomplete. The whole New Testament followed in 1526, printed in Worms. The book was banned in England and many copies burned; only three copies survive. A second edition appeared in 1535, even more popular though vigorously suppressed. Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch from Hebrew was published in 1530, Jonah in 1531, and a revised edition of Genesis in 1534.
Tyndale was betrayed in 1536, and after trial he was publicly executed. After his death, there were several complete Bibles published containing Tyndale's translations of the New Testament, Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. The first was the Matthew Bible, with additional books translated by Miles Coverdale, published in 1537. In 1539 this book was re-published as the Great Bible under the authority of Henry VIII – who had been responsible for the condemnation of Tyndale a few years earlier.
Tyndale's Bible translations had an enormous effect on English Bibles down to the present day; David Daniell estimates that over 80% of the words of the King James New Testament came from Tyndale's translation. He was one of the best translators of the Bible the English language has had, and his influence on the language itself is considerable – probably more than any other person.
Book of Common Prayer (1549-Present)
Geneva Bible (1557-1560)
Douay–Rheims Bible (1582-1610)
King James Version (1611)
The King James Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible conceived in 1604 and brought to fruition in 1611 by the Church of England. In January 1604, King James I of England convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans, a faction within the Church of England. Printed by the King's Printer, the first edition included schedules unique to the Church of England; for example, a lectionary for morning and evening prayer.
The translation was by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from the Textus Receptus (Received Text) series of the Greek texts. The Old Testament was translated from the Hebrew Masoretic text, while the Apocrypha were translated from the Greek Septuagint (LXX), except for 2 Esdras, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate.
Challoner revision of the Douay–Rheims Bible (1749-1752)
So-called, Challoner's versions of 1750 & 1752 (New Testament in 1749) largely revise the King James to accord with the Clementine vulgate. Challoner's New Testament was drastically revised by Bernard MacMahon in a series of Dublin editions from 1783 to 1810, and further extensive changes are found in 'Challoner Bibles' with imprimatures in 1899, 1914 & 1941.
American Standard Version (1901)
Revised Standard Version (1946-1952)
Jerusalem Bible (1966)
New International Version (1978)
New Living Translation (1996)
English Standard Version (2001)
External websites:
- Wikipedia article: Bible translations
- Wikipedia article: Bible translations into English
- Online King James Version
- Wikipedia article: List of English Bible translations
- Bible Hub – LXX, Hebrew and Greek Bibles, and many English translations
- Bible Gateway – Many English and Spanish translations
References
- Tyndale, William. 1525. Matthew (part). Facsimile reprint with Preface by Edward Arber, London 1871; reprinted by Lazarus Ministry Press, Columbus, Ohio, 1999.
- Tyndale, William. 1534. New Testament. Reprinted in modern type with spelling modernized, edited by David Daniell as Tyndale's New Testament by Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1989.
- Tyndale, William and Miles Coverdale, Translators; and John Rogers, Editor. 1537. The Bible, Which is All the Holy Scripture. [Antwerp: ]. Facsimile edition printed by Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, in 2009.