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Containing

THE OLD TESTAMENT

IN BASIC ENGLISH THE APOCRYPHA

IN COMMON ENGLISH

THE NEW TESTAMENT IN BASIC ENGLISH

Newly translated out of the Original Hebrew and Greek Languages and with the former translations diligently compared, revised and published by Samuel Henry Hooke in 1949

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In the Lord Henfield Edition, each and every sacred text begins with an introduction. The Appendices contain an Exploration on History, historical texts, 230 detailed maps and large illustrations. Additional materials are in The Grand Bible.

Full Title: THE HOLY BIBLE In Basic English

Translation by Samuel Henry Hooke (better known as S.H. Hooke), 1949

with Apocrypha (Deuterocanon)

Restoration, scientific research, design illustrations and the introductions by Lord Henfield, 2024

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MANAGING EDITOR Lord Henfield

CONSULTANT EDITOR Aurelia Koning

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MADE IN ENGLAND

ETRE OV

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE BIBLE CANON INTRODUCTIONS, DETAILS APPENDICES

pyr CLs TOMB OT SAO eres

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Book Title, Original or alternative Name Page Table of Contents .............cccecscessecessecsseeesseeees 9 FOreWOrd secivctsetiis setdssd. bdeelaceeec Suse Qecestontosss 19 Introduction 1: Origin, Languages and Versions ... 23 Introduction 2: Jewish and Christian Laws; Creed 59 NAMES AND ORDER OF ALL BOOKS OLD TESTAMENT — The Hebrew Bible 143 Pentateuch (The Torah, Teaching of the Law) ..... 145 Genesis, Bereshit, In the Beginning; Creation ....... 151 Exodus, Shemot, Names of the Sons; Migration .... 188 Leviticus, Vayikra, And He Called; Basic Law ...... 219 Numbers, Bemidbar, In the Desert; Arrival .......... 243 Deuteronomy, Devarim, Moses' Words; Law ........ 275 Historical Books 304 Joshua, Yehoshua (Greek: Iesous / Jesus) .............. 304 Judges, Shofetim ...........cccecccsessceesseseeseeseeeees 325 RUths Rites eetctvevadde oad Ginuts dies deedenesotee 344 1 Samuel, Shemuel, 1 Reigns .............:c:ccccceeseeees 348 2 Samuel, Shemuel, 2 Reigns .............:cccccecceeeeeees 373 1 Kings, Melakhim, 3 Reigns .............ccccceeceeees 393 2 Kings, Melakhim, 4 Reigns ..............ccccesceeees 418 1 Chronicles, Divrei Hayamim, Paralipomenon .... 440 2 Chronicles, Divrei Hayamim, Paralipomenon .... 463 | YA el i SY A: eee ee 489 Nehemiah, 2 Ezra ...........cccccccescsccesssssceesscseeeees 499 Esther; Bstet od sscdsce coeds ccecundsessegcsuedecccousaededeet 511 Books of Wisdom (or Poetry) 518 JOD; TVODS1VOV. fives. se eh daestheci eesti Genss 518 Psalms (& 151-155), Tehillim, (sacred songs) ....... 540 Proverbs, Mishlei Shlomo ...............ccccccccseceeeeees 594 Ecclesiastes, Qohelet, Kohelet (Preacher), *.......... 613 Song of Solomon, Shir Hashirim, *.................06. 619 Major Prophets 623 Isaiah, Yeshayahu ............::cecceceeseeseeceeseeseeeeeneees 623 Jeremiah, Yirmeyahu ...........:ccsccscceseeseeeteeeeeeees 662 Lamentations, Eikhah Yirmeyahu, *................... 705 Ezekiel, Yekhezkel, Hesekiel ..................ccccccceeee 709 Daniel, Dantyel ..............cccccccccseseceeeeeeseeeeeeeeeees 748 The Twelve Minor Prophets, The Trei Asar 762 18 (0-7: EARP 762 Af eye] ap 0),3) epee ee re 768 ATMOS iirc teeceats, Bieta eesti castiel abies ae teeliatts 770 Obadiah, Obadya .........c ccc cececeseesseeeeeseeeeeeeeeees 775 JOMAN SY ON sc cecocteteceeesenterceetsae tect acteret tose 777 Micah, Mika ...........cccccesccccssssccessssccessscesseeseess 780 Nahin. 6c0h 9. sorisgst abil Sire eR tse 784 Habakkuk, Habaqqug ...........:..:scceseeceeseeseeeeeeees 786 Zephaniah, Sefanya ...........:cccsccesseeseeeesseeseeseees 789 Ha gear. Ha @ ay... ectrecceetereecetcaereet caepeantvaeen els 791 Zechariah, Zekarya ..........c.ccccsccsssceceeseeseeeseeeeees 793 Malachi, Malaka ...........00 cc ccceeesceessccesssseeeeeee 800

[* Part of the Hamesh Megillot, 5 Lectionary Scrolls]

APOCRYPHA (Hidden Books) being the Hebrew Deuterocanon (The 2nd Jewish Canon)

3 Ezra (1 Esdras) from Greek .............:ceceeeeeeeees 4 Ezra (2 Esdras): ch. 1-2 from Latin; ch. 3-14

from Hebrew; ch. 15—16 from Latin ................... Book of Tobit, Tobias, Tobi .................ceeeeeeee Book of Judith .......0 cc ceccscecssecsseesseseeeseeeteeesees Additions to Esther (The Rest of Esther) .............. Wisdom of Solomon or Book of Wisdom .............. Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach ........ Prayer of Solomon (Sirach 52) ............ccccsseeseees 1 Baruch (Extant original: Greek) ........0..0.... Epistle of Jeremiah (Addition to 1 Baruch) .......... The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children... sccetceacntuetsioerecersaee. cut ter ebeeeaes te Susanna and the Elders (Addition to Daniel) ....... Bel and the Dragon (Second addition to Daniel) ... Prayer of Manasseh ............::ccsccsscsssessseesseeseeseees 1 Maccabees (Hebrew), Sefer Makabi ................... 2 Maccabees (Greek), Vivlio ton Makkavaion .......

NEW TESTAMENT — The Christian Bible

The Four Gospels

Gospel According to Matthew, Matityahu ........... Gospel According to Mark, Marcus ................004 Gospel According to Luke, Lucius ..............::006 Gospel According to John, Yohanan...................

History Acts of the Apostles ..........:ceceeceseeeeeeseeeeereeeeees

Pauline Epistles — The Epistles of Paul

Epistle of Paul to the Romans .............::eeceeceeeees 1 Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians .................0.. 2 Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians .................0... Epistle of Paul to the Galatians .........0. eee Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians .................:eee Epistle of Paul to the Philippians ..................06 Epistle of Paul to the Colossians ...............:0e 1 Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians .................. 2 Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians .................. 1 Epistle of Paul to Timothy, Timotheus .............. 2 Epistle of Paul to Timothy, Timotheus .............. Epistle of Paul to Titus ..0...... cee eeeeseeseeseeeeeeeees Epistle of Paul to Philemon .............:.::seeceeeees Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews ..............:.:ececeeeee

General Epistles

Epistle of James, Yakob ............:ccceeceeceeseeseeeeeees 1 Epistle of Peter, Shimon Petros ............::eecee 2 Epistle of Peter, Shimon Petros ..............::eee 1 Epistle of John, Yohanan «0.0.00... ceeeeeeereeeees 2 Epistle of John, Yohanan .............cccceeeseeneees 3 Epistle of John, Yohanan .............ccceceeseeseeees Epistle of Jude, Yehuda (Judas Thomas) ...............

Apocalypses Revelation (The Apocalypse of John) ..................

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— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

DETAILS OF THE TWO INTRODUCTIONS

INTRODUCTION | (details) The Canon Of The Bible

Chapters And Verses Of The Bible

¢ History of the Chapter Division ................0 * History of the Verse Division ............::.::csceeee * Bible Statistics 2.0.0... ceeeseeseeseeseeceeseeteeeeeees

Bible English

* Bible English? e.cchaes ctcaetancatatentes ¢ On Early Modern English Grammar ................. « A List of Abbreviations of the Books of the Bible

Genres In The Bible ¢ Genres in the Bible and Examples .....................

Of Originals, Translations And Versions

The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament .................... ¢ The Masoretic Text ............cc::ccccescccssssssssseseees ¢ The New Testament .............::cccccccsssecessecesseeees

History Of Translations

¢ Translation into Greek - The Septuagint (LXX)

¢ The Peshita - Translation into Syriac-Aramaic ... * Coptic (Egyptian) Scripture ............ccceeeeeeeees ¢ The Constantine Bible ...........cceeceesseeseeteeeteees ¢ The Gothic Bible or Wulfila Bible ..................... ¢ The Vetus Latina 0.0... ecesesceeeeceeteeeeeeeeeees ¢ The Bible Canon in Ethiopia and Eritrea ........... ¢ Translation into Armenian ............ccccccceeseeseeees ¢ Translation into Georgian ...........:ccscesceeseeteees

Middle Ages

¢ Translation into Arabic «00.00... eceeeeeeeeeeeeeeees ¢ High Middle Ages ............e:cesceseceeseeseceeeeeeeeeees © Late Middle Ages .........c.cccccssessessseesseeseeseeesees ¢ The Gutenberg Bibles ...............eceseeseeseeeeeeeeees

Approaches To Translation

¢ Single source translations .............c:cccecceseeeees © Deliberate changes ............cccccccccssesssesseeeeeeeeeees * Textual criticism: scholarly problems ................ ¢ Names of Persons ...........:cceseseesceeseeceeseeeeeneeees

¢ Semitic patronym (bar, ben, etc.) ..........cceeeeee « Name Corruptions and Misleadings .................. ¢ Modern Translation Efforts .............:eseseeseeeee ¢ Differences in Bible translations ...............cc006

¢ Dynamic or formal translation policy ...............

¢ Other translation approaches ..............c:cccceeees * Doctrinal differences and translation policy .......

Translations triggered by the Reformation

*S1AVIC- VerS1ONS : cscseavssseccezesscestvshtaseedesteseecstueete ¢ Hungarian Versions ...........:ceceeesseeseeceeseeseeeeees * Non-European Versions ............s:ccscssceseeeseeeees

Translations Into Romance Languages

© Ttalian Versions ...........ccccscccsscesseseeesseeseeeeeneees © Spanish Versions .........:.ccscccscesseesseeseeeteeseeeseees + Portuguese VersiOns .............:escecceceeseeteeeeeeeees * French Versions .......:..:ccscsesssesescseesestentsensenees

Translations Into Germanic Languages ¢ Translation into German ............:.ccccecseeseeeeees

Translations Into English

¢ Humble Beginnings ..............eceeceeseeseeseeeeeeeees ¢ Modest Renderings into Anglo-Saxon ............... ¢ Translation into Old English 0.00.0... eee ¢ Translation into Anglo-Norman (French) ......... ¢ Translation into Middle English .................006 ¢ The translation by Wycliffe .............ccceeeeeseeees ¢ Translation into Early Modern English ............. ¢ Translation into Modern English ..................05

English translations after the Reformation

¢ The translation of William Tyndale ................... ¢ The translation of Miles Coverdale ................... ¢ The Thomas Matthew version ..............::cccecceees ¢ The Great Bible (Henry VIII) ........... cece The Geneva Bible ...........cccccccssesseesteeceeeeeeees ¢ The Bishops! Bible .............ececesceeseeeeteeseeeeeees © Catholic Versions ...........cccccsesseeseesseeseeteeeeees

The King James and Subsequent Versions

¢ The King James (Authorised) Version ............... ¢ The English Revised Version ..............:::seceeceee ¢ The American Standard Version ...........::.::eee « The Revised Standard Version .............::.seseeee ¢ Jewish Translation into English ..............:cc00 * Jewish Versions ..........:..:cescecceseesseereeseeeeeeeeeeees ¢ The New English Bible «0.0.0.0... :cceceseeseeeeeees * Individual translations (List) ..........cceeeeeeees

INTRODUCTION 2 (details)

JEWISH LAW

© The Holiness Code ..............::cccssesssecesseeeseeseees « The Large and the Small Covenant Codes ........... « The Ritual Decalogue, The Ethical Decalogue .... ¢ Commandments of the Parashah ....................... « The Priestly Code / Torat Kohanim .................. ¢ The 613 Mitzvoh or The 613 Jewish Precepts ..... ¢ Rabbinical Mitzvot & The Six Constant Mitzvot

* Noahidism or The Laws Of Noah .................... ¢ The Halakha / Jewish Law ..............::cccccceceseees ¢ The Sanhedrin Court of Law, and explanations to Jewish haw: i ss3.svsetsects. stay deve iaei dove oeielee

CHRISTIAN LAW The Didache or Teaching (of the twelve Apostles) * The Didascalia Apostolorum ............c:ccccseeeees

* Creed, Nicene, Roman, Apostolic, other Creeds ..

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— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

APPENDICES

NAMES AND ORDER OF THE APPENDICES Appendix A: Photo Documentation ................... Appendix B: Map Documentation ..................06 Appendix C: Exploration on History .................4 Biblical Studies ...........eceeeeeeeeee Historical Events (Science, Debate) ... Appendix D: Supplements .............:..::ecceseeeeeeeee

Appendix A: PHOTO DOCUMENTATION

1. Ancient Documents:

A.) Early Christian codices were found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, 1945 oo... cceseesseeseeseenees B.) The Dead Sea Scrolls were found at Qumran, Usrael 1947 eM eves atesenctesdsidce ceethsveceeesthteccbueke C.) Hebrew and Aramaic documents were found at Dunhuang, China, 1907 .........cceccesceesceeseeseeeees D.) Collection of Christian codices from Nag Hammadi opened .............:ceceeseeseeseeseeseeeeneeeeens

2. Locations of Discovery:

A.) Letters of Bar Kokhba were found in this cave near the Dead Sea, Israel ............0..cccecscceeesseeeeees B.) The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in these caves at Qumran, Israel ..........ccceeseesscesseeseeeseeeseeeseees C.) Tonnes of texts were found in the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, China ............cccccccceessessesseeeeeeees D.) Sir Aurel Stein found more documents in such A WAtChtO Wer... ésasc0s. ssscundisesivedsstecsetiseetadenhiecess

Instructions of Shuruppak (c. 2600 B.C.), the origin of the Ten Commandments .................006+

Maxims of Ptah-Hotep (c. 2600 B.C.), another origin of the Laws of MOSe ..........c:ccccsccesceesenees

Gilgamesh Epic", c. 2000 B.C., Sulymaniyah Museum, Iraq; origin of Noah's Flood Story ........ Hyksos-Canaanites in a wall painting, tomb of Khnumhotep II (died in c.1950 BC) «0.0... eee 1. The Canal of the Pharaos, built inc. 1850 BC, SEEN FFOM SPACE ..........esccesseesseeseeseeeseeeseceseeseeesees

2. The Blue Nile in northern Ethiopia connected Hebrew Elephantine with Hebrew Ethiopia ..........

The 282 laws of the Code Hammurabi (c. 1790- 1750 B.C.); origin of Jewish and Islamic Law .......

Amarna Letter written by Pharao Akhenaten in c. 1350 BC. Akhenaten established monotheism first

1. This is the oldest known alphabet. Cuneiform tablet from Ugarit, Syria, dated: 1360 BC...........

2. The Tel Dan Stele, earliest reference to the name David-c:830 BC vices ccc. testsecstsedscagvattccesatsvvencdes

1. The Siloam Inscription (KAI 189), found in the Siloam tunnel; 8th century BC ..........e cece

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2. The Temple Warning inscription ( c. 23 BC - 70 AD). One of two tablets, found in 1871..........

Edict of Restoration on the Cylinder of Kurush II the Messiah (Cyrus the Great), 6th century BC ......

The Behistun Inscription, Persia, confirms the monotheistic character of Zoroastrianism ............

Petition to rebuild the Jewish Temple in Egypt; Elephantine papyrus, Document 1, 407 BC...........

The Story of Ahikar. Elephantine papyrus P13446F, 525-404 BC oo. eseteeteeeeeeeteees

Draft letter in Aramaic,353 BC. Hebrews came to Bactria, northwest India in the 6th century BC......

The Great Isaiah Scroll (1 Qalsa), 3rd century BC, is the oldest known Old Testament text ................

The Temple Scroll (11Q20) from Qumran was written by one of the Messianic Movements ..........

The Messianic Rule (1Q28a) talks about a messiah who will bring military victory to the Hebrews .....

1. The War Scroll talks about apocalyptic warfare 2. A letter of Simon bar Kokhba found in 1960 .....

The Dead Sea Scrolls were kept in such massive jars, so they survived for 2,000 years ..............664

The Gospel of Thomas, found in Egypt, 1945, quotes from the Buddhist Lotus Sutra .................

End of Ephesians and the start of Galatians, by Saul of Tarsos, Paul the Apostle, c. 55-65 AD).....

The Gospel of Matthew, here a copy from the 200s AD. Possible author: Yosef bar Matityahu ...........

The Gospel of Peter. The Church deemed it as heretical for telling "the wrong" narrative ...........

Luke 13:29-35 and 14:10. Chester Beatty Lib 1 f 15r. Possible author: Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus ..

"Jesus with his mother Mary and the (three) Wise Men from the East ... celebrating a Eucharist" ......

1. Mithraeum of the Baths of Mithras in Ostia. 2. Mithraeum in Carrawburgh, England ..............

‘Codex Sinaiticus,' from Egypt, dating from 325 AD was commissioned by Flavius Constantinus 1 ...

‘Codex Vaticanus.' One of 50 complete Bibles that were commissioned by Flavius Constantinus I .......

Manichaean psalm, 3rd century AD. The Mani Faith became the first world religion ...................

In about 405 AD, the Vulgate, the standard Latin Bible. Codex Sangallensis, 8th century AD ........... Codex Sassoon 507, 8th century AD. In the 500s, Masoretic scholars improved the Old Testament ....

Selihah leaf written in Hebrew Aramaic. 8th or 9th century, Mogao Caves, Dunhuang, Gansu, China ..

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— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

Uncial 0177. Luke 1:59-73, Coptic translation from-¢. 950:AD vices. easieteindin sedate tts

The Christian 'Sayings of the Elders,’ Sogdian in Syriac script, Turfan, China; 9th century AD ........

Page of Ruth from the 'Peshita' the Syriac standard Bible of the Nestorian Church of the East .............

Page from Leviticus, Samaritan Bible, Pentateuch, (Ms 201) from Ascalon, Israel; 1189 AD ..............

Illuminated page with Lollard text from the 14th century AD. British Museum, London .................

Page of The Jewish War by Titus Flavius Josephus, his works were part of the first Bibles, 75 AD .......

Illuminated page of'a Bible made by Johannes Gutenberg, 1455. His printing changed the World

9 portraits of Greek men whose philosophy and deeds founded Western Civilisation .................065

9 portraits of the Flavian Dynasty who first promoted Roman Judaism and Roman Christianity

9 portraits of Roman rulers and their family members who were already Christians ..................

9 portraits of people were engulfed in religious conflicts after huge losses of the Black Death ........

1. The so-called Kalabsha Temple of Elephantine in Egypt might have been a Jewish temple ............

2. Reconstruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusa- lem as described in the Greek Septuagint Bible ......

1. The Kaba-ye Zartosht (the Cube of Zoroaster) located at the Imperial Necropolis near Persepolis 2. The Kaaba of Mecca without its black cover, a cube-shaped emulation of the Temple of Jerusalem

1. The Great Temple of Yeha, Ethiopia emulates the Temple of Jerusalem; 2. Stone inscriptions ....

1. Interior of the Temple of Yeha, direction: east 2. Interior of the Temple of Yeha, direction: west

1. The Temple of Yeha had 2 floors like Solomon's temple, reconstruction; 2. Hidden room ...............

1. The Barran Temple at Marib by the Queen of Sheba, copy of Solomon's Temple; 2. Aerial photo

The temple built by the Queen of Sheba (Saba): 1. Plan; 2. Reconstruction; 3. Appearance..........

Maps of the Sabaean Kingdom and its sites. 1. 900 BC; 2. 700 BC; 3. 200 AD; 4. Sites in Yemen .....

Appendix B: MAP & TABLE DOCUMENTATION Eleven History Maps - The Holy Land

1. Abraham's Journey, Part 1: From Ur to Harran. "abraham" means "many people." c. 1990s BC..... 2. Abraham's Journey, Part 2: From Harran to Egypt, c. 1960s BC... seeeeseseeseeeeeeeeeseeseeeeeees 3. The Travels of Jacob. His other name, "Israel," means "he rules with God." c. 2nd millenium BC ...

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4. The Territories of the legendary 12 Tribes; their existence 1s still debated. c. 2nd millenium BC ....... 5. The Exodus of the Isrealites is a story confirmed by Egyptian documents, c. 15th century BC........... 6. Joshua the Conqueror, his name Yeshua (Jesus) means "saviour;" c. 14th centuries BC ................. 7. The Kingdoms of Saul, David, and Solomon;

c. [1th and 10th centuries BC 0.0.0... ceeeeteeeee 8. The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the rule of King Hezekiah, c. 8th century BC ...........e eee 9. Kingdom of Judah in the Days of Josiah, c. 7th century BE Mic dita eee ili: 10. Division of the Kingdom of the foreign (Arab) king Herod the Great, Ist century BC.................. 11. The Road to Jerusalem, Jesus' ministry bears similarities to the conquests of Titus; c. 36 AD.....

The Beta Israel (the House of Israel in Ethiopia), Hebrew Territories in (ancient) Ethiopia .............

1. Paul's First Missionary Journey; c. 50 AD......... 2. Paul's Second Missionary Journey; c. 55 AD...... 3. Paul's Third Missionary; c. 55-60 AD.............. 4. Paul's Journey to Rome; c. 61-62 AD...............

1. Metal Production in Ancient Middle East (from Egypt to India) , from c. 3000 BC to 500 AD ....... 2. The Middle East between the 16th - 14th

centuries BC; Akenaten introduced monotheism ...

1. The Persian Empire, Achaemenid Dynasty, c. 500, BOs. ceste.ie tied sternite palin cs Nee tatalies

DLS: BU sissageies otecctstassee cues otatiebedea gl neatsrialebese’s

AD is isscSd ccabicediivusstadiesssovesestoasseds codstioxenstenbteaieeas

Indian Ocean Trade Routes, c. 400 BC - 1225 AD (showing material trade) .............ceceeseseeeeeeeees

Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, first half of the Ist century AD (with detailed explanations) ..............

Coins - Description (2 pages and 5 charts)

1. Cyprus, Phoenicia, Commagene, Hasmonians ... 2. Herods, Shekels, Ist Jewish War, the Flavians ..

3. Christian symbolism on Coins of Flavian victors 4. 3rd Jewish War of bar Kokhba, Ethiopia, Persia 5. Second Flavian Dynasty of Constantinus I.........

1. Family Tree of Jesus; 2. Family Tree of the Flavian Dynasty .................

Map of Semitic Languages ............ccccssescceseeseees Map of Languages, Scripts, Belief Systems, Laws

Important Writing Systems, Abjads & Alphabets

1. Ugaritic, Phoenician (early, middle), Punic ...... 2) Greek, Ttalitesiesfisientnctadenienies 3. Aramaic, Palmyrene Syriac, Hebrew, Indic....... 4. Nabataean Aramaic, Syriac Aramaic, Sabaean .. Comparative Charts, Bible Canons, Introduction 1. Books of the Old Testament, The Tanakh ......... 2. & 3. Apocrypha, Deuterocanonical Books ........ 4. Books of the New Testament .................:cc0000

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— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

Appendix C: EXPLORATION ON HISTORY (Historical discoveries presented in small chapters)

The Quest for the Origin of Holy Books ............... Deviterocanon ssee0hs spasc cee ieesicen gation tives The 613 Mitzvot (Precepts) ..........c::cccccesseeereeees The two Parts of the Ten Commandments ............

The Koranic Commandment of Abrogation .......... The chronological sequence of the Koran ............. The Five Precepts In Buddhism ................::0:e00 The Five Jain VOWS ........::cscceceeseeseeseeeeeeeteeseeeees The Five Yamas And The Five Niyamas (10

Commandments) In Hinduism ...............:::eeeee The Instructions Of huruppak ............. cece Final Remarks ..0.........:e:cecceeseeseeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeenes

BIBLICAL STUDIES, Some Known Facts

The Original Languages of the Bible ................... Biblical criticism ............ccceseeseeseeseeeeeeseeeeeeeees Biblical exegesis .........ccccccscesscssscessecseeeseeeseeeees Textual Criticism ...........:ceceeceeseeseeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeees Biblical histOry ..........cccccesseessceseeesecseeeseeeseeeees Biblical Archaeology .............:cessceeseeceeseeeeeeeeees History of Biblical Archaeology .............c:cccce Archaeological and Textual Forgeries ................. Biblical Archaeology and Doctrines ..................

KEY EVENTS IN HISTORY

Catastrophes And Paradigm Shifts .................006 A.) The Great Flood (2500 - 2100 BC) ................ B.) The Bronze Age Volcano Eruptions (2000 - [400 BG \esoesiec pe ee i ea ele ee The Avellino eruption of Mount Vesuvius (10:01995 BO \isassce, Sateen nciiede dienes The Thera Volcano Eruption (in 1627 BC.).......... C.) The 4 Volcano Eruptions And Climate Change

D.) The 5 Volcano Eruptions And Climate Change (The Little Ice Age) of 1228-1284 AD... Direct and Indirect Consequences ..............::0000 Gutenberg, Luther, the 30-Years War ................. E.) The 3 Volcano Eruptions And Climate Change

Of 1783 (1708-1812) AD wo... eee cceececeeeeeeseees

The Second Thirty Years' War (1914-1945) ......... Overview On The War Between

Semitic And Western Civilisations ..............:c000 The Line Of Wars From Alexander

To Mohammed In Detail, The 10 Jewish Wars.......

HISTORICAL EVENTS

Analyses, Archaeology, Debate

Abrahams Journey ............:cccccccseeseessessseeeeeeeees How Jacob changed into Israel ..............:.cceseees Jacob (Israel) and his 12 Tribes .............c:ceceseeees MOS6s.ssesitee ive devon teed aiditainnetn

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1362 1362 1363 1363 1363 1365

First Kingdoms ............ccccccccsceesceeseesessceseeecees David cose, teas Sotlovs ccdocatuse ae lvacsctustes cisiseteadele

INTERLUDE, Comparative Archaeology Description of the Temple in the Bible ................. Architectutesscsc3:2.dvec.coisvige ccarvatdecdseapacescsnsoah exes Relationship with the Queen of Sheba .................. Theodore Bent Discovers a Solomonic Temple ...... Modern Archaeology Analyses Finds .................-+ The Temple of Yeha, Province Tigray, Ethiopia .... The "Solomonic" Temples In Yemen .................64 The Temple | at as-Sawda, Yemen ...............:006 The Temple | in Baraqish (Nakrah / Yathill), YOMOMi cesses cusidoveetsacshveatevredecestec orveseeeseucstasveaves The "Throne of the Queen of Sheba" in Marib ....... Description of Walls, Entries and other Installations: wcscvei ive ieei nea The Divine Purification Spring ..............c0cccee The Temple Building itself «2.0... ee eeeeeeeereeee Wall Inscriptions ..........cccceccesceseeseeesserseeseesaeens Analysed Range of Dating ..............ccccccesseereeees Sabaean - Linguistic-Geographical Assessment .....

King Hezekiah 20.0.0... cccceeceseeseeeceeceeseeeeeeeeeeees Kine JOS .: wcvseveetveectersusterecetes wectertetstectenes Captivity of the Hebrews in Babylon ................... Emperor Kurush the Messiah ...............:::ceceesee Ezra, Nehemia and the Papyri of Elephantine .......

THE ELEPHANTINE PAPYRUS FIND

The Emergence of Judaism and the Elephantine Papyi iz, efyevesletec Aavedee tie ete ete tater aie The Discovery of the Papyri ...........::ccscccsceeseeeees The City of Elephantine and its Remains .............. External Shape of the Papyri. The Language ........ The Jewish Military Colony in Elephantine .......... The Introduction of Jewish Law ............:::eecee The Destruction of the Jewish Temple at Elephatitine®, sccscyecvtocecuteetcaecevts cestecereteteesee ves The Petition to rebuild the Temple ...................0.

Alexander the Great and the Greeks .................... Yehuda Makabi's Fight for Freedom ................... Into the Roman Empire ..............:eseceeceeseeeeeeeees Jesus, James, Paul, and Christianity ...............0.

16 POINTS ON JESUS AND HIS TIMES

A.) The Pilate-Inscription of Caesarea Maritima ... B.) Ameria Inscription ............:cecceceeseeseeseeeeeeeees C.) Inscribed Fingerring of Pilate .........0..... ee Census Edict Of Gaius Vibius Maximus ................

The Real Jesus, reconstruction of the events after Jesus’ death, Channel 4, 1999, Transcript .............

Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy To Invent Jesus, Joseph Atwill, 2012 oc eeeeeeeeee

The James Ossuary Interview, Simcha Yacobovici in an interview with Prof. Robert Eisenman 2004

1365 1365 1365 1366

1367 1367 1367 1368 1369 1370 1371 1372 1372

1373 1376

1377 1377 1377 1378 1378 1378

1379 1379 1380 1380 1380

1381

1381 1382 1382 1384 1386 1387

1389 1391

1394 1394 1394 1394

1395 1397 1397 1397 1399

1400

1407

1418

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

Appendix D: SUPPLEMENTS

Supplements from the Septuagint

* The Letter of Aristeas to his brother Philocrates . #13; Maccabees :v.cssissiei testis asivsedechegun aleeeeees © A Maccabees .............cccscccsssscsssccseccsssccsseeeessees

Supplement from the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible * Book of Jubilees / Lesser Genesis ..............0..0006

Supplements from the the Constantine Bible The Letter of Barnabas ..............cccccsceesseeseenees

Supplements From the Apostolic Fathers 9A Clemen tiene ccck ss iiretiecca bess din sage beled, oD Clement cescs ss cevstisddtcvnlevshecncttieeacesietths

Supplements According to the Muratorian Canon « The (Greek) Apocalypse of Peter ..............:::00 « The (Coptic) Apocalypse of Peter ...............

Supplements from the Gnostic Library

¢ The Gospel of Didymus Judas Thomas ............... ¢ The Gospel of Mary Magdalene ...................664 ¢ The Gospel of Philip (the brother of Mary Magdalene)... .c..ccce ane laniek ¢ The Gospel of Judas (Iscariot) .............:cccseceeee ¢ The Apocryphon (Secret Book) of James (the Just, the brother of Jesus) .........ccccsecseeseeseeeteees ¢ The Apocryphon (Secret Book) of John ............. + The Sentence of Sextus ...........:esseeseeseeeeeeeeeees ¢ The Gospel of Truth ..0..0... ce eeceeeseeseeseeeeeeeeees

Texts on Christianity as State Religion

« Life of Flavius Josephus, Titus Flavius Josephus ¢ Muratorian Canon; The New Testament Canon

« The Edict of Toleration / Edict of Serdica .......... ¢ The Edict of Milan by Constantine and Licinius

¢ The Imperial Decrees of Flavius Constantinus; Eusebius of Caesarea: Ecclesiastical History .......... ¢ The Life of Flavius Constantinus (Constantine I)

Texts on Reformation and Religious Conflicts

¢ Martin Luther: The 95 Theses, 31 Oct. 1517...... ¢ Letter to the Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, 31

0 [6 ial Woy Wl Rene serene taror een ere ¢ A Sermon on Indulgences and Grace by M. Luther, the 95 Theses in 20 snappy points trig- gering the Protestant Revolution, March, 1518 .... * Letter to John Staupitz , 1518 wo... eee * Letter to Pope Leo X, 1518 oo... eceeereeees ¢ Another Letter of Martin Luther to Pope Leo X, 6th September, 1520 oo... ees eeseseeseeseeeteeteeees ¢ Martin Luther on Islam and the Koran, Fore- words to two Koran translations, 1530 and 1543 .. ¢ An Open Letter on Translating, 8th of Sep. 1530 « The (39) Articles of Religion / The39 Articles .....

1429 1449 1457

1470

1520 1530

1565 1578

1583 1591

1593 1600

1602 1611

1617 1620 1628 1630

1636 1659 1661 1664

1665 1667

1719 1719

1722 1723 1725 1727 1728 1732

1737 1744

Mesopotamian Precepts And Laws

¢ The Instructions of Shuruppak; Sumer; c. 2600- 2990 BiOx st iets Rach ae eas ¢ The Law Code of Ur-Nammu; Sumer; c. 2100- 2000 Bi Cs ccsite te sieiei a aieee eligi ¢ The Laws of Eshnunna (in Mesopotamia); Canaanite-Amorite state; c. 2000-1900 B.C. ........ ¢ The Law Code of Lipit-Ishtar; Akkadian; c. 1870-1860 B.C. .oeceececccccccsccsccsseessccseesseesseenes ¢ The Law Code of King Hammurabi; Amorite- Babylonian; ¢. 1760 B.C. wo... cee eeeseesceeseeteeeees * The Code of the Nesilim (in Anatolia); Hittite; c. 1650=1500:B. Gene cured tetas

Egyptian Precepts And Laws

« The Teaching of Kagemna c. 2613-2589 BC....... « The Teachings (or Commandments) of Ptah- Hotep c. 2500-2345 BC. ......ccecceessceseesseeseeseeeees ¢ The Commandments Of Maat c. 2500-2345 BC.

« The Teaching of Tuauf, to the son of Khattai c. D349-218 1 BC ie iesckce keto Rei tarsacn hese ¢ The Teaching of King Khati for his son Merikara C. 2025-1700 BC. oo. eeescescteeeeeeeeeeeeseseeeeeeeees « The Philosophy of Antef (Intef), the son of Sent c. 2120-2070 BC. oo. eeeeeeeeeessseeseesceecteeetseesceeeeeens « The Teaching of the Scribe Ani, for his son Khensu-Hotep c. 2120-2070 BC. ..........seeeeeeees « The Instructions of Apa Pachomius, The Archimandrite, Coptic Apocrypha, Brit. Mus. MS. Oriental, No. 7024 oe. ceecccceecscceeseeeeeeeees

Supplements from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran ¢ The War Scroll / The War Rule (IQM, 1Q33, etc. * The Book of War - (4Q285, 11Q14) oo... ¢ The Temple Scroll (1 1QT=11Q19-21, etc. ......... ¢ Commentary on Habakkuk (IQpHab) ................

Biblical Geography and its Significance Glossary Bibliography

1752

1753

1757

1759

1762

1763

1774

1776 1776

1777 1782

1784

1786

1790

1792

1796

1806 1808 1817 1818 1830

1835 1844 1848

THE HOLY BIBLE IN BASIC ENGLISH tr. by S.H. Hooke, 1941-1949

This is the Bible in Basic English translated by orientalist S. H. (Samuel Henry) Hooke out of the original languages Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT). The New Testament was released in 1941 and the Old Testament in 1949. From 1913 to 1926 S. H. Hooke was Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Toronto, where he was a founder of and contributor to Canadian Forum. In 1930 he was appointed Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of London. In 1951, Hooke was president of the Society for Old Testament Study.

Basic English is a controlled language based on standard English, but with an extremely limited vocabulary of 850 words (plus extra lists of technical terms) selected and greatly simplified grammar with which almost everything can be paraphrased. It was created by the linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden to give learners the chance to learn English in only a few weeks. In "Lord Henfield’s Book of Practical English" (2010) and in its short extraction "Lord Hentield’s Guide to English Verbs" (2018) are detailed explanations how Basic English works. (Available at Internet Archive)

NOTICE ON COLOUR CODE

The beautiful trim strips over the book titles are not only decoration:

Black: Explanatory text

Red: Old Testament, Hebrew Bible (1st canon)

Green: Deuterocanon, Apocrypha (2nd canon)

Blue: New Testament, Christian Bible or canon

No Strip: The Book belongs to the previous book

NOTICE ON TIMING AND DATING

With language, we define what we stand for. As a matter of principle, in our books we only use the terms BC (before Christ) or AD (Anno Domini, the year of the Lord). These are not only religious terms but also reveal a person's cultural conscienceness and allegiance.

Terms like B.C.E. or BCE = Before Common Era; C.E. or CE = Common Era are politically correct nonsense (since "common" also means "ordinary" and thus ideologically refers to an "era of insignificance") and are used by all those who do not wish to refer to God or Christ or the achievements of the Western world in general.

GUILDFORD SCIENTIFIC PRESS

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

PRELIMINARY

FOREWORD INTRODUCTION 1 INTRODUCTION 2

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

FOREWORD

"We live in an age of religious extremism, an age of terror and violent slaughter. We are locked in a bewildering ideological battle with religious fundamentalism. It 1s a battle that has taken most of us by surprise because religious fundamentalism seems so odd, so alien, to our own easy- going way of life. But you know, it 1s not! We have been here before, here at home, here at the very heart of our own civilisation.

About 500 years ago, a breach within Christianity, tore Europe, England, and the Church apart. It was the same literalism, the same passionate intensity, the same apocalyptic violence as now. It is our very own Jihad. It 1s called: 'the Reformation.'

The Protestant Reformation was also a political and cultural revolution. It unleashed bloodshed, terror, and the destruction of religious art —a combination we recognise all too well. It began with a provincial German monk and it threatened the most powerful institution in the Western World, the Catholic Church, with destruction.

In England it led to a hard Brexit, 16th century style, as King Henry VIII broke with Rome and declared himself "Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England." It was a tale of espionage, enhanced interrogation, and horrific death. There was a handful of brave and inspired souls fought to introduce the new ideas and the authorities fought back savagely to stamp out the infection. So, how did one man's simple act of protest in the backwards of Germany spark a violent revolution that would transform England, Europe, and the Western World?

In the early 1500s the Catholic Church shaped every aspect of human life. And in Rome, its head, the Pope, ruled a spiritual empire bigger than that of the Caesars. It 1s hard to overestimate the power of the Catholic Church in the late Middle Ages. It was a vastly wealthy, bureaucratic machine, the very heart of Europe. It controlled education, media, family law. It had its own private language in Latin. The clergy, whatever their nationality, swore obedience to the Pope, whose toe even kings knelt on the ground to kiss. But hus greatest power was over men's minds.

Churches were dominated by a huge painting of the last Judgement. When Jesus' judge sentenced each soul to the joys of heaven, or the eternal torments of hell, it was a terrifying vision. The Church mitigated its stark horror by the "Doctrine of Purgatory." This was an intermediate state between heaven and hell where the not too sinful soul was purged of its offenses and made fit to enter paradise. You could reduce the amount of time you spent in purgatory by doing good works, saying prayers, going on pilgrimages, giving to the poor. Or you could draw on the good works of

others: Jesus, the Saints, the Virgin Mary, whose transcendent goodness had endowed the church with the treasury of merit.

The pope dispensed, in return for consideration of course, this treasury in the form of spiritual IOUs, known as "Indulgences." (An IOU [abbreviated from the phrase "T owe you] is a document acknowledging debt.) These were printed bits of paper that, in return for cold hard cash, absorbed the soul of its offenses and acted as its passport to paradise. Indulgences were often sold to finance Church schemes and in 1517 the popes pet project was the rebuilding of Saint Peter's on a magnificent scale. Indulgences were sold across Europe. There was even a catchy advertising jingle: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs!" It was, as though the church had forgotten Christ and become fixated on wealth. And for one German monk this was an abomination.

On the 31st of October, 1517, Martin Luther very publicly denounced this scandal. According to legend, he strode through the town to the great doors of All Saints Church, and hammered up a document for all to see. It was his 95 Theses, a mere 95 points of contention with the Church's teachings on sin and penance. Were these the brave hammer blows of fate against the old order, as the traditional story goes, or was it the equivalent of pinning an agenda on a university notice board as revisionists suggest? Actually, it doesn't much matter since nobody disputes the magnitude of the results. Luther's protest would plunge Europe into two centuries of religious war, unleashing bloodshed and brutality across the continent - all in the name of God!

Martin Luther was an unltkely revolutionary. In 1517, he was a 33 year old monk and professor of Biblical theology at the University of Wittenberg in Saxony. Saxony was just a small one of the German-speaking states that comprised present-day Germany. Each had its own ruler but all fell under the overlordship of an elected monarch, the Holy Roman Emperor who was crowned by the Pope, and all was subject to Papal authority and taxation.

In the introduction to his Theses, Luther wrote of his wish to stir up debate. A new invention allowed him to succeed beyond lus wildest dreams. Just over 70 years earlier, Johannes Gutenberg had developed his printing press. This piece of technology would transform Luther from a Iittle- known monk and academic into Europe's most published author, and a wanted man!

Luther originally wrote the 95 Theses in Latin, the language of academic and theological discourse. But even within the Latin of the Theses, Luther showed himself aware of that wider audience outside the universities. And nine of the Theses list the sharp arguments that the laity were using against indulgences. And how Luther asks "are we going to answer those arguments if the Church does not reform itself?" - Well, of course, the Church showed no sign of reforming itself So, what Luther did was to write a tract. He called it 'A Sermon on Indulgences and Grace' - and he wrote itin German, AND he had it printed!"

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

What you have read up to this point here, are the spoken words of Dr David Starkey, one of the very few historians living today who understand the magnitude of religious propaganda in detail. Starkey is fully aware that language is the main key if we want to fully grasp what religion is all about and how it works. He is one of the most outspoken historians of our time who is able to assemble historical facts in a logical way and presents them as eloquent narrative with a cohesion that everyone can follow with ease.

In 2017, he published a BBC documentary called "Reformation: Europe's Holy War," in which he compares Luther's Reformation with our modern upheavals of Woke and Jihad. With elan, he describes what went on in the 16th century revolution. Experts still marvel at the extraordinary impact of Luther's 'Sermon on Indulgences and Grace.’ This was the work which propelled Luther to the front ranks of European thought and theology. Until that point he had been writing in Latin for the scholars. But when he published these 20 short propositions in German, he brought his thoughts not only to the mind of scholars but to each and every ordinary person. The form in German very closely echoes the 95 theses written in Latin, a language that the man in the street could not understand. The short German version of the 95 theses are a work of instinctive brilliance. Luther calls it "a Sermon" but it is nothing like a sermon. Sermons are meant to be endurance tests of repetition and re- iteration. But this little paper can be read aloud in 10 minutes. It is 20 short snappy points but unlike the 95 Theses, which circulated only in the intellectual community, this spread immediately like wildfire across Central Europe. Who was this Luther?

Short standard answer: Martin Luther was a German theologian, religious reformer and monk who was the catalyst of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Through his words and actions, Luther precipitated a movement that reformulated certain basic tenets of Christian belief and resulted in the division of Western Christendom between Roman Catholicism and the new Protestant traditions, mainly Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Anglican Communion, the Anabaptists, and the Antitrinitarians. He is one of the most influential figures in the history of Christianity; and rightfully so.

Now, let us take a look at some details: Martin Luther was born on 10 November, 1483, in Eisleben, Saxony, Germany. His father, Hans Luther, who prospered in the local copper- refining business of the town of Mansfeld, could finance Mar- tin's long education. Luther began his education at a Latin school in Mansfeld in the spring of 1488 where he studied, among other subjects, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and he was awarded the master's degree in 1505. In accordance with the wishes of his father, he commenced the study of law. Proudly he purchased a copy of the Corpus Juris Canonici (“Corpus of Canon Law”), the collection of ecclesiastical law texts, and other important legal textbooks. Less than six weeks later, however, on July 17, 1505, Luther abandoned the study of law and entered the monastery in Erfurt of the Order of the

Hermits of St. Augustine. His studies gave him a thorough exposure to Scholasticism by studying the works of Aristotle (384-322 BC, the teacher of Alexander the Great and his generals), and William of Ockham (1285-1349). Ockham, like Aristotle, focussed on the subject of logic, because he regarded the science of terms as fundamental and indispensable for practicing all the sciences of things, including God, the world, and ecclesiastical or civil institutions; in all his disputes, logic was destined to serve as his chief weapon against adversaries. Luther received his doctorate in the fall of 1512 and assumed the professorship in biblical studies, which was supplied by the Augustinian order. At the same time, his administrative responsibilities in the Wittenberg monastery and the Augustinian order grew, and he began to publish theological writings, such as the 97 theses against Scholastic theology. Dr Martin Luther was by no means just a simple monk as always depicted, 24 years of hard schooling made him one of the highest educated ideologists, strategists and orators of his time.

We have many capable historians and other authorities. However, as long they only use their sophisticated speech and gentlemanly manners, they just earn benevolent nodings in academia but they will move nothing else because they do not reach the masses. It was not the 95 theses that woke up the public, it was the 20 points of Luther's sermons that erupted into a revolution of thinking for the simple reason that it was written in the language of the common people.

Luther did protest against immoral practices of the Church not because he was born a revolutionary, he was not. He felt he needed to do something against the filth. Today, people think that Church, or religion, has nothing to do with poli- tics. But they are wrong! The word "politics" comes from the Greek word polites, meaning citizen, and also from polis, meaning city and community. So when Church is is not about community and its members, what then is it all about?

Religion is in least cases just about God. It is about precepts, morals and their subsequent laws, it is about power struggle and often violent ways on the road to salvation, and it is about doctrines and ideologies connected to a divinity, and therefore it is also about administrative positions of the clergy and taxation with which the members of that clergy can stay in power and can control the masses. There has never been religion for personal use only. Religion as a private belief is a new thing - and this only in the Western World! Our limitless individualism has not yet reached the other belief systems. These are facts that we always must keep in mind when we think and talk about other religions.

Today we live on the brink of an immense paradigm shift and this modern time is very parallel to the era in which Christianity emerged but also very similar to the times of Luther. The so-called ‘western societies’ seem to crumble under their own weight. This includes all those we call Protestant Christians, but more and more, it includes also Jewish people, Roman Catholic (western Roman) Christians, Orthodox (eastern Roman) Christians, and in particular the so-called secularists, atheists, agnostics, progressives, etc.,

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

etc. It is like in the 1930s and 1940s: Enemies are marching through our streets screaming the filthy slogans "Allahu Akbar" and "from the river to the sea" (from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean, meaning ‘annihilate all Jews!' as prescribed in the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith) in place of "Sieg Heil" and "Heil Hitler." Thousands of Christians, Jews, Buddhists and others, are systematically murdered in Islamic countries and other totalitarian entities; the Churches however, the clergy in our vicinity, stay silent and do nothing—just like in the 1930s and 1940s. There has been no religious community that actively organised repeated marches towards embassies or consulates of the perpetrator countries, none of the churches promoted boycotts of the killer states. Yazidis and Syriac Christians have been raped, robbed and murdered in Iraq and Syria. Nobody seem to feel shame! The Churches contemplate navel- gazing instead. The Russian Christians are ruled by Kyril, an ex-KGB man, and our people do not know a thing. The clerics are busy with all sorts of scandals and wonder why their members vanish into thin air while the pretty churches stay empty on Sundays or other times. Hardly ever do we see the clergy caring in person for the fallen of our society. Our kids are poisoned by lethal drugs, our families fall apart, many are even not able or willing to build families, our population is in terminal decline, socialist politicians disarm the law-abiding citizens, render them defenceless, while robbers and thugs raid their homes and kill the residents so that they cannot describe them. The police is busy with political correctness and "hate crime" on the internet while victims of real crime and violence are forgotten and the perpetrators are showered with humane sympathies—while their name, language, religion and place of cultural origin is being kept silent about. Politicians, as so-called "law givers," create one new law after another, strangulating the entire legal system to death, insted of just obeying the ones already in existence. Courts of law are so overwrought that they become courts of ridicule and our state and its communities are in total decay. Our schools have

degenerated into filthy debate clubs of socialism and activism.

Well-educated scholars know all this and yes they talk about it, but only to their academic fellows, hardly ever do they talk to the ordinary people in ordinary language; and hardly ever take these gentlemen anyone to the streets and organise actions. It is so nice to sit in the warm parlour while our nations desintegrate all around our ears. So, every good idea that may solve one or the other of our problems could not be heard. They could move something, turn things to the better. Words like "action, responsibility, courage" seem to be a thought of the past. Where are our Martin Luthers? While our elites are obviously clueless, Luther knew exactly how to advance. Let us read what Dr Starkey found out:

"In Wittenberg, Luther's attack on Indulgences was evolving into fundamental doctrines. The key one, raising the power of personal faith above the remedies offered by the hierarchy of the Church, mankind was saved not by prayer or fasting or Indulgences but only by faith, by faith in Christ, as

told in the New Testament. Anything else was a corruption, an obstacle. And that included Rome." Just like Sayyid Qutb or his brother Muhammad Qutb, the teacher of Bin Laden, the so-called Islamists of our time, Luther wanted to go back to the roots of his religion. And he only could achieve that by using the language of the people.

Starkey: "On the 15th of June 1520, after four all-day meetings, the Pope and his council issued the formal decree known as a bull. ..... Luther was given 60 days to recount or be excommunicated, which meant expulsion from the Church and ‘condemnation to the eternal fires of hell.' His works were ordered to be burned. Far from backing down, Luther seemed energised, liberated even, and in a matter of a few mere weeks produced three crucial works that between them amounted to a manifesto for a political and religious revolution. The most important of them was addressed to the Christian nobility of the German nation, writing in German, Luther called on the German princes unilaterally to reform the German Church and rescue it from the clutches of Rome that was bleeding Germany dry."

"On the 10th of December 1520, he publicly burned the papal bull. There could be no going back. In January 1521, Martin Luther was formally excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Two months later he was charged with heresy and summoned to a hearing in front of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and representatives of the Church. The Impertal Diet, as it was known, was to be held in the German city of Worms."

"... Luther's survival had to date been ensured by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. Frederick now secured a promuse of safe passage and Luther set out. If the Catholic Church was hoping to destroy Luther at Worms, it had badly miscalculated the popular mood. Everywhere he went he was hailed as a hero. A hundred horsemen rode through the city gates to escort him inside and as he descended his carriage a monk reached out to touch the hem of his robe by taking on the power of the Church. Luther had become a local legend, a figurehead for a populist anti- establishment movement that was spreading across the German-speaking states. As resentment about taxes and foreign interference grew, the Pope's ambassador in Worms was horrified as he reported back to Rome. "The whole of Germany 1s in full revolt," he wrote, "nine tenths raised the war cry 'Luther!' whilst the watch word of the other tenth who are indifferent to Luther is ‘Death to the Roman Curia'." Summoned before the Diet, Luther was ordered to renounce his heretical writings. He refused. ‘Here I stand,' he Is supposed to have declared, 'I can do no other!' Whilst the emperor Charles V and the Diet were debating Luther's fate, Luther's safe conduct was honoured and he was allowed to leave Worms."

Agents of Luther's protector, the Elector Frederick the Wise, charged with bringing him to a place of safety, brought Luther to Wartburg Castle in Saxony where he went undercover. He grew his hair and beard and became Junker Joerg or Squire George. Up to now, the Bible was not only a

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

‘sacred text' but also a ‘secret text' which was not available to laymen who could not speak and read Latin. And a main doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church was, to keep it like that. Priests of the Church were in charge to interprete the contents of the Bible to the ordinary people, and by doing so, they kept control over the contents that had been delivered to the audience in church. Luther was aware that his reformation would not succeed if the people could not read the Bible for themselves. He was an accomplished linguist fluent in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, as well as many German dialects of the north and the south. Right from the start, Luther was determined to employ all his expertise and abilities to push the Reformation forwards, and above all, he was about to use the most frightening invention of his days: the unstoppable printing press of Johannes Gutenberg.

Dr Starkey: "Confined to his room, Luther embarked on the next stage of his religious revolution. The medieval church used Saint Jerome's 4th century Latin translation of the Greek New Testament. Known as the Vulgate, it was treated as the sole, authoritative text, and crucial Catholic doctrines depended on its particular choice of words. All Luther's religion was rooted in the Bible. He believed in Sola Scriptura, that the Bible was the sole infallible guide to faith and practice. So, Luther decided to use his time in the Wartburg to start afresh and to make his own new translation of the Bible from the original Greek into German. But it was to be his German, pungent, pithy, and comprehensible by all Germans, north and south, and above all, it was to be his, Luther's reading of the Bible."

"Published in September 1522 Luther's Bible began to fix a standardised modern German language. It forged a growing sense of nationhood and national identity amongst the German states. And that helped turn Luther's religious revolution into a political revolution as well.

Luther's revolution now threatened to carry all before it. The princes were attracted by the political and economic pride gave them of the common people by the freedom and the autonomy that it seemed to promise them. The term "Protestant" was coined in 1529, and in 1531, the Lutheran cities and principalities united themselves into a defensive alliance known as the Schmalkaldic League (German: Schmalkaldischer Bund; from the town of Schmalkalden in Thuringia). In little more than a decade, half of Germany had gone Protestant, gone Lutheran. As Europe began to fracture along religious lines, it would be engulfed by apocalyptic violence, waves of holy war, terror, and iconoclasm, of the kind we are all too familiar with today."

One may ask "What has all this to do with this Bible or my faith?" —"Everything!" could be the answer. The Bible is a book about faith, about morals, about precepts and laws, yes, but it 1s also a guide of wisdom that can show ones right way. When Marcion in the middle of the 2nd century wanted to get rid of the Old Testament due to its sometimes violent attitudes, the Church Fathers disagreed and were determined to keep this Jewish document collection as scripture as well.

Were they not right? Perhaps, they found it nesessary to keep the Old Testament because it represented traditional authority, it breathed resolute fighting spirit, and it contained precepts and wisdom that the New Testament lacked. Had the early Christians followed Marcion, who knows, Christianity might have died long ago from its peacefulness. There is not always just one way but other ways too from which we can choose. The Bible in its entirety has accumulated the wisdom from several millenia. It is not the only wise book in the World. In fact, there are many more. And most of them have something in common.

The ‘Western communities' need headstrong individuals, like Jan Hus, like John Wycliffe, like William Tyndale and Martin Luther, who are willingly take responsibility and do not hide behind a smokescreen of 'team ethics’ and coward ‘political correctness’ which automatically leads to the wrong believe that appeasement ensures eternal peace. It does not - it never did - and it never will. The old proverb "weakness provokes" has a Darwinistic truth in itself that no-one can escape. Good behaviour has been replaced by despicable egalitarian ideologies. Those ones who propagate diversity, boundless socialism and leniency, limitless individualism and fuzzy immorality, let the 'devil' take over and they bring not only their own society to crumble but they cause suffering on an unprecedentd scale in this very minute. Jesus said, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand!" (Matthew 12:25) Anybody who does not like Jesus could also be directed to any other authority and philosopher in antiquity because many of them said the very same thing.

The Bible is not out of date, and it is still a mighty authority on wisdom today. The Bible is a valuable source to learn from. And here it does not matter to what religious denomination the reader feels aligned to, or even feels religious at all. Therefore, it is a sensible thing, not to talk about religion, faith or piety here. I rather should like to steer the readers attention to historical or other scientific facts of interest. To bring the Bible to the reader in a new light, I shall present it in a very old way: Several hundred years ago, some Bibles gave extra information to the reader. We shall do the same and display a detailed Table of Contents. This foreword is followed by details on origin, version, and translation of the Bible. Each book in the Bible begins with its name as title in bold Capital Letters and all alternative titles that are known. Then we mention the source, provenance, authorship and the Range of Dating (the time the text's creation). In the Appendices, we show a photo documentation and a map documentation. After that, you will find legal, non-canonical and other texts of historical value, because it is best to let history speak for itself.

If you wish to find more related texts, please download the 8,000-page volume of The Grand Bible, Sth edition. Thank you kindly!

Lord Henfield, 2024.

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION 1

THE CANON OF THE BIBLE (The Choice and Order of the Books in the Bible)

The Hebrew Canon

The term 'canon,' from the Greek word "kanon," meaning a cane or measuring rod, passed into Christian usage as a norm or a rule of faith. The Church Fathers of the 4th century AD first employed it in reference to the definitive, authoritative nature of the body of sacred Scripture. The Hebrew Bible is often known among Jews as TaNaKh, an acronym derived from the names of its official three divisions: Torah (Instruction, or Law, also called the Pentateuch), Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings).

The earliest and most explicit evidence of a Hebrew canonical list comes from the Roman-Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus (37 AD — c. 96 AD) who wrote about the Hebrew canon used in the first century AD. In "Against Apion" (Book 1, Paragraph 8), Josephus divided the Hebrew Bible into three parts: 5 books of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), 13 books of the prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel; 12 Minor Prophets; Job, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Ezra & Nehemiah, Chronicles), and 4 books of hymns (Psalms, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, Proverbs):

"For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years, but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down [in Babylonian captivity] what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life." (The Books of the women Ruth and Esther were not part of his choice. In antiquity, politics, military, and religion were men's toys).

As Josephus (as propaganda minister of the Flavian Dynasty) had all Roman publishing ativities under his control, it is not clear whether he only reported here about the canon or told us about his decision on the canon officially approved by him. The answer to this question would tell us to what extent he might have been responsible for the destruction of the violent messianic literature and their authors, and also about the approval of the first 3 canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke).

Josephus mentions Ezra and Nehemiah in Antiquities of the Jews (Book XI, Chapter 5) and Esther (during the rule of Artaxerxes) in Chapter 6. The canon is until the reign of Artaxerxes [Babylonian captivity] as mentioned by Josephus in Against Apion (Book 1, Paragraph 8). For a long time,

following this date, the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes was often under scrutiny. According to Gerald A. Larue, Josephus’ listing represents what came to be the Jewish canon, although scholars were still wrestling with problems of the authority of certain writings at the time that he was writing. Josephus’ choice of 22 books were not universally accepted, since most Jewish communities used these 24 books:

TORAH (Teaching of the Law) [5 books]

* Genesis (Bereshit = In the Beginning); Creation

* Exodus (Shemot = Names of the Sons); Migration

* Leviticus (Vayikra = And 'He' Called); Basic Law

* Numbers (Bemidbar = In the Desert); Arrival

¢ Deuteronomy (Devarim = Moses! Words); Civil Law

NEVI'IM (The Prophets) [8 books]

The Former Prophets (Nevi'im Rishonim) ¢ Joshua (Yehoshua)

* Judges (Shofetim)

¢ Samuel (Shemuel)

¢ Kings (Melakhim)

The Latter Prophets (Nevi'im Aharonim) * Isaiah, Isaias (Yeshayahu)

* Jeremiah (Yirmeyahu)

* Ezekiel (Yekhezkel, Yacheskel), Hesekiel

¢ Trei Asar (The 12 Minor Prophets [as | book].)

- Hosea, Osee, Hosee

- Joel, Ioel, Yoel

- Amos

- Obadiah, Obadya, Abdiah, Abdias

- Jonah, Yona, Yuna, Ionas

- Micah, Mika, Micheas, (Mikayahu)

- Nahum, Naoum

- Habakkuk, Habaqquq, Habacuc, (Havakuk), Habbakoum - Zephaniah, Sefanya, Sophonias

- Haggai, Haggay, Aggeus, (Khagai), Haggaios

- Zechariah, Zacharias, (Zekharyah)

- Malachi, Malachias, Malahi, (Malakhi = 'My Messenger’)

KETUVIM or Ketubim ("Writings") [11 books] Poetic books, Sifrei Emet

¢ Psalms 1-150 (Tehillim = 'Praises')

* Book of Proverbs (Mishlei Shlomo, Mishlei, Mishle) * Book of Job (Iyob, Iyov)

Five scrolls, Five Megillot [read on festivals]

¢ Song of Solomon or Song of Songs (Shir Hashirim) ¢ Ruth (Rut) [on Shavuot]

¢ Lamentations (1—5) (Eka, Eikhah) [on Tisha B'Av] * Ecclesiastes (Kohelet, Qohelet) [on Sukkot]

¢ Esther (Ester) [on Purim]

Other books

* Daniel (Daniyel)

¢ Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra)

* Chronicles (Divrei Hayamim), Paralipomenon

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

The Christian Canon

The Old Testament as it has come down in Greek translation from the Jews of Alexandria via the Christian Church differs in many respects from the Hebrew Scriptures. The books of the second and third divisions have been redistributed and arranged according to categories of literature—history, poetry, wisdom, and prophecy. Esther and Daniel contain supplementary materials, and many noncanonical books, whether of Hebrew or Greek origin, have been interspersed with the canonical works. These extracanonical writings comprise I Esdras, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sira), Additions to Esther, Judith, Tobit, Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremiah, and additions to Daniel, as listed in the manuscript known as Codex Vaticanus (c. 350 AD). The sequence of the books varies, however, in the manuscripts and in the patristic and synodic lists of the Eastern and Western churches, some of which include other books as well, such as I and II Maccabees.

The Christian Church received its Bible from Greek- speaking Jews and found the majority of its early converts in the Hellenistic world. The Greek Bible of Alexandria thus became the official Bible of the Christian community, and the overwhelming number of quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures in the New Testament are derived from it. Whatever the origin of the Apocryphal books in the canon of Alexandria, these became part of the Christian Scriptures, but there seems to have been no unanimity as to their exact canonical status. The New Testament itself does not cite the Apocryphal books directly, but occasional traces of a knowledge of them are to be found. The Apostolic Fathers (late 1st—early 2nd centuries) show extensive familiarity with this literature, but a list of the Old Testament books by Melito, bishop of Sardis in Asia Minor (2nd century), does not include the additional writings of the Greek Bible, and Origen (c. 185—c. 254) explicitly describes the Old Testament canon as comprising only 22 books.

From the time of Origen* on, the Church Fathers who were familiar with Hebrew differentiated, theoretically at least, the Apocryphal books from those of the Old Testament, though they used them freely. In the Syrian East, until the 7th century the Church had only the books of the Hebrew canon with the addition of Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sira (but without Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah). It also incorporated the Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, and the additions to Daniel. The 6th-century manuscript of the Peshitta (Syriac version) known as Codex Ambrosianus also has III and IV Maccabees, II (sometimes IV) Esdras, and Josephus' Wars VII. (* Full name: Oregenes Adamantius, born c. 185 in Alexandria, Egypt; died c. 254 in Tyre, Phoenicia [Lebanon]. He was one of the most important theologian and biblical scholar of the early Greek church. His greatest work is the 'Hexapla,' which is a synopsis of six versions of the Old Testament.)

Early councils of the African Church held at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397, 419) affirmed the use of the Apocryphal books as Scripture. In the 4th century also, Athanasius™,

chief theologian of Christian orthodoxy, differentiated “canonical books” from both “those that are read” by Christians only and the “Apocryphal books” rejected alike by Jews and Christians. (* Athanasius of Alexandria, born c. 293, died May 2, 373 AD was a theologian, ecclesiastical statesman, and Egyptian national leader from Alexandria. He was the chief defender of Roman (Pauline, Flavian or Orthodox) Christianity in the 4th-century battle against Arianism.)

In the preparation of a standard Latin version, the biblical scholar Jerome (c. 347-419/420) separated “canonical books” from “ecclesiastical books” (i.e., the Apocryphal or ‘hidden' writings), which he regarded as good for spiritual edification but not authoritative Scripture. (* Full name: Eusebius Hieronymus, pseudonym: Sophronius, born c. 347, Dalmatia, died c. 420 AD, Bethlehem, Judaea, Holy Land. He is known for his Bible translation into Latin, the famous "Vulgate.')

A contrary view of Augustine* (354-430), one of the greatest Western theologians, prevailed, however, and the works remained in the Latin Vulgate version. The Decretum Gelasianum, a Latin document of uncertain authorship but recognised as reflecting the views of the Roman Church at the beginning of the 6th century, includes Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and I and II Maccabees as biblical. (* Augustine of Hippo, Latin name: Aurelius Augustinus, born Nov. 13, 354, Tagaste, Numidia [Algeria], died Aug. 28, 430, Hippo Regius [Algeria]. Augustine was the most influential supporter of merging ancient Platonic and Stoic teachings with Christian ideas and created so modern Roman Christianity, thus Western Civilisation.)

Throughout the Middle Ages, the Apocryphal books were generally regarded as Holy Scripture in the Roman and Greek churches. Luther's Reformation kept the issue of the Christian canon alive. Protestants denied canonical status to all books not in the Hebrew Bible. The first modern vernacular Bible to segregate the disputed writings was a Dutch version by Jacob van Liesveldt (Antwerp, 1526). Luther's German edition of 1534 did the same thing and entitled them “Apocrypha” for the first time, noting that while they were not in equal esteem with sacred Scriptures they were edifying. In response to Protestant views, the Roman Catholic church made its position clear at the Council of Trent (1546) when it dogmatically affirmed that the entire Latin Vulgate enjoyed equal canonical status. This doctrine was confirmed by the Vatican Council of 1870. In the Greek Church, the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) had expressly designated as canonical several Apocryphal works. In the 19th century, however, Russian Orthodox theologians agreed to exclude these works from the Holy Scriptures.

The history of the Old Testament canon in the English Church has generally reflected a more restrictive viewpoint. Even though the Wycliffite Bible (14th century) included the Apocrypha, its preface made it clear that it accepted Jerome's judgment. The translation made by the English bishop Miles Coverdale (1535) was the first English version to segregate

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

these books, but it did place Baruch after Jeremiah. Article VI of the Thirty-nine Articles of religion of the Church of England (1562) explicitly denied their value for the establishment of doctrine, although it admitted that they should be read for their didactic worth. The first Bible in English to exclude the Apocrypha was the Geneva Bible of 1599. The King James Version of 1611 placed it between the Old and New Testaments. In 1615 Archbishop George Abbot forbade the issuance of Bibles without the Apocrypha, but editions of the King James Version from 1630 on often omitted it from the bound copies. The Geneva Bible edition of 1640 was probably the first to be intentionally printed in England without the Apocrypha, followed in 1642 by the King James Version. In 1644 the Long Parliament actually forbade the public reading of these books, and three years later the Westminster Confession of the Presbyterians decreed them to be no part of the canon. The British and Foreign Bible Society in 1827 resolved 'never to print or circulate copies containing the Apocrypha.’ In the new edition of the King James Version from 1885, the disputed books have been omitted. Most English Protestant Bibles in the 20th century have omitted the disputed books or have them as a separate volume, except in library editions, in which they are included with the Old and New Testaments.

The Grand Bible, as well as this Version edited by Lord Henfield puts them into the Holy Bible again due to their value for studying Bible history in its completeness. In the Appendix are even texts of ancients laws and other texts that can give modern Jews and Christians a new perspective in opposing the decline of their congregations and Western Civilisation as a whole. (See: The Muratorian Canon; The New Testament Canon, p.1647.)

CHAPTERS AND VERSES OF THE BIBLE

The use of numbered chapters and verses was not introduced until the Middle Ages and later. Chapter and verse divisions did not appear in the original texts of Jewish or Christian bibles; if you take a look at the photos in the Appendix, you will see that often not even the words in documents were divided from on another.

Since the early 13th century, most copies and editions of the Bible have presented all but the shortest of the scriptural books with divisions into chapters, generally a page or so in length. Since the mid-16th century, editors have further subdivided each chapter into verses — each consisting of a few short lines or of one or more sentences.

The Jewish divisions of the Hebrew text differ at various points from those used by Christians. Jewish tradition regards the ascriptions to many Psalms as independent verses or as parts of the subsequent verses, whereas established Christian practice treats each Psalm ascription as independent and unnumbered, resulting in 116 more verses in Jewish versions than in the Christian texts. The system used in English was developed by Stephanus (Robert Estienne of Paris)

History of the Chapter Division

Early manuscripts of the biblical texts did not contain the chapter and verse divisions in the numbered form familiar to modern readers. Ancient Hebrew texts were divided into paragraphs (parashot) that were identified by two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Peh 'P’ (5) indicated an "open" paragraph that began on a new line, while Samekh 'S' (0) indicated a "closed" paragraph that began on the same line after a small space. These two letters begin the Hebrew words open (patuach) and closed (satum), and are, themselves, open in shape (5) and closed (0). The earliest known copies of the Book of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls used parashot divisions, although they differ slightly from the Masoretic divisions.

The Hebrew Bible was also divided into some larger sections. In the Holy Land, the Torah (the Pentateuch) were divided into 154 sections so that they could be read through aloud in weekly worship over the course of three years. In Babylonia, it was divided into 53 or 54 sections (Parashat ha-Shavua) so it could be read through in one year.

The New Testament was divided into topical sections known as kephalaia by the fourth century. Eusebius of Caesarea (Constantine's right-hand man) divided the gospels into parts that he listed in tables or canons. Neither of these systems corresponds with modern chapter divisions.

Chapter divisions, with titles, are also found in the 9th- century Tours manuscript Paris Bibliotheque Nationale MS Lat. 3, the so-called Bible of Rorigo.

Cardinal archbishop Stephen Langton and Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro developed different schemas for systematic division of the Bible in the early 13th century. It is the system of Archbishop Langton on which the modern chapter divisions are based.

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

While chapter divisions have become nearly universal, editions of the Bible have sometimes been published without them. Such editions, which typically use thematic or literary criteria to divide the biblical books instead, include Alexander Campbell's The Sacred Writings (1826), Daniel Berkeley Updike's fourteen-volume The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha, Richard Moulton's The Modern Reader's Bible (1907), and Ernest Sutherland Bates's The Bible Designed to Be Read as Living Literature (1936).

History of the Verse Division

Since at least 916 the Tanakh has contained an extensive system of multiple levels of section, paragraph, and phrasal divisions that were indicated in Masoretic vocalisation and cantillation markings. One of the most frequent of these was a special type of punctuation, the sof passug, symbol for a period or sentence break, resembling the colon (:) of English and Latin orthography. With the advent of the printing press and the translation of the Hebrew Bible into English, versifications were made that correspond predominantly with the existing Hebrew sentence breaks, with a few isolated exceptions. Most attribute these to Rabbi Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus's work for the first Hebrew Bible concordance around 1440.

The first person to divide New Testament chapters into verses was the Italian Dominican biblical scholar Santes Pagnino (1470-1541), but his system was never widely adopted. His verse divisions in the New Testament were far longer than those known today. The Parisian printer Robert Estienne created another numbering in his 1551 edition of the Greek New Testament, which was also used in his 1553 publication of the Bible in French. Estienne's system of division was widely adopted, and it is this system which is found in almost all modern Bibles. Estienne produced a 1555 Vulgate that is the first Bible to include the verse numbers integrated into the text. Before this work, they were printed in the margins.

The first English New Testament to use the verse divisions was a 1557 translation by William Whittingham (c. 1524— 1579). The first Bible in English to use both chapters and verses was the Geneva Bible published shortly afterwards by Sir Rowland Hill in 1560. These verse divisions soon gained acceptance as a standard way to notate verses, and have since been used in nearly all English Bibles and the vast majority of those in other languages.

Modern Christian Chapter and Verse Divisions

Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro is often given credit for first dividing the Latin Vulgate into chapters in the real sense, but it is the arrangement of his contemporary and fellow cardinal Stephen Langton who in 1205 created the chapter divisions which are used today. They were then inserted into Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in the 16th century. Robert Estienne (Robert Stephanus) was the first to number the verses within each chapter, his verse numbers entering

printed editions in 1551 (New Testament) and 1553 (Hebrew Bible).

The division of the Bible into chapters and verses has received criticism from some traditionalists and modern scholars. Critics state that the text is often divided in an incoherent way, or at inappropriate rhetorical points, and that it encourages citing passages out of context. Nevertheless, the chapter and verse numbers have become indispensable as technical references for Bible study.

Several modern publications of the Bible have eliminated numbering of chapters and verses. Biblica published such a version of the NIV in 2007 and 2011. In 2014, Crossway published the ESV Reader's Bible and Bibliotheca published a modified ASV. Projects such as Icthus also exist which strip chapter and verse numbers from existing translations.

Bible Statistics

The number of words can vary depending upon aspects such as whether the Hebrew alphabet in Psalm 119, the superscriptions listed in some of the Psalms, and the subscripts traditionally found at the end of the Pauline epistles, are included.

Except where stated, the following apply to the King James Version of the Bible in its modern 66-book Protestant form including the New Testament and the protocanonical Old Testament, not the deuterocanonical books.

The Chapters

* There are 929 chapters in the Old Testament. > 187 chapters in the Pentateuch

> 249 chapters in the Historical books

> 243 chapters in the Poetic books ("Wisdom") > 183 chapters in the Major prophets

> 67 chapters in the Minor prophets

¢ There are 260 chapters in the New Testament.

> 89 chapters in the Gospels

> 28 chapters in Acts

> 87 chapters in the Pauline Epistles (excluding Hebrews)

> 34 chapters in the General Epistles (including Hebrews)

> 22 chapters in Revelation

* This gives a total of 1,189 chapters (on average, 18 per book).

* Psalm 117, the shortest chapter, is also the middle chapter of the Bible, being the 595th Chapter.

* Psalm 119 is the longest chapter of the Bible.

* Five books are a single chapter: Obadiah, Philemon, 2 & 3 John, Jude. In many printed editions, the chapter number is omitted for these books, and references just use the verse numbers.

The Verses

¢ There are 23,145 verses in the Old Testament and 7,957 verses in the New Testament. This gives a total of 31,102 verses, which is an average of a little more than 26 verses per chapter and 471 verses per book.

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

* Psalm 103:1—2 being the 15,551st and 15,552nd verses is in the middle of the 31,102 verses of the Bible.

¢ John 11:35 ("Jesus wept") is the shortest verse in most English translations. Some translations—including the New International Version, New Living Translation, New Life Version, Holman Christian Standard Bible and New

International Reader's Version—trender Job 3:2 as "He said".

However, that is a translators’ condensation of the Hebrew which literally translated is: "And Job answered and said."

* The shortest verse in the Greek New Testament is Luke 20:30 ("And the second") with twelve letters, according to the Westcott and Hort text. In the Textus Receptus, the shortest verse is 1 Thessalonians 5:16 ("Rejoice always") with fourteen letters, since Stephanus’ rendering of Luke 20:30 includes some additional words.

¢ | Chronicles 1:24 ("Shelah") is the shortest verse in the Septuagint.

¢ | Kings 12:24 is the longest verse in the Septuagint (1,017 words).

* Isaiah 10:8 ("Dicet enim", "For he shall say") is the shortest verse in the Latin Vulgate.

* Esther 8:9 is the longest verse in the Masoretic Text. The discovery of several manuscripts at Qumran (in the Dead Sea Scrolls) has reopened what is considered the most original text of 1 Samuel 11; if one believes that those manuscripts better preserve the text, several verses in 1 Samuel 11 surpass Esther 8:9 in length.

¢ Exodus 20:13,14 and Deuteronomy 5:17 are the shortest verses in the Masoretic Text.

* John 11:25 is the most read verse in funerals.

BIBLE ENGLISH

At first, some readers might find the usage of the old pronouns and their verbs difficult. But very soon, you will get used to it and you will perhaps even enjoy our colourful language from the Past.

Another feature which might irritate at first might be the sometimes different word order. Instead of "I do not know", in older texts we find "I know not"; "Sleepeth he not?" means "Does he not sleep?", etc.

We have chosen to present here the texts of the original King James version, although it contains a few minor mistranslations; especially in the Old Testament where the knowledge of the Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac languages was uncertain at the time.

Just some examples: Among the most commonly cited errors is in the Hebrew of Job and Deuteronomy, where "Re'em" with the probable meaning of "wild-ox, aurochs", is translated in the King James Version as "unicorn"; following in this the Vulgate unicornis and several medieval rabbinic commentators. Otherwise, the translators on several occasions mistakenly interpreted a Hebrew descriptive phrase as a proper name (or vice versa); as at 2 Samuel 1:18 where ‘the Book of Jasher' properly refers not to a work by an author of that name, but should rather be rendered as "the Book of the Upright."

In the New Testament, we find Jesus’ father refered to as "carpenter" although in original Greek we read the word tekton (from tekne, 'skill') which means ‘any craftsman or builder’ (as opposed to metalworker or smith) and even ‘master of any art,' such as author, creator, planner, poet. So, arkhitekton means architect, 'chief builder," means 'chief builder’ just like 'archenemy' means 'chief enemy.'

Another misinterpretation is the word "betray" or "betrayal" in texts that describe the action of Jesus’ disciple Judas in "And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went onto the chief priests, to betray him unto them" (Mark 14;10). The original Greek text however does not use the word "betray" but "hand over". Looking at the fight between Christianity and Judaism, we can assume that this misinterpretation was deliberately created in order to discredit anthing that has to do with the words "Judas, Jude, Judaism, Judaea, Judea, Judean, Judah, Jew (from Old French Juiu), Judaeus, loudaios, Yehudah, Judaic, Judaise". Judas (and after the sinister Roman-Christian Anti-Jewish propaganda all similar words) is today a synonym for treachery, satanic, devilish and evil. Listeners should feel unwell when hearing those words.

The Islamic Anti-Jewish propaganda in their so-called perfect book,' the Koran (including all other Islamic texts against the Jews), has taken this Pauline-Christian propaganda unchecked and uncriticised as basis of their own bigottery. This single misinterpretation led to almost 2,000 years of Jewish suffering and ultimately to the Holocaust in Hitlers NAZI-Europe with more than six million dead Jews.

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

On Grammar Under Martin Luther's influence, William Tyndale began

his Bible translation from Hebrew and Greek sources in 1525.

Miles Coverdale, Thomas Matthew, John Rogers continued that project in 1535, followed by the Great Bible in 1539, and the Bishops' Bible in 1568. Finally, the Roman Catholics came up with their own Douay—Rheims Bible in 1582 which unfortunately was translated from the outdated Vulgate version. The King James Version ("Authorised Version") was published in 1611 under the auspices of James I of England. Not since the Septuagint (c.285 BC) had a translation of the Bible been undertaken under royal sponsorship as a cooperative venture on so grandiose a scale. Of 54 scholars approved by James, 47 laboured in six groups at three locations for seven years, utilising previous English translations and texts in the original languages. Their translations influence the English language still today.

The victory of the King James Version could not obscure some inherent weaknesses, errors and a lack of consistency. The translators' understanding of the Hebrew tense system was often limited so that their version contains inaccurate renderings. The Greek source text of the New Testament, was a poor one. The rediscovery of Greek uncial codices (Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandinus) triggered new reforms. One unfortunate outcome was that the pronouns of the 2nd person singular (thou, thee, thy, thine, thyself) were scrapped, and also the entire Apocrypha that once were approved by emperor Constantine in 325 AD.

All those Bible readers who want to come closer to what has been said in the original Hebrew and Greek texts ought to use a Bible with distinct thou-ponouns. The word "thou" is a 2nd person singular pronoun, now largely archaic, having been replaced in most contexts by "you". The equalisation of these two, originally distinct pronouns, can cause misunderstanding as to who is meant, either "you as a single person", or "you as a group of people", which in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and almost all other languages in the world is a big difference in form and sound of the relevant pronoun and the verbs that are connected to them.

Subj. Obj Poss. Poss. Reflex. Pron. Pron. Adj. Pron. Pron. Ist, sg. I me my mine _— myself 2nd. sg. thou thee thy thine thyself 3rd.sg.m. he him his his himself 3rd.sg.f. she her her hers herself 3rd.sg.n. it it its its itself Ist. pl. we us our ours ourselves 2nd. pl. you,ye you,ye your yours — yourselves 3rd. pl. they them their theirs —_ themselves

Using "thou" is also reflected in the use of the verb that follows this pronoun. The verbs of the Second Person Singular end with -(e)st. A few end only with -t such as art, wilt, and shalt.

In Bible texts there is also another form for the verb in 3rd person singular. In modern English, a verb that follows he,

she, it just ends with -s, but in 1611 when the King James Version was first published, all those verbs ended with -(e)th. And so do they still today in church service:

Verbs in their Present Tense Forms 3rd pers. sg.: all other pers. : thou he, she, it I, we, you, ye, they art, beest** is, be** are, be** hast hath have dost, doest doth, doeth do wilt willeth will shalt shalleth shall canst caneth can mayest mayeth may must must must sayest sayeth say givest giveth give takest taketh take comest cometh come prayest prayeth pray tellest telleth tell committest commiteth commit goest goeth g0 speakest speaketh speak

*"to" after "ought" is often omitted in questions, negative statements and questions. ** "beest" and "be" are present subjunctive forms.

The -(e)st and -(e)th endings even can be found attached on verbs (particularly on irregular verbs) in their past tenseo, although not all translators have used this feature consequently (for either the present or past forms).

Verbs in their Past Tense Forms thou he, she, it I, we, you, ye, they wast, wert** was, were** was, were** hadst hadth have didst didth did wouldst wouldeth would shouldest shouldeth should couldst couldeth could mightest mighteth might oughtest (to)* oughteth (to)* ought (to)* saidest saideth said gavest gaveth gave tookest tooketh took camest cameth came prayedest prayedeth prayed toldest toldeth told committedest commitedeth commited wentest wenteth went spakest* spaketh* spake*

* "spake" is the old past form of "to speak"

** "wert" and "were" are past subjunctive forms Notice: **Every past tense form can serve as subjunctive!

THE HOLY BIBLE

IN BASIC ENGLISH

Rom 3:21-26, 27-31; 4:1-5; Col 2:11-12 (semi-colon when chapter or book change; only comma when additional verses

Additions to Daniel

Prayer of Azariah

Bel and the Dragon

Song of the Three Young Men Susanna

1-2 Maccabees

3-4 Maccabees

1-2 Esdras

Prayer of Manasseh

Psalm 151

New Testament (Christian canon) (Gospel according to) Matthew (Gospel according to) Mark (Gospel according to) Luke (Gospel according to) John Acts (Luke's Acts of the Apostles) (Paul to the) Romans

(Paul to the) 1-2 Corinthians (Paul to the) Galatians

(Paul to the) Ephesians

(Paul to the) Philippians

(Paul to the) Colossians

(Paul to the) 1-2 Thessalonians (Paul to) 1-2 Timothy

(Paul to) Titus

(Paul to) Philemon

(Paul to the) Hebrews

James

1-2 Peter

1-2-3 John

Jude

Revelation / Apocalypse of John

Citing the Bible

Genesis chapters | through 2 Genesis chapter 1, verse 2 chapter / chapters

verse / verses (ot versus!) Manuscript / Manuscripts Old Testament

= Hebrew Bible

= Septuagint

New Testament

in the same chapter and book)

Capitalisation of Other Terms * the Bible, but “biblical”; Scripture / scriptural

* the Gospels (referring to texts), “gospel” when referring to

* the Twenty-Third Psalm * King of kings (used as title); Son of Man (used as title)

¢ Hebrew Bible (Jewish canon), Old Testament (Christian

* Second Temple period, intertestamental period

¢ deuterocanonical literature, Apocrypha (pl.; apocryphon,

A List of Abbreviations of the Books of the Bible Add Dan (According to The SBL Handbook of Style, 2d ed., 2014) i There are 400 million native English speakers but 4 times as Se Three many who use English as a second language. Most of them Sus are not familiar with biblical terms. Therefore, abbreviations 1-2 Mace should be used as seldom as possible, and if, then their use 3-4 Macc ought to be restricted to the widely accepted ones in this list. 1-2 Esd Pr Man OT Old Testament (1st Jewish canon) Ps 151 HB Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) LXX Septuagint (Jewish canon in Greek) NT Gen (Torah / Pentateuch) Genesis Matt Exod (Torah / Pentateuch) Exodus Mark Lev (Torah / Pentateuch) Leviticus Luke Num (Torah / Pentateuch) Numbers John Deut (Torah / Pentateuch) Deuteronomy Acts Josh Joshua Rom Judg Judges 1-2 Cor Ruth Ruth Gal 1-2 Sam 1-2 Samuel Eph = 1-2 Kgdms = 1-2 Kingdoms / Reigns (LXX) Phil 1-2 Kgs 1-2 Kings Col = 3-4 Kgdms = 3-4 Kingdoms / Reigns (LXX) 1-2 Thess 1-2 Chr[on] 1-2 Chronicles 1-2 Tim Ezra Ezra Titus Neh Nehemiah Phim Esth Esther Heb Job Job Jas Ps/ Pss Psalm / Psalms 1-2 Pet Prov Proverbs 1-2-3 John Eccl (Qoh) Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) Jude Song (Cant) Song of Songs/Solomon (Canticles) Rev/ Apoc Isa Isaiah Jer Jeremiah Lam Lamentations Gen 1-2 Ezek Ezekiel Gen 1:2 Dan Daniel ch. / chs. Hos (12 Minor Prophets) Hosea v./ wv. Joel (12 Minor Prophets) Joel Ms / Mss Amos (12 Minor Prophets) Amos OT Obad (12 Minor Prophets) Obadiah = HB Jonah (12 Minor Prophets) Jonah = LXX Mic (12 Minor Prophets) Micah NT Nah (12 Minor Prophets) Nahum Hab (12 Minor Prophets) Habakkuk Zeph (12 Minor Prophets) Zephaniah Hag (12 Minor Prophets) Haggai Zech (12 Minor Prophets) Zechariah Mal (12 Minor Prophets) Malachi Aper Apocrypha (2nd Jewish canon) the Christian message Tob Tobit Jdt Judith Add Esth Additions to Esther Wis Wisdom of Solomon Bible) Sir Sirach/Ecclesiasticus Bar Baruch Ep Jer Epistle of Jeremiah

sg.)

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— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

GENRES IN THE BIBLE

Biblical genre is a classification of Bible literature according to literary genre. The genre of a particular Bible passage is ordinarily identified by analysis of its general writing style, tone, form, structure, literary technique, content, design, and related linguistic factors; texts that exhibit a common set of literary features (very often in keeping with the writing styles of the times in which they were written) are together considered to be belonging to a genre. In Biblical studies, genres are usually associated with whole books of the Bible, because each of its books comprises a complete textual unit; however, a book may be internally composed of a variety of styles, forms, and so forth, and thus bear the characteristics of more than one genre (for example, chapter | of the Book of Revelation is prophetic/visionary; chapters 2 and 3 are similar to the epistle genre; etc.).

Examples of Genres in the Bible

Some of the more generally recognised genres and categorisations of the Bible (note that other systems and classifications have also been advanced) include:

° Law: the last half of Exodus; also Leviticus, Deuteronomy

¢ Wisdom literature: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes

¢ Historical narrative / epic: Genesis and the first half of Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, | and 2 Samuel, | and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Jonah, and possibly Acts

* Psalms: Psalms, Song of Solomon, Lamentations

* Prophecy: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

* Apocalyptic literature: Daniel, Revelation

+ Epistle (letter): Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, | and 2 Thessalonians, | and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, | and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, Jude

* Gospel (narrative): Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

* Acts of the Apostles (genre): Book of Acts

Types of Genres the Bible student should be looking for:

* Maxims or Laws (the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments; 1 Samuel 15:22, 24:14, and the greater part of Proverbs)

* Monologues and Dialogues in Job 3:3 and following

* Parables (2 Samuel 12:1-4, 14:4-9; 1 Kings 20:39 and following; synoptic Gospels)

* Fables such as the tale of Jotham (Judges 9:7-15)

* Riddles (Judges 14:14 and following; Proverbs 30:11 and following)

¢ Typology, the study of types in literature, archaeology, history, biology, etc. In literature and other texts, it is about passages that describe something which appear in a similar form also in other texts and thus build a deliberate link of doctrine, e.g., New Testament passages that reflect passages in the Old Testament, the Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi Library, the Works of Philo and of Titus Flavius

Josephus, in ancient texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt; they all can deliver explanations to details.

Here are four points to pay attention to, in particular these details:

* occurence (circumstance). The circumstance of passages can build a link, such as the Elisha and Elijah cycle: These are two Jewish prophets, one followed on from the other which have many of the story elements found in Jesus, for example there is a "multiplication of food miracle" there is a "raising of the dead miracle" there is a "water miracle" there is an "ascension to heaven miracle."

* recurrence (frequency). How often something is repeated tells us how important the author deemed it. With only 67% of the size of the New Testament, the Koran is a rather small book that can be read in its entirety in one or two days; however, Moses is mentioned in it about 30 times, or many times a call that a Muslim has to emulate the deeds of Mohammed in order to be accepted as a good Muslim, that includes viewing a woman as just being worth half a man, cruel terrorist attacks on non-Muslims or apostates, and the execution of 600 prisoners of war by beheading (as recorded in the Sira).

* sequence (order, course, cycle). By studying the multiple layers in the Gospel of Matthew and the The Jewish War by Titus Flavius Josephus one can discover not just a handful but over 40 typological parallels between the Gospel and the work of Josephus which shows that the Ministry of Jesus Christ followed an exact sequence the military campaign of Titus Flavius, through parallel names, locations and concepts.

When Vespasian died Titus began the process of having his father deified. This was a complicated process because only the Roman Senate could bestow such a title. And it was at this time, the Gospels were written because the theological structure in the Gospels of a God the Father, and the Son of God, is the same one that Titus would have been presenting to the Roman Senate. Upon the merits of Vespasian, the Roman Senate did accept Titus' evidence and Vespasian was deified and became a God. Titus therefore became a son of God. And the Arch of Titus, that is still standing in modern Rome today, bears the inscription of devinity for everyone to see.

¢ kinship (relationship). Language is a crucial identifier because with the mother tongue, everyone learns in his childhood from their parents certain sets of behaviour, habit, religion, or any particular oulook on life. Teachers in particular carry a huge load of responsibility as they play (after the parents) the most important role in the formation of ones personality. After the death of Alexander the Great, his generals divided his empire among themselves and were fighting for ever larger chunks of territories from their competitors. However, each of them did the very same thing by spreading Greek language and culture in their realm because this is exactly what they were taught by their teacher Aristotle.

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

OF ORIGINALS, TRANSLATIONS AND VERSIONS

Before we talk about translations, we need to know what language the Bible authors used and why. The Christian Bible consists of two main canonical works, the Old Testament (that is the entire Hebrew Bible), the New Testament (that is the Christian Bible), and the additional Hebrew Deuterocanon (‘Second Canon,’ by Christians known as Apocrypha, ‘hidden books' connected to the Hebrew Bible). The Old Testament was composed in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek, and the Apocrypha in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

It can help to understand the geopolitical environment of the Bible composers. The 4th millenium BC saw three great civilisations in the Middle East, Egypt, Sumer in Mesopotamia and the Indus Civilisation in the northwest of India. Natural disasters caused migration, thus new civilisations formed, such as the Semitic Akkadians and Amorites from northern Phoenicia (Lebanon), who began to subjugate the native but exhausted Sumerians. Indo- European peoples from Iran migrated as well, such as the Elamites who crushed the last surviving Sumerians and other Iranian tribes who crushed the likewise exhausted peoples of the Indus Civilisation of northwest India.

These events occured at around 2000 BC and Abraham was one of the protagonists who migrated from Ur in Sumer to Harran in Anatolia and then to Egypt. The people of Abraham (this name is a Semitic plural for ‘multitude of people') were part of the likewise Semitic Hyksos (heqa khasut, ‘conquerors from the east') who settled around their new capital Avaris in Goshen, in the northeast of Egypt. Mose (whose Egyptian name means 'son') and his tribe moved over 400 years later from Egypt to Canaan, taking Akkadian cuneiform clay (‘stone’) tablets with the Laws on them to Canaan. And so, the Hebrew civilisation evolved out of Sumerian, Akkadian, Canaanite and Egyptian origins. And the Hebrew Bible tells us all about it.

Since the Phoenician-Canaanites invented the alphabet at Ugarit, Syria, in the 14th century BC, it spread like wildfire through the Mediterranean and Asia, giving people a written language that can be learned in weeks or even days if one was determined. Almost all alphabets in the World developed from this marvellous invention. It replaced the hieroglyphic writing systems that were awkward to use and difficult to learn, and therefore expensive. Learning became affordable and laid the foundations of democratic structures. Growing trade made the quickly learned skills of writing and reading a necessity. Translations like those on the Rosetta Stone of Egypt or the Rock inscriptions of Emperor Ashoka of India became an important tool of governance.

New civilisations and their languages appeared, Phoenicians, Aramaeans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Indians, Chinese, Ethiopians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans, and the Hebrews were always part of them. They developed over time a vast trade network reaching from West Africa to East

Asia, controlling the routes on land as well as on sea with the help of their brothers, the Phoenicians and Carthaginians. Wars, expulsions, uprisings, defeats and endless migrations planted into the mind of Hebrews the love for learning.

From the 8th century BC onwards, Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians imposed, by their conquest sprees, a new language on the Hebrews: Aramaic, a Semitic language that began to replace the old Akkadian language as lingua franca of the day. Many hundred years later, Jesus and his disciples still spoke Aramaic as their first language; Hebrew was confined to the holy scripture.

From the 7th century BC onwards, Greeks began to colonise all northern coasts of the Mediterranean. They changed the Phoenician alphabet into the Greek alphabet and created the most beautiful literature of its time. The conquests of Alexander the Great had dramatic consequences in terms of culture and ideology. Greek became, besides Aramaic, the second lingua franca, spoken from Spain to India and China.

The entire upper class of the Roman Empire spoke Greek; including the Jewish people in the Roman empire (but not those in the Holy Land). As they had forgotten their old Hebrew language, they launched in around 300 BC the monumental task of translating the entire Hebrew Bible into Greek. Their work became famous as the "Septuagint" (the 70 or LXX) because circa 70 translators were involved. The New Testament was written in Greek quite simply because the authors were sophisticated and Greek-speaking Roman citizens, not poor Hebrew fishermen.

The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament

The Hebrew Bible was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra) in Biblical Aramaic. From the 6th century to the 10th century AD, Jewish scholars, today known as Masoretes, compared the text of various biblical manuscripts in an effort to create a unified, standardised text. A series of highly similar texts eventually emerged, and any of these texts are known as Masoretic Texts (MT). The Masoretes also added vowel points (called niqqud) to the text, since the original text contained only consonants. This sometimes required the selection of an interpretation; since some words differ only in their vowels their meaning can vary in accordance with the vowels chosen. In antiquity, variant Hebrew readings existed, some of which have survived in the Samaritan Pentateuch and other ancient fragments, as well as being attested in ancient versions in other languages.

First Steps: Targums - Translation into Aramaic (For side by side reading)

The most important factor in the history of Mesopotamia in the 10th century BC was the continuing threat from the Aramaean nomads. Repeatedly, the kings of both Babylonia and Assyria were forced to repel their invasions. Even though the Aramaeans were not able to gain a foothold in the main cities, there are evidences of them in many rural

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

areas. Aramaic replaced Akkadian and became the official language of Assyria, Babylonia and even in the following Persian Empire. Thus Aramaic also became the lingua franca of the Jews.

Some of the first translations of the Torah began during the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles from the 8th to the 6th centuries, when most people were speaking only Aramaic and not understanding Hebrew. The Targums were created to allow the common person to understand the Torah as it was read in ancient synagogues.

In the succeeding centuries it was used as the vernacular over a wide area and was increasingly spoken by the postexilic Jewish communities of Palestine and elsewhere in the Diaspora. In response to liturgical needs, the institution of a turgeman (or meturgeman, “translator”), arose in the synagogues. These men translated the Torah and prophetic lectionaries into Aramaic. The rendering remained for long solely an oral, impromptu exercise, but gradually, by dint of repetition, certain verbal forms and phrases became fixed and eventually committed to writing.

There are several Targums (translations) of the Pentateuch. The Babylonian Targum is known as “Onkelos,” named after its reputed author. The Targum is Palestinian in origin, but it was early transferred to Babylon where it was revised and achieved great authority. At a later date, probably not before the 9th century AD, it was re-exported to Palestine to displace other, local, Targums. On the whole, Onkelos is quite literal, but it shows a tendency to obscure expressions attributing human form and feelings to God. It also usually faithfully reflects rabbinic exegesis.

The most famous of the Palestinian Targums is that popularly known as “Jonathan,” a name derived from a 14th-century scribal mistake that solved a manuscript abbreviation “TJ” as “Targum Jonathan” instead of “Targum Jerusalem.” In contrast with two other Targums, which are highly fragmentary (Jerusalem II and III), Pseudo- Jonathan (or Jerusalem I) is virtually complete. It is a composite of the Old Palestinian Targum and an early version of Onkelos with an admixture of material from diverse periods. It contains much rabbinic material as well as homiletic and didactic amplifications. There is evidence of great antiquity, but also much late material, indicating that Pseudo-Jonathan could not have received its present form before the Islamic period.

Another extant Aramaic version is the Targum to the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is less literal than the Jewish Targums and its text was never officially fixed.

The Targum to the Prophets also originated in Palestine and received its final editing in Babylonia. It is ascribed to Jonathan ben Uzziel, a pupil of Hillel, the famous Ist century BCE-Ist century CE rabbinic sage, though it is in fact a composite work of varying ages. In its present form it discloses a dependence on Onkelos, though it is less literal.

The Aramaic renderings of the Hagiographa are relatively late productions, none of them antedating the Sth century AD.

The Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text (MT; from Hebrew masoreth, “tradition”), traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, meticulously assembled and codified, and supplied with diacritical marks to enable correct pronunciation. This monumental work was begun around the 6th century AD and completed in the 10th by scholars at Talmudic academies in Babylonia and Palestine, in an effort to reproduce, as far as possible, the original text of the Hebrew Old Testament. Their intention was not to interpret the meaning of the Scriptures but to transmit to future generations the authentic Word of God. To this end they gathered manuscripts and whatever oral traditions were available to them.

The Masoretic text that resulted from their work shows that every word and every letter was checked with care. In Hebrew or Aramaic, they called attention to strange spellings and unusual grammar and noted discrepancies in various texts. Since texts traditionally omitted vowels in writing, the Masoretes introduced vowel signs to guarantee correct pronunciation. Among the various systems of vocalization that were invented, the one fashioned in the city of Tiberias, Galilee, eventually gained ascendancy. In addition, signs for stress and pause were added to the text to facilitate public reading of the Scriptures in the synagogue.

When the final codification of each section was complete, the Masoretes not only counted and noted down the total number of verses, words, and letters in the text but further indicated which verse, which word, and which letter marked the centre of the text. In this way any future emendation could be detected. The rigorous care given the Masoretic text in its preparation is credited for the remarkable consistency found in Old Testament Hebrew texts since that time. The Masoretic work enjoyed an absolute monopoly for 600 years, and experts have been astonished at the fidelity of the earliest printed version (late 15th century) to the earliest surviving codices (late 9th century). The Masoretic text is universally accepted as the authentic Hebrew Bible. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in 1947, has confirmed the effort of those scholars as largely correct.

The New Testament

The New Testament was written in 'Koine Greek' (common Greek) and nearly all modern translations are to some extent based upon the Greek text. The autographs, the Greek manuscripts written by the original authors or collators, have not survived. Scholars surmise the original Greek text from the manuscripts that do survive. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type, the Byzantine text-type, and the Western text-type.

Most variants among the manuscripts are minor, such as alternative spelling, alternative word order, the presence or absence of an optional definite article ("the"), and so on. Occasionally, a major variant happens when a portion of a text was missing or for other reasons. Examples of major

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

variants are the endings of Mark, the Pericope Adultere, the Comma Johanneum, and the Western version of Acts.

The discovery of older manuscripts which belong to the Alexandrian text-type, including the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, led scholars to revise their view about the original Greek text. Karl Lachmann based his critical edition of 1831 on manuscripts dating from the 4th century and earlier, to argue that the Textus Receptus must be corrected according to these earlier texts.

Early manuscripts of the Pauline epistles and other New Testament writings show no punctuation whatsoever. The punctuation was added later by other editors, according to their own understanding of the text.

There is also a long-standing tradition owing to Papias of Hierapolis (c.125) that the Gospel of Matthew was originally in Hebrew. Eusebius (c.300) reports that Pantaenus went to India (c. 200) and found them using a Gospel of St Matthew in Hebrew letters. Jerome also reports in his preface to St Matthew that it was originally composed "in Hebrew letters in Judea" not in Greek and that he saw and copied one from the Nazarene sect. The exact provenance, authorship, source languages and collation of the four Gospel is unknown but subject to much academic speculation and disputed methods.

The Samaritan Pentateuch

The importance of the recension known as the Samaritan Pentateuch lies in the fact that it constitutes an independent Hebrew witness to the text written in a late and developed form of the paleo-Hebrew script. Some of the Exodus fragments from Qumran demonstrate that it has close affinities with a pre-Christian Palestinian text type and testify to the faithfulness with which it has been preserved. It contains about 6,000 variants from the Masoretic text, of which nearly a third agree with the Septuagint. Only a minority, however, are genuine variants, most being dogmatic, exegetical, grammatical, or merely orthographic in character.

The Samaritan Pentateuch first became known in the West through a manuscript secured in Damascus in 1616 by Pietro della Valle, an Italian traveler. It was published in the Paris (1628-45) and London Polyglots (1654-57), written in several languages in comparative columns. Many manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch are now available. The Avisha‘ Scroll, the sacred copy of the Samaritans, has recently been photographed and critically examined. Only Numbers chapter 35 to Deuteronomy chapter 34 appears to be very old, the rest stemming from the 14th century. A new, definitive edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch is being prepared in Madrid by F. Perez Castro.

The Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran and other texts

Until the discovery of the Judaean Desert scrolls, the only pre-medieval fragment of the Hebrew Bible known to scholars was the Nash Papyrus (c. 150 BC) from Egypt containing the Decalogue and Deuteronomy. Now, however, fragments of about 180 different manuscripts of biblical

books are available. Their dates vary between the 3rd century BC and the 2nd century AD, and all but 10 stem from the caves of Qumran. All are written on either leather or papyrus in columns and on one side only.

The most important manuscripts from what is now identified as Cave 1 of Qumran are a practically complete Isaiah scroll (1 Qlsaa), dated c. 100—75 BC, and another very fragmentary manuscript (1 QIsab) of the same book. The first contains many variants from the Masoretic text in both orthography and text; the second is very close to the Masoretic type and contains few genuine variants. The richest hoard comes from Cave 4 and includes fragments of five copies of Genesis, eight of Exodus, one of Leviticus, 14 of Deuteronomy, two of Joshua, three of Samuel, 12 of Isaiah, four of Jeremiah, eight of the Minor Prophets, one of Proverbs, and three of Daniel. Cave 11 yielded a Psalter containing the last third of the book in a form different from that of the Masoretic text, as well as a manuscript of Leviticus.

The importance of the Qumran scrolls cannot be exaggerated. Their great antiquity brings them close to the Old Testament period itself—from as early as 250—200 BC. For the first time, Hebrew variant texts are extant and all known major text types are present. Some are close to the Septuagint, others to the Samaritan. On the other hand, many of the scrolls are practically identical with the Masoretic text, which thus takes this recension back in history to pre-Christian times. Several texts in the paleo- Hebrew script show that this script continued to be used side by side with the Aramaic script for a long time.

Of quite a different order are scrolls from other areas of the Judaean Desert. All of these are practically identical with the received text. This applies to fragments of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, and Psalms discovered at Masada (the Jewish fortress destroyed by the Romans in AD 73), as well as to the finds at Wadi al-Murabba ‘at, the latest date of which is AD 135. Here were found fragments of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Isaiah in addition to the substantially preserved Minor Prophets scroll. Variants from the Masoretic text are negligible.

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

HISTORY OF TRANSLATIONS From the Classic Era to the Reformation

Translation into Greek - The Septuagint (LXX)

The story of the Greek translation of the Pentateuch is told in the Letter of Aristeas, which purports to be a contemporary document written by Aristeas, a Greek official at the Egyptian court of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285—246 BC). It recounts how the law of the Jews was translated into Greek by Jewish scholars sent from Jerusalem at the request of the king.

This narrative, repeated in one form or another by Philo and rabbinic sources, is full of inaccuracies that prove that the author was an Alexandrian Jew writing well after the events he described had taken place. The Septuagint Pentateuch, which is all that is discussed, does, however, constitute an independent corpus within the Greek Bible, and it was probably first translated as a unit by a company of scholars in Alexandria about the middle of the 3rd century BC.

The Septuagint, as the entire Greek Bible came to be called, has a long and complex history and took well over a century to be completed. It is for this reason not a unified or consistent translation. The Septuagint became the instrument whereby the basic teachings of Judaism were mediated to the pagan world and it became an indispensable factor in the spread of Christianity. The adoption of the Septuagint, by Constantine and Eusebius, as the Bible of the

Christians naturally engendered suspicion on the part of Jews.

In addition, the emergence of a single authoritative text type after the destruction of the Temple made the great differences between it and the Septuagint increasingly intolerable, and the need for a Greek translation based upon the current Hebrew text in circulation was felt.

By the 3rd century BC, Alexandria had become the centre of Hellenistic Judaism, and during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC translators compiled in Egypt a Koine Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures in several stages (completing the task by 132 BC). The Talmud ascribes the translation effort to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 285-246 BC), who allegedly hired 72 Jewish scholars for the purpose, for which reason the translation is commonly known as the Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta, "seventy"), a name which it gained in "the time of Augustine of Hippo" (354-430 AD). The Septuagint (LXX), the very first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the Christian church and the basis of its canon. Jerome based his Latin Vulgate translation on the Hebrew for those books of the Bible preserved in the Jewish canon (as reflected in the Masoretic text), and on the Greek text for the deuterocanonical books.

Sources of the Septuagint: A Greek translation of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint because there allegedly were 70 or 72 translators, six from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, and designated LXX, is a composite of the work of many translators labouring for well over 100 years. It was

made directly from Hebrew originals that frequently differed considerably from the present Masoretic text. Apart from other limitations attendant upon the use of a translation for such purposes, the identification of the parent text used by the Greek translators is still an unsettled question. The Pentateuch of the Septuagint manifests a basic coincidence with the Masoretic text. The Qumran scrolls have now proven that the Septuagint book of Samuel—Kings goes back to an old Palestinian text tradition that must be earlier than the 4th century BC, and from the same source comes a short Hebrew recension of Jeremiah that probably underlies the Greek.

The translation now known as the Septuagint was widely used by Greek-speaking Jews, and later by Christians. It differs somewhat from the later standardized Hebrew (Masoretic Text). This translation was promoted by way of a legend (primarily recorded as the Letter of Aristeas) that seventy (or in some sources, seventy-two) separate translators all produced identical texts; supposedly proving its accuracy.

Versions of the Septuagint contain several passages and whole books not included in the Masoretic texts of the Tanakh. In some cases these additions were originally composed in Greek, while in other cases they are translations of Hebrew books or of Hebrew variants not present in the Masoretic texts. Recent discoveries have shown that more of the Septuagint additions have a Hebrew origin than previously thought. While there are no complete surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew texts on which the Septuagint was based, many[quantify] scholars believe that they represent a different textual tradition ("Vorlage") from the one that became the basis for the Masoretic texts.

The Version of Aquila: About 130 AD, Aquila, a convert to Judaism from Pontus in Asia Minor, translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek under the supervision of Rabbi Akiba. Executed with slavish literalness, it attempted to reproduce the most minute detail of the original, even to the extent of coining derivations from Greek roots to correspond to Hebrew usage. Little of it has survived, however, except in quotations, fragments of the Hexapla (see Origen's Hexapla, below), and palimpsests (parchments erased and used again) from the Cairo Geniza.

The Revision of Theodotion: A second revision of the Greek text was made by Theodotion (of unknown origins) late in the 2nd century, though it is not entirely clear whether it was the Septuagint or some other Greek version that underlay his revision. The new rendering was characterized by a tendency toward verbal consistency and much transliteration of Hebrew words.

The translation of Symmachus: Still another Greek translation was made toward the end of the same century by Symmachus, an otherwise unknown scholar, who made use of his predecessors. His influence was small despite the superior elegance of his work. Jerome did utilize Symmachus for his Vulgate, but other than that, his translation is known largely through fragments of the Hexapla.

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Origen's Hexapla: The multiplication of versions doubtless proved to be a source of increasing confusion in the 3rd century. This situation the Alexandrian theologian Origen, working at Caesarea between 230 and 240 AD, sought to remedy. In his Hexapla (“six-fold”) he presented, in parallel vertical columns, the Hebrew text, the same in Greek letters, and the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint, and Theodotion, in that order. In the case of some books, Psalms for instance, three more columns were added. The Hexapla serves as an important guide to Palestinian pre-Masoretic pronunciation of the language. The main interest of Origen lay in the fifth column, the Septuagint, which he edited on the basis of the Hebrew. He used the obels (— or +) and asterisk (*) to mark respectively words found in the Greek text but not in the Hebrew and vice versa.

The Hexapla was a work of such magnitude that it is unlikely to have been copied as a whole. Origen himself produced an abbreviated edition, the Tetrapla, containing only the last four columns. The original manuscript of the Hexapla is known to have been extant as late as c. 600 AD. Today it survives only in fragments.

Manuscripts and Printed Editions of the Septuagint: The manuscripts are conveniently classified by papyri uncials (capital letters) and minuscules (cursive script). The papyri fragments run into the hundreds, of varying sizes and importance, ranging from the formative period of the Septuagint through the middle of the 7th century. Two pre- Christian fragments of Deuteronomy from Egypt are of outstanding significance. Although not written on papyrus but on parchment or leather, the fragments from Qumran of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, and the leather scroll of the Minor Prophets from Nahal Uever from the first pre- Christian and post-Christian centuries, deserve special mention among the earliest extant. The most important papyri are those of the Chester Beatty collection, which contains parts of 11 codices preserving fragments of nine Old Testament books. Their dates vary between the 2nd and 4th centuries. During the next 300 years papyri texts multiplied rapidly, and remnants of about 200 are known.

The uncials are all codices written on vellum between the 4th and 10th centuries. The most outstanding are Vaticanus, which is an almost complete 4th-century Old Testament, Sinaiticus, of the same period but less complete, and the practically complete 5th-century Alexandrinus. These three originally contained both Testaments. Many others were partial manuscripts from the beginning. One of the most valuable of these is the Codex Marchalianus of the Prophets written in the 6th century.

The minuscule codices begin to appear in the 9th century. From the 11th to the 16th century they are the only ones found, and nearly 1,500 have been recorded.

The first printed Septuagint was that of the Complutensian Polyglot (1514-17). Since it was not released until 1522, however, the 1518 Aldine Venice edition actually was

available first. The standard edition until modern times was that of Pope Sixtus V, 1587. In the 19th and 20th centuries several critical editions have been printed.

Late Antiquity: Christian translations of the Old Testament also tend to be based upon the Hebrew, though some denominations prefer the Septuagint (or may cite variant readings from both). Bible _ translations incorporating modern textual criticism usually begin with the Masoretic text, but also take into account possible variants from all available ancient versions.

2nd century: Origen's Hexapla (c. 235) placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament: the Hebrew consonantal text, the Hebrew text transliterated into Greek letters (the Secunda), the Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite, one recension of the Septuagint, and the Greek translation of Theodotion. In addition, he included three anonymous translations of the Psalms (the Quinta, Sexta and Septima). His eclectic recension of the Septuagint had a significant influence on the Old Testament text in several important manuscripts.

The Peshita - Translation into Syriac-Aramaic

The Bible of the Syriac Churches is known as the Peshitta (“simple” translation). Though neither the reason for the title nor the origins of the versions are known, the earliest translations most likely served the needs of the Jewish communities in the region of Adiabene (in Mesopotamia), which are known to have existed as early as the Ist century AD. This probably explains the archaic stratum unquestionably present in the Pentateuch, Prophets, and Psalms of the Peshitta, as well as the undoubtedly Jewish influences generally, though Jewish-Christians also may have been involved in the rendering.

In the 2nd century, the Old Testament was translated into Syriac translation, and the Gospels in the Diatessaron gospel harmony. The New Testament was translated in the 5th century, now known as the Peshitta. The Peshita (Syriac: “simple,” or “common”) is the Syriac-Aramaic version of the Bible, the accepted Bible of Syrian Christian churches from the end of the 3rd century AD. Syriac (also Syriac-Aramaic or modern Aramaic) was the native language of Jesus and his relatives. The name Peshitta was first employed by Moses bar Kepha in the 9th century to suggest (as does the name of the Latin Vulgate) that the text was in common use. The name also may have been employed in contradistinction to the more complex Syro-Hexaplar version.

Of the vernacular versions of the Bible, the Old Testament Peshitta is second only to the Greek Septuagint in antiquity, dating from probably the Ist and 2nd centuries AD. The earliest parts in Old Syriac are thought to have been translated from Hebrew or Aramaic texts by Jewish Christians at Edessa, although the Old Testament Peshitta was later revised according to Greek textual principles. The earliest extant versions of the New Testament Peshitta date

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to the Sth century AD and exclude The Second Letter of Peter, The Second Letter of John, the Third Letter of John, The Letter of Jude, and The Revelation to John, which were not canonical in the Syrian church.

The Peshitta displays great variety in its style and in the translation techniques adopted. The Pentateuch is closest to the Masoretic text, but elsewhere there is much affinity with the Septuagint. This latter phenomenon might have resulted from later Christian revision.

Following the split in the Syriac Church in the 5th century into Nestorian (East Syrian) and Jacobite (West Syrian) traditions, the textual history of the Peshitta became bifurcated. Because the Nestorian Church was relatively isolated, its manuscripts are considered to be superior.

A revision of the Syriac translation was made in the early 6th century by Philoxenos, bishop of Mabbug, based on the Lucianic recension of the Septuagint. Another (the Syro- Hexaplaric version) was made by Bishop Paul of Tella in 617 from the Hexaplaric text of the Septuagint. A Palestinian Syriac version, extant in fragments, is known to go back to at least 700, and a fresh recension was made by Jacob of Edessa (died 708).

There are many manuscripts of the Peshitta, of which the oldest bears the date 442. Only four complete codices are extant from between the Sth and 12th centuries. No critical edition yet exists, but one is being prepared by the Peshitta Commission of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament.

Coptic (Egyptian) Scripture: There have been many Coptic versions of the Bible, including some of the earliest translations into any language. Several different versions were made in the ancient world, with different editions of the Old and New Testament in five of the dialects of Coptic: Bohairic (northern), Fayyumic, Sahidic (southern), Akhmimic and Mesokemic (middle). Biblical books were translated from the Alexandrian Greek Septuagint.

The first translation into the Sahidic dialect was made at the end of the 2nd century in Upper Egypt, where Greek was less well understood. So the Sahidic is famous for being the first major literary development of the Coptic language, though literary work in the other dialects soon followed.

Partial copies of a number of Coptic Bibles survive. A considerable number of apocryphal texts also survive in Coptic, most notably the Gnostic Nag Hammadi library. Coptic remains the liturgical language of the Coptic Church and Coptic editions of the Bible are central to that faith.

Translators of books of the Old Testament into Egyptian dialects were naturally made from the Alexandrian Greek version (Septuagint), and there is no reason to doubt that they were translated at as early a date as the Gospels and Epistles, if not indeed before them. Portions of the Old Testament exist in each Egyptian dialect. The two main dialects, Sahidic and Bohairic, are the most important for the study of early versions of the New Testament.

In Sahidic, some Biblical books survived with complete text, as well as a large number of extant fragments representing most of the canonical and some of the deutero-canonical books.

The Constantine Bible: In about 330 AD, Emperor Constantine the Great (full name: Flavius Valerius Constantinus [280-337 AD] commissioned 50 Bibles for the Church of Constantinople, and his right-hand man Eusebius of Caesarea had to deliver them. According to Eusebius, Constantine wrote him in his letter: "J have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the sacred Scriptures, the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church, to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient, portable form, by professional transcribers thoroughly practised in their art."

Eusebius wrote in his biography on Flavius Constantinus "Life of Constatine": "Such were the emperor's commands, which were followed by the immediate execution of the work itself, which we sent him in magnificent and elaborately bound volumes ofa threefold and fourfold form (written in 3 or 4 columns)."

We know exactly were this commission went to and why. It was Athanasius of Alexandria who referred to the emperor's request of producing Bible manuscripts: "I sent to him volumes containing the holy Scriptures, which he had ordered me to prepare for him." Athanasius recorded this. The commission went to Alexandria because this was the spot where the Septuagint was produced. Alexandria had traditionally the most and the best Jewish and Christian scribes in the Mediterranian.

It has been speculated who decided on the final canon lists. There are not so many possibilities. Constantine was not interested in those matters. That leaves two decision-makers who - like in the letters above - coordinated their action: Eusebius of Caesarea and Athanasius of Alexandria. Both had strong motivation to force all Church members into line. As for the Old Testament, they decided to take the document that was already in place for more than 500 years: the Septuangint. And the New Testament canon was decided on those books that were already in circulation in Rome and Contantinople. All other non-canonical versions had to be destroyed. But miraculously - like the Dead Sea Scrolls - they have survived. They have been found in a cave near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945.

Two volumes of Constantine's Bibles have been found too. One is known as 'Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209,’ a volume written in 3 columns and which has been kept in the Vatican since 1209 AD, at least. The other one, a 4-column version was discovered in the years 1844 to 1856 by Constantin von Tischendorfin the St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, Egypt, and is now known as Codex Sinaiticus (See images on p. 1243 and p. 1244). Both volumes are almost complete, after 17 centuries! The New Testament had even two more

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books than we can find in modern Bibles: The Shepherd (pastor) of Hermas and the Letter of Barnabas.

The Codex Alexandrinus and other uncial examples (Bibles written with capital letters; lower case letters were invented at c. 800 AD) are productions made some decades later.

4th century AD: The Gothic Bible or Wulfila Bible is the Christian Bible in the Gothic language spoken by the Eastern Germanic (Gothic) tribes in the 4th century AD. Their language was very similar to Old High German.

During the third century AD, the Goths, who came from southern Sweden, lived on the northeast border of the Roman Empire, in what is now Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania. During the fourth century, the Goths were converted to Christianity, largely through the efforts of the Arian bishop and missionary Wulfila (or Ulfilas), who is believed to have invented the Gothic alphabet. It was developed in the 4th century AD by Wulfila, a Gothic preacher of Cappadocian Greek descent, for the purpose of translating the Bible. The alphabet essentially uses uncial forms of the Greek alphabet, with a few additional letters to express typical Gothic phonology. Based on analysing the linguistic properties of the Gothic text, we now know that Wulfila made the translation with the assistance of a team of scholars.

During the fifth century, the Goths conquered parts of the Western Roman Empire, including Italy, southern France, and Spain. Gothic Christianity reigned in these areas for two centuries, before the re-establishment of the Catholic Church, and, in Spain, until the mass Gothic conversion to Catholicism in 589, after the Third Council of Toledo.

Portions of this translation survive, affording the main surviving text written in the Gothic language. The Wulfila Bible, although fragmentary, is the only extensive document in an ancient East Germanic language and one of the earliest documents in any Germanic language. Since the other East Germanic texts are of very limited extent, except maybe Skeireins, it is of great significance for the study of these languages.

Gothic Text of The Lord's Prayer in Latin transliteration, Wulfila Bible, 4th century AD: Atta unsar pu in himinam,

Weihnai namo pein.

Qimai piudinassus peins.

Wairbai wilja peins.

Swe in himina jah ana airpai.

Hlaif unsarana pana sinteinan gif uns himma daga. Jah aflet uns patei skulans sijaima,

Swaswe jah weis afletam paim skulam unsaraim. Jah ni briggais uns in fraistubnjai,

Ak lausei uns af bamma ubilin;

Unte beina ist piudangardi.

Jah mahts jah wulbus in aiwins.

Amen.

The Vetus Latina: Vetus Latina (meaning: the "Old Latin"), also known as Vetus Itala ("Old Italian"), Itala ("Italian") and Old Italic, is the collective name given to the Latin translations of biblical texts (both Old Testament and New Testament) that preceded the Vulgate (the Latin translation produced by Jerome in the late 4th century). The Vetus Latina manuscripts that are preserved today are dated from AD 350 to the 13th century.

The Vetus Latina translations continued to be used alongside the Vulgate, but eventually the Vulgate became the standard Latin Bible used by the Catholic Church, especially after the Council of Trent (1545-1563) affirmed the Vulgate translation as authoritative for the text of Catholic Bibles. However, the Vetus Latina texts survive in some parts of the liturgy (e.g., the Pater Noster).

There is no single "Vetus Latina Bible". Instead, Vetus Latina is a collection of biblical manuscript texts that are Latin translations of Septuagint and New Testament passages that preceded Jerome's Vulgate.

Old Testament - Some of the oldest surviving Vetus Latina versions of the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh) include the Quedlinburg Itala fragment, a 5th-century manuscript containing parts of | Samuel, and the Codex Complutensis I, a 10th-century manuscript containing Old Latin readings of the Book of Ruth, Book of Esther, Book of Tobit, Book of Judith, and 1-2 Maccabees.

New Testament - After comparing readings for Luke 24:4— 5 in Vetus Latina manuscripts, Bruce Metzger counted "at least 27 variant readings in Vetus Latina manuscripts that have survived" for this passage alone.

Replacement: When Jerome undertook the revision of Latin translations of Old Testament texts in the late 4th century, he checked the Septuagint and Vetus Latina translations against the Hebrew texts that were then available. He broke with church tradition and translated most of the Old Testament of his Vulgate from Hebrew sources rather than from the Greek Septuagint. His choice was severely criticised by Augustine, his contemporary; a flood of still less moderate criticism came from those who regarded Jerome as a forger. While on the one hand he argued for the superiority of the Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds, on the other, in the context of accusations of heresy against him, Jerome would acknowledge the Septuagint texts as well.

Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 405. Latin translations predating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Jerome began by revising these earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to the original Greek, bypassing all translations, and going back to the original Hebrew wherever he could instead of the Septuagint.

There are also several ancient translations, most important of which are in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (including the Peshitta).

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The Bible Canon in Ethiopia and Eritrea: Between the 4th to 6th centuries, the Bible was translated into Ge'ez (Ethiopic). Jewish and Christian traditions in Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and Eritrea are among the oldest. Probably in connexion with king Solomon and the queen of Sheba, the Hebrews turned up in Ethiopia already in the 8th or even the 9th century BC. They built a ‘Jerusalem Temple' in Yeha, Tigray, which in still standing today as it has just been restored by Dr Iris Gerlach from the German Archaeological Institute. The Beta Israel-Jews lived in Ethiopia until they were rescued from Communist persecution by Israel's Armed Forces between 1979 and 1990.

The Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon is a version of the Christian Bible used in the two Oriental Orthodox Churches of the Ethiopian and Eritrean traditions: the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. At 81 books, it is the largest and most diverse biblical canon in traditional Christendom. Western scholars have classified the books of the canon into two categories — the narrower canon, which consists mostly of books familiar to the West, and the broader canon, which includes nine additional books:

Old Testament:

* Josippon (Ethiopic Josephus; 1 book)

New Testament:

* Sinodos (4 books)

* Book of Covenant (2 books)

¢ Ethiopic Clement (1 book)

* Didascalia (Church Law; | book) Furthermore:

¢ 1,2, and 3 Meqabyan (are Ethiopic creations) Other Books that can appear in some Bibles: * Fetha Negest, The Law of Kings

* Book of the Cock, a Ge'ez passion gospel of Jesus

The Book of the Cock is a Ge‘ez narrative of the passion of Jesus (a passion gospel). It is likely based on a vorlage (an earlier version) in Arabic or Greek. It was probably written in the 400s or 500s. It uses material from the four gospels (Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John) and various other sources.

The Vulgate: The Vulgate (also called Biblia Vulgata (the common language Bible), Latin: sometimes referred to as the Latin Vulgate, is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.

The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome (Full name: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; c. 342-420 AD) who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina Gospels used by the Roman Church. Later, on his own initiative, Jerome extended this work of revision and translation to include most of the books of the Bible. The Vulgate became progressively adopted as the Bible text within the Western Church. Over succeeding centuries, it eventually eclipsed the Vetus Latina. By the 13th century it had taken over from the former version the designation

versio vulgata (the "version commonly used") or vulgata for short. The Vulgate also contains some Vetus Latina translations that Jerome did not work on.

The Vulgate was to become the Catholic Church's officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible as the Sixtine Vulgate (1590), then as the Clementine Vulgate (1592), and then as the Nova Vulgata (1979). The Vulgate is still currently used in the Latin Church. The Catholic Church affirmed the Vulgate as its official Latin Bible at the Council of Trent (1545-1563), though there was no authoritative edition at that time.[2] The Clementine edition of the Vulgate became the standard Bible text of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, and remained so until 1979 when the Nova Vulgata was promulgated.

Terminology: The term "Vulgate" is used to designate the Latin Bible only since the 16th century. An example of the use of this word in this sense at the time is the title of the 1538 edition of the Latin Bible by Erasmus: Biblia utriusque testamenti juxta vulgatam translationem.

Authorship: The Vulgate has a compound text that is not entirely Jerome's work. Jerome's translation of the four Gospels are revisions of Vetus Latina translations he did while having the Greek as reference.

The Latin translations of the rest of the New Testament are revisions to the Vetus Latina, considered as being made by Pelagian circles or by Rufinus the Syrian, or by Rufinus of Aquileia. Several unrevised books of the Vetus Latina Old Testament also commonly became included in the Vulgate. These are: 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah.

Having separately translated the book of Psalms from the Greek Hexapla Septuagint, Jerome translated all of the books of the Jewish Bible—the Hebrew book of Psalms included—from Hebrew himself. He also translated the books of Tobit and Judith from Aramaic versions, the additions to the Book of Esther from the Common Septuagint and the additions to the Book of Daniel from the Greek of Theodotion.

In the 5th century, Saint Mesrob translated the Bible using the Armenian alphabet invented by him. Also dating from the same period is the Georgian translation.

In the 6th century, the Bible was translated into Old Nubian.

By the end of the 8th century, Church of the East monasteries (so-called Nestorians) had translated the New Testament and Psalms (at least, the portions needed for liturgical use) from Syriac-Aramaic to Sogdian, the lingua franca in Central Asia of the Silk Road, which was an Eastern Iranian language with Chinese loanwords, written in letters and logograms derived from Aramaic script.

Translation into Armenian

The Armenian version is an expression of a nationalist movement that brought about a separation from the rest of the Church (mid-5th century), the discontinuance of Syriac

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in Greek worship, and the invention of a national alphabet by St. Mesrob, also called Mashtots (c. 361-439/440). According to tradition, St. Mesrob first translated Proverbs from the Syriac. Existing manuscripts of the official Armenian recension, however, are based on the Hexaplaric Septuagint, though they show some Peshitta (Syriac version) influence. The Armenian Bible is noted for its beauty and accuracy.

Translation into Georgian

According to Armenian tradition, the Georgian version was also the work of Mesrob, but the Psalter, the oldest part of the Georgian Old Testament, is probably not earlier than the Sth century. Some manuscripts were based upon Greek versions, others upon the Armenian.

MIDDLE AGES

Early Middle Ages: When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they wrote notes on the margins of the page (marginal glosses) to correct their text—especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about the text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. See textual criticism. Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions, additions, and variants (mostly in orthography).

There are some fragmentary Old English Bible translations, notably a lost translation of the Gospel of John into Old English by the Venerable Bede, which is said to have been prepared shortly before his death around the year 735. An Old High German version of the gospel of Matthew dates to 748. Charlemagne in c. 800 charged Alcuin with a revision of the Latin Vulgate. The translation into Old Church Slavonic was started in 863 by Cyril and Methodius.

Alfred the Great, a ruler in England, had a number of passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular (language of the common people) in around 900. These included passages from the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch, which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. In approximately 990, a full and freestanding version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Old English appeared, in the West Saxon dialect; these are called the Wessex Gospels. Around the same time, a compilation now called the Old English Hexateuch appeared with the first six (or, in one version, seven) books of the Old Testament.

Translation into Arabic

There is no reliable evidence of any pre-Islamic Arabic translation. Only when large Jewish and Christian communities found themselves under Muslim rule after the Arab conquests of the 7th century did the need for an Arabic vernacular Scripture arise. The first and most important was that of Sa‘adia ben Joseph (892—942), made directly from Hebrew and written in Hebrew script, which became the standard version for all Jews in Muslim countries. The

version also exercised its influence upon Egyptian Christians and its rendering of the Pentateuch was adapted by Abi al- Hasan to the Samaritan Torah in the 11th—12th centuries. Another Samaritan Arabic version of the Pentateuch was made by Abt Sa‘td (Abi al-Barakat) in the 13th century. Among other translations from the Hebrew, that of the 10th-century Karaite Yaphith ibn ‘Ali is the most noteworthy.

In 946 a Spanish Christian of Cordova, Isaac son of Velasquez, made a version of the Gospels from Latin. Manuscripts of 16th-century Arabic translations of both testaments exist in Leningrad, and both the Paris and London polyglots of the 17th century included Arabic versions. In general, the Arabic manuscripts reveal a bewildering variety of renderings dependent on Hebrew, Greek, Samaritan, Syriac, Coptic, and Latin translations. As such they have no value for critical studies. Several modern Arabic translations by both Protestants and Catholics were made in the 19th and 20th centuries.

High Middle Ages: The provincial synods of Toulouse (1229) and Tarragona (1234) outlawed possession of some vernacular renderings, in reaction to the Cathar and Waldensian heresies, in South France and East Spain. There is evidence of some vernacular translations being permitted while others were being scrutinized.

The complete Bible was translated into Old French in the late 13th century. Parts of this translation were included in editions of the popular Bible historiale, and there is no evidence of this translation being suppressed by the Church.[18] The entire Bible was translated into Czech around 1360.

Late Middle Ages: During the Late Middle Ages, translation, particularly of the Old Testament was discouraged in some regions. Translating the Bible carried the death penalty, the clergy knew exactly that they would lose power over the populace if everyone could read the Bible just for themselves.

The Black Death, a pandemic that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, ushered in an enormous paradigm shift. By killing roughly half of the population, it was taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war did before. As the pandemic affected high- dense populations with their well-educated elite, the Church faced a total collapse. There were not many clercs still alive who could read and teach a Bible that was written in a foreign tongue, Latin or Greek. John Wycliffe, an educated eyewitness, understood that the Bible, the most important lawbook of the time, had to be translated into the language of the common people, if Christianity was to survive.

In England, a group of Middle English Bible translations were created: including the Wycliffe Bibles (1383, 1393) and the Paues New Testament, based on the Vulgate. New unauthorised translations were banned in England by the provincial Oxford Synod in 1408 under church law;

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possession of material that contained Lollard material (such as the so-called General Prologue found in a few Wycliffite Bibles) was also illegal by English state law, in response to Lollard uprisings.

The Hungarian Hussite Bible appeared in 1416. In 1478, a Catalan translation was made in the dialect of Valencia.

Many parts of the Bible were printed by William Caxton in his translation of the Golden Legend (1483), and in the loose paraphrase Speculum Vitae Christi (The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ), which had been authorized into English around 1410.

The Gutenberg Bibles: There were recurrences of the plague in 1361-63, 1369-71, 1374-75, 1390, and 1400. People became fully aware of their vulnerability and an evil death cult arose. The population of western Europe did not again reach its pre-1348 level until the beginning of the 16th century. In this kind of zeitgeist, a man made a systematic invention that took him about 10 years to perfectionate: In 1455, Johannes Gutenberg and his printing press presented to the public the result of his work and it caused a revolution that changed the civilisations of the whole planet.

The Gutenberg Bible was the first complete book extant in the West and the earliest printed from movable type, so called after its printer, Johannes Gutenberg (1390s-1468), who completed it about 1455 working at Mainz, Germany. The three-volume work, in Latin text, was printed in 42-line columns and, in its later stages of production, was worked on by a small assembly line of six compositors who worked simultaneously. The original number of copies of this work is unknown; some 40 are still in existence. There are perfect vellum copies in the U.S. Library of Congress, the French Bibliotheque Nationale, and the British Library. In the United States almost-complete texts are in the Huntington, Morgan, New York Public, Harvard University, and Yale University libraries. The quantity but in particular the quality of those printed Bibles went far beyond anything a single scibe could produce. The surviving Gutenberg Bibles show their superior quality still today.

German craftsman and inventor who originated a method of printing from movable type that was used without important change until the 20th century. The unique elements of his invention consisted of a mold, with punch- stamped matrices (metal prisms used to mold the face of the type) with which type could be cast precisely and in large quantities; a type-metal alloy; a new press, derived from those used in wine making, papermaking, and bookbinding; and an oil-based printing ink. None of these features existed in Asian or European printing.

For completing one single bible by hand, a scribe needed roughly 4 years. One just imagine for a moment, what kind of salary such a well-educated person would get nowadays. Gutenberg could reduce that laboursome work to a few weeks. With his invention, Gutenberg made education affordable. The age of handwritten books ended, the Renaissance began to free people from ignorance.

APPROACHES TO TRANSLATION

Modern translations take different approaches to the rendering of the original languages of approaches. The approaches can usually be considered to be somewhere on a scale between the two extremes:

¢ Formal equivalence (sometimes called literal translation) in which the greatest effort is made to preserve the meaning of individual words and phrases in the original, with relatively less regard for its understandability by modern readers. Examples include the King James Version, English Standard Version, Literal Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version and New American Standard Bible.

¢ Dynamic equivalence (or functional equivalence, sometimes paraphrastic translation) in which the translator attempts to render the sense and intent of the original. Examples include The Living Bible and The Message.

Some translations have been motivated by a strong theological distinctive. In the Sacred Name Bibles the conviction that God's name be preserved in a Semitic form is followed. The Purified Translation of the Bible promotes the idea that Jesus and early Christians drink grape juice not wine. The Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures renders the tetragrammaton as Jehovah throughout the Old Testament, and it uses the form Jehovah in the New Testament including — but not limited to — passages quoting the Old Testament even though it does not appear in the Greek text.

Single source translations

While most translations attempt to synthesize the various texts in the original languages, some translations also translate one specific textual source, generally for scholarly reasons. A single volume example for the Old Testament is The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (ISBN 0-06-060064-0) by Martin Abegg, Peter Flint and Eugene Ulrich.

The Comprehensive New Testament (ISBN 978-0- 9778737-1-5) by T. E. Clontz and J. Clontz presents a scholarly view of the New Testament text by conforming to the Nestle-Aland 27th edition and extensively annotating the translation to fully explain different textual sources and possible alternative translations.[16][17]

A Comparative Psalter (ISBN 0-19-529760-1) edited by John Kohlenberger presents a comparative diglot translation of the Psalms of the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint, using the Revised Standard Version and the New English Translation of the Septuagint.

R. A. Knox's Translation of the Vulgate into English is another example of a single source translation.

Deliberate changes

Apart from mechanical alterations of a text, many variants must have been consciously introduced by scribes, some by way of glossing—i.e., the insertion of a more common word to explain a rare one—and others by explanatory comments incorporated into the text. Furthermore, a scribe who had

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before him two manuscripts of a single work containing variant readings, and unable to decide between them, might incorporate both readings into his scroll and thus create a conflate text.

Textual criticism: scholarly problems

The situation so far described poses two major scholarly problems. The first involves the history of the Hebrew text, the second deals with attempts to reconstruct its “original” form.

As to when and how a single text type gained hegemony and then displaced all others, it is clear that the early and widespread public reading of the Scriptures in the synagogues of Palestine, Alexandria, and Babylon was bound to lead to a heightened sensitivity of the idea of a “correct” text and to give prestige to the particular text form selected for reading. Also, the natural conservatism of ritual would tend to perpetuate the form of such a text. The Letter of Aristeas, a document derived from the middle of the 2nd century BCE that describes the origin of the Septuagint, recognizes the distinction between carelessly copied scrolls of the Pentateuch and an authoritative Temple scroll in the hands of the high priest in Jerusalem. The Rabbinic traditions (see above) about the textual criticism of Temple- based scribes actually reflect a movement towards the final stabilization of the text in the Second Temple period. Josephus, writing not long after 70 CE, boasts of the existence of a long-standing fixed text of the Jewish Scriptures. The loss of national independence and the destruction of the spiritual centre of Jewry in 70, accompanied by an ever-widening Diaspora and the Christian schism within Judaism, all made the exclusive dissemination of a single authoritative text a vitally needed cohesive force. The text type later known as Masoretic is already well represented at pre-Christian Qumran. Scrolls from Wadi al-Murabba‘at, Nahal Ze’elim, and Masada from the 2nd century CE are practically identical with the received text that by then had gained victory over all its rivals.

In regard to an attempt to recover the original text of a biblical passage—especially an unintelligible one—in the light of variants among different versions and manuscripts and known causes of corruption, it should be understood that all reconstruction must necessarily be conjectural and perforce tentative because of the irretrievable loss of the original edition. But not all textual difficulties need presuppose underlying mutilation. The Hebrew Bible represents but a small portion of the literature of ancient Israel and, hence, a limited segment of the language. A textual problem may be the product of present limited knowledge of ancient Hebrew, because scholars might be dealing with dialectic phenomena or foreign loan-words. Comparative Semitic linguistic studies have yielded hitherto unrecognized features of grammar, syntax, and lexicography that have often eliminated the need for emendation. Furthermore, each version, indeed each biblical book within

it, has its own history, and the translation techniques and stylistic characteristics must be examined and taken into account. Finally, the number of manuscripts that attest to a certain reading is of less importance than the weight given to a specific manuscript.

None of this means that a Hebrew manuscript, an ancient version, or a conjectural emendation cannot yield a reading superior to that in the received Hebrew text. It does mean, however, that these tools have to be employed with great caution and proper methodology.

Names of Persons

(In ancient times, a name was not only used to identify a person, it had in most cases a very particular meaning. Like in nicknames, a name could be used to describe someone as in 'Thomas' which simply meant 'twin'. According to the motto ‘name is programme’, names were also used to fulfill a certain expectation such as in 'Caesar' which became a title because of the extraordinary deeds of Julius Caesar.)

Semitic patronym or patronymic suffix (bar, ben, etc.)

* bar, ben, bin = A Semitic patronym, a component of a personal name meaning "son of".

¢ bar- or bat- (Aramaic: "son of" and "daughter of", respectively).

¢ ben- or bat- (Hebrew: "son of" and "daughter of", respectively).

* ben- (bin, ibn, or ibni, ibnu) or bint, (Arabic: "son of" and "daughter of", respectively).

* beni, bani, banu = plural of the word ben-, bin-, ibn, which means "sons (and daughters) of", "people of", "children of", "House of" as in "Beni Israel", Hebrew: "B'nei Yisrael" or "Bene Israel"; Arabic: "Beni Israel", "Banu Koreish", "Beni Hashim" etc.

* bet, bit, beta, bita, pl. batte - (Assyrian, Hebrew: house, dynasty, clan); Beta Israel means 'House of Israel’ denoting the jews of Ethiopia

* mose (Egyptian: son of); equivalent to Hebrew ben, Aramaic bar, etc. Mose (Greek: Moses), Ahmose, Dedimose, Ramose (Ramesses, Ramses), Thutmose, etc.

¢ "Son of Man" = a typological phrase, Hebrew: Ben Adam or Benodom, meaning "the first human":

1. Old Testament: The Hebrew expression "son of man" (ben-adam) also appears over 100 times in the Hebrew Bible. In 32 cases, the phrase appears in its plural form "sons of men", i.e. human beings. The use of "the Son of man" in the Christian gospels is unrelated to Hebrew Torah usages as the use of the definite article in "the Son of man" is a new thing. There is no example of "the" son of man in Hebrew sources. The term originates in (the people's language) Aramaic bar nash / bar nasha. In these sources "son of man" is a regular expression for "man / human" in general and often serves as an indefinite pronoun and in none of the extant texts does "son of man" figure as a title.

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

2. New Testament: The expression "the Son of man" appears 81 times in the Greek text of the four Gospels: 30 times in Matthew, 14 times in Mark, 25 times in Luke and 12 times in John. The use of the definite article in "the Son of man" in the Greek text of the Christian gospels is original, and before its use there, no records of its use in any of the surviving Greek documents of antiquity exist.

¢ "Son of God" = title. Jesus is by many regarded as "the Son of God." In the first 4 centuries of Christianity, this title was by no means a clear-cut decision. Dozens of different church denominations squabbled about Jesus’ status for centuries, they fought battles over it and persecuted people who had a different opinion. It was a deadly business. The Bible says nothing about such title. How did the idea of giving Jesus this title come about?

Throughout history, emperors and rulers ranging from the Western Zhou dynasty (c. 1000 BC) in China to Alexander the Great (c. 360 BC) to the Emperor of Japan (c. 600 AD) have assumed titles that reflect a filial relationship with deities. The story of Jesus’ title "son of God" begins with the Roman emperors.

Background: In 42 BC, Julius Caesar was (by the Senate of Rome) formally deified as "the divine Julius" (divus Julius) after his assassination. His adopted son, Octavian (better known as Augustus, a title given to him 15 years later, in 27 BC) thus became known as divi Tuli filius (son of the divine Julius) or simply divi filius (son of the god). As a daring and unprecedented move, Augustus used this title to advance his political position in the Second Triumvirate, finally overcoming all rivals for power within the Roman state. The word applied to Julius Caesar as deified was "divus", not the distinct word "deus". Thus Augustus called himself Divi filius, and not Dei filius. The line between been god and god- like was at times less than clear to the population at large, and Augustus seems to have been aware of the necessity of keeping the ambiguity. After him, Tiberius (emperor from 14—37 AD) came to be accepted as the son of divus Augustus. This title became a tradition which we can see on many Roman coins ever since.

About 100 years after Julius Caesar, when Titus Flavius Vespasianus, better known as "Vespasian", became emperor, this phrase reached its climax of use as he saved the Roman Empire from total disaster by defeating the Jewish Messianic Movement. By everyone, he was seen as the 'saviour of the Empire’. When he died, his son (with the same name) Titus Flavius Vespasianus, known as "Titus" claimed deity status for his father. As this has been granted by the Senate, Titus became 'the Son of God'. And when Titus died, his younger brother Titus Flavius Domitianus was being called "dominus et deus" (master and god).

As Christianity (created by the Roman citizen Saul / Paul of Tarsus) was a Roman religion, this title was taken for Paul's fictional Jesus as well. The people, who knew the real person called Jesus, were appalled. They believed in the Ten Commandments of Moses in which is stated: Thou shalt have

no other God beside me! - early Judaism and early Christianity broke into several factions upon this dispute.

Name Corruptions and Misleadings

Name corruption, or the distortion of names, is a feature common in English but not confined to it as we find that feature also to a lesser extant in other languages. Basically, we are talking here about abbreviation, a contraction or otherwise shortened form of the original name. The development of a word corruption can go so far that the original is linguistically unrecognisable. In religious texts it often is created in order to steer the reader away from facts that might be or could contain an uncomfortable truth that contradicts a preveiling doctrine of a religion.

Typical examples of name corruption include personal names such as Pliny, Livy, Ptolemy, Pompey, Antony, Jesus, Joses, James, Jude, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Mary, Marc Aurel, and many others. Pliny stands for the Roman-Latin original Plinius, Livy for Livius, Ptolemy for Ptolemaios, Pompey for Gnaeus Pompeius, Antony for Marcus Antonius; Jesus (Greek: Iesous) for Joshua (or Yoshua, Yeshua, Yeshu, or the Hebrew-Aramaic original Yehoshua), Joses for Joseph (or another form of Jesus), James for Jacob (or Yacob), Jude for Judas, (or Yehuda, Judeas, Taddeus, Thaddeus), Matthew for Matheus (or Matthias, Mattathias, or the original Matityahu), Mark for Marcus, Luke for Lucius, John for Johannes (or Ioannes, Yonah, Jonah, Yohanan), Mary for Maria (or Mariam, Maryam), Marc Aurel for Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

"Misleadings" or extreme simplifications via translation (often deliberate) are names such as Barabbas, Eliazar, Elymas, Jesus of Nazareth, James the Less, James the brother of the Lord, James the son of Mary, James the son of Zebedee or James the son of Alphaeus. Someone who has not studied linguistics has almost no chance to unravel the labyrinth of name-giving in antiquity. But in order to understand scripture one has to do exactly that.

Personal names in Semitic languages (such as Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic) were historically based on a long naming system; most Semites did not have given / middle / family names, but a full chain of names. We find this system still in Arabic. Let us examine some examples for clarification: The most common form is the "patronym" which is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (i.e., an avonym), or an earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a "matronym”. Each is a means of conveying lineage, pretty much like in the Scandinavian name Robinson which just means "Son of Robin". Jews have historically used Aramaic patronymic names and after the Third Jewish-Roman War (132-136 A.D.) they also used Hebrew names.

¢ In Aramaic, the first name was followed by bar- or bat- ("son of" and "daughter of", respectively). In the New Testament, Simon Peter is called Shimon Bar-Yonah (Matthew 16:17) which means "son of John" or "son of

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

Yohanan" to be precise. Nathanael is called Bartholomew, refering to the "son of Tolmai" (Hebrew form of the original Greek: Ptolemaios, Latin: Ptolemaeus, English: Ptolemy, with the unspeakable "P" removed from it). The titles can also be figurative, for example in Acts 4:36-37 a man named Joseph is called Barnabas meaning "son of consolation”. Aramaic was an international language that had spread from Palestine to north-western India already around 500 BC.

¢ In the Hebrew patronymic system the first name is followed by either ben- or bat- ("son of" and "daughter of", respectively), and then the father's name, mother's name, or both. Hebrew was a regional language confined mostly to religious texts.

¢ In Arabic, the word ibn (or bin, ben and sometimes ibni and ibnu, to show the grammatical case of the noun) is the equivalent for "son of". Thus, for example, "Ishaq ibn Musa" means "Isaac son of Moses". In addition, bint means "daughter of". In Classical Arabic, the word ibn is written as bn between two names, since the case ending of the first name then supplies a vowel. Consequently, ibn is often written as "b.", as bint is often written as "bt.", in name formulas rendered from Arabic into Roman characters. Thus "Ishaq ibn Musa" is alternatively written as "Ishaq b. Musa”. Instead of "son of" The word "Abu" (or "Aba" or "Abi") can stand before a name and then means "father of", so "Abu Musa" is the "father of Moses". Arabic, in antiquity known as Edumean or Edomite, was a regional language around Petra, Jordan and northern Arabia.

If we take a closer look at the Bible, we can find plenty of such name constructions. The full name of Barabbas, for instance, was Jesus (or Yoshua, Yeshua, Yeshu, Yehoshua) bar Abbas which means nothing else but "Jesus the son of the father", Eliazar was a soubriquet for Jesus and means "God has helped". It is the same connotation for Jesus' original name Yehoshua which means "God (or YHWH, Yahweh, Jahwe) rescues" or "God is salvation" or more clearly "the Saviour or Helper from God". It is a name as well as a title!

And so is "Jesus of Nazareth" (or "Iesus Nazarini" or "Jesus the Nazarene" or "Jesus the Nazorean") just a title and it means "the Saviour who is the Keeper of the Law (or Covenant)". The title which is in English very imprecisely rendered to "of Nazareth" has at least 11 distinct variations: Nazarene: Nazarene (Mark 1:24, Luke 4:34); Nazarenon (Mark 16:6); Nazarenos (Mark 10:47); Nazarenou (Mark 14:67, Luke 24:19); Nazorean: Nazoraios (Matthew 2:23, Luke 18:37, John 19:19 Acts 6:14, 22:8); Nazoraiou Matthew 26:71, Acts 3:6, Acts 4:10, Acts 26:9; Nazoraion

Acts 24:5, Nazoraion (John 18:5, 18:7, Acts 2:22); Nazareth:

Nazareth (Matthew 21:11, Luke 1:26, 2:4, 2:39, 2:51, Acts 10:38), Nazara (Matthew 4:13, Luke 4:16), Nazaret (Mark 1:9, Matthew 2:23, John 1:45, 1:46)

The title "Nazarene" as "Keeper of the Covenant" may well have a religious significance instead of denoting a place of origin. And there can be no doubt, this is exactly what Jesus did. He and most of his close family members were strict followers of "Moses' Law", the Covenant, and that is why

Jesus had clashes with Greacofied and Romanised representatives of the Temple in Jerusalem. He found himself in a situation comparable to that of Martin Luther 1500 years later. It is a matter of course that the name "Jesus Christ" is also a title, a double title which we could nicely translate to "Saviour Messiah" as Christ comes from the Greek word Kristos for Messiah. In many cases, a name can reveal the truth about something or someone better than the entire narrative. A name can be a programme or promise. For instance the extra name "Caesar" in Caesar Tiberius bears the message "I will fullfil the political programme of Julius Caesar". And when we see the entire name "Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti filius Augustus" it is much easier to understand how the bearer of that name perceives himself: "I am Tiberius, son of Augustus, who was the son of the divine Caesar". In other words: "I will act according to laws and legacy of Caesar and Augustus". The Flavian Dynasty had a similar effect on successors. Titus Flavius Vespasianus (the father, called "Vespasian" in English) helped creating Christianity as a Roman religion. And about 200 years later, another man made Christianity the official religion of the entire Roman Empire and he emphasised his plans by taking "Flavius" as family name: Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus better known as Constantine I. or Constantine the Great. His father Marcus Flavius Valerius Constantius Herculius Augustus took this name for he was fighting the very same kind of military campaign against the Celts (Picts) in Scotland as Flavius Vespasianus did. Both conflicts had to do with destroying an unruly religion for a new, more peaceful one.

If there was ever a place called Nazareth is still a matter of debate. Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160-240 A.D.) was the first who reported the name Nazareth in the 3rd century A.D. Let us assume that Jesus lived in Nazareth, then it would have severe implications on the official Church doctrines as well: Theologian and other scholars are quite certain that Jesus' language was Aramaic. We know that Aramaic was a quasi official language for trade that was spoken in the vast area from the Holy Land to Western India. Nazareth was only 3.7 miles (6 km) southeast of the City of Sepphoris which was on the other side of a hill. Sepphoris with its 30,000 to 50,000 inhabitants was not only the provicial capital but also an important station of the Silk Road from which were northbound Roads leading to Greece and the Roman Empire as well as southbound Roads to Egypt and Ethiopia. There is a high likelihood that Jesus, his father, and other family members could have worked there as this Roman city was the largest employer in the region. Some of the very buildings we still can see in Sepphoris may have been built by Jesus and his family. They had to walk only one hour and they most certainly could have met numerous Buddhist monks and Zoroastrian missionaries from Persia. Jesus could have, exchanged religious ideas with them and learned lots about different beliefs without using any interpreter. So is it really a surprise that the teachings of Jesus contain plenty of Buddhist and Zoroastrian philosophies? It is quite

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

remarkable that Sepphoris and most of Galilee did not take part in the Jewish-Roman War. Sepphoris declared herself

"Eirenopolis" (City of Peace) as a coin minted at that time (c.

65 A.D.) clearly tells us.

When we read the New Testament with the highest possible conscienceness, we can discover almost two dozen members of Jesus’ family. Elymas is one of them. He is also known as Bar- Jesus (Greek: Bariesou, Latin: Bariesu), a Jew in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 13. Bar Iesou means "Son of Joshua" or "Son of Jesus" in Aramaic.

There is James the Less who is none other than James the brother of the Lord, James the son of Mary, James the son of Alphaeus, and probably James the son of Zebedee. All of them are likely to refer to James the brother of Jesus.

Joseph the "carpenter" was Jesus father but no carpenter. Instead of "carpenter", in the Greek original we find the word "tekton" which means "builder", "mason", or "architect" (arch-builder). This is also a very suitable term for someone who builds a book or a family.

There were two men named Alphaeus which is also a synonym for "the first one" like in "Alphabet"; or Adam which means "the (first) man". One of them was the father of the apostle James and the other the father of Matthew (also called Levi, meaning "joined to" or "joining"; Levi, according to the Book of Genesis, was the third son of Yacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi). Though both Matthew and James are described as being the "son of Alphaeus,” there is no Biblical account of the two being called brothers, even in the same context where John and James or Peter and Andrew are described as being brothers.

Another important person is Matthew, or to be precise, Joseph (Yosef or Yosip or Yosippon) the son of Matthew (Yosef bar Matityahu). This is a historical person we all know under the name Titius Flavius Josephus the historian, adoptive son to Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus (the father), adoptive brother to Titus Flavius Vespasianus (the son), Titus Flavius Domitianus, and Flavia Domitilla Minor (also called Flavia Domitilla the Younger) who was mother of Flavia Domitilla the Christian saint. She married her cousin, the consul Titus Flavius Clemens, a grand-nephew of Vespasian through his father Titus Flavius Sabinus (consul AD 69). According to Cassius Dio, Clemens was put to death per order of Titus Flavius Domitianus on a charge of "atheism" (apostacy, that is rejecting the traditional Roman gods), for which, he adds, many others who went over to the Jewish opinions were executed. This may imply that Clemens had converted to Judaism or Christianity. It is no surprise that the name Titus Flavius Clemens turned up elsewhere as Pope Clemens I (real name: Titus Flavius Clemens) who died at about the same time at the very end of the Ist century A.D. The entire Flavian family became engulfed in a religious struggle between Roman traditions and the new, probably by Flavius Josephus, created or at least promoted, Christian movement which left a deep rift inside the Flavian family; the Roman citizen Saul of Tarsos, better known as Paul the

Apostle, might have played an important part here. At around the years 63 or 64, both, Josephus and Paul, were in Rome. Did they meet there? What were they doing there? Both have been in Roman service of some sort.

An interesting question here might be: Was Yosef bar Matityahu the son of Matityahu (Matthew) the Apostle? - And might he have been the author of the famous Gospel of Matthew? The first part of that question is unanswerable. But the second part shifts Flavius Josephus' authorship clearly into an area of possibility. Due to the distruction of the Great Temple in Jerusalem, the Romans did not only carry loot made of gold to Rome but also the most valuable items of them all: the original Jewish scripture from the Temple Library! They all were brought to Rome, directly into the palace of the new emperor Flavius Vespasianus. Flavius Josephus took residence in that palace. He lived next door to the emperor as well as next door to the Flavian Library with the valuable scripture.

In fact, Josephus was made Chief Propagandist of the Flavian dynasty. And he ruthlessly took revenge on the Messianic Movement who had taken his family hostage at the beginning of the war and had killed them when they heard that he was captured alive by the Flavians. We even can see, through all the scripture that came to us as well as those ones that were not supposed to survive (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls), what Josephus personal objective might have been.

His first objective, as a Jew, was to keep the Tanakh with its Torah untouched. Objective number 2 was to reform the Jewish Law Code, the Mishnah Sanhedrin. Objective number 3 was destroying the fundamentalistic, jihadist and hateful writings of the Jewish Messianic movement. Objective number 4 was to replace the hatepreachings of the violent Messianic Movement with the peaceful writings full of Jesus’ ideas. Josephus was very successful in completing his objectives. He eliminated all anti-Roman mentionings with one exception: the writings left by members of the jihadist Messianic Movement found in 1947 in the Qumran caves at the shore of the Dead Sea.

The first 3 canonical gospels may be the result of this strive and also the fact that all New Testament texts have a pro- Roman perspective. The New Testament was in its entirety written in Greek for very good reasons.

1. Knowing the things said above, it is quite feasable that the authors of the New Testament were Greek-speaking Roman Citizens. Greek was the language of the educated elite and the tradesmen.

2. It was written in Greek in order to address a certain clientel of people: the upper class and elite of the Roman Empire of which Flavius Josephus was a member by birth. Only members of this elite had a chance to enfluence the masses with success. Just like English today is the language of the ruling class in almost every country on Earth, so was it Greek in Roman Antiquity. This includes the Jewish upper class, the emperors' family, the aristocracy, the senate of Rome, traders, officers and anyone else who could afford good education--and that meant learning Greek.

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

3. Through Josephus, Roman leaders began to grasp that all Jewish religions were based on scripture, and not on public services and sacrifices alone like in the rest of the Empire. They hoped that the installation of peaceful scripture could undermine the goals of the Messianic Movement and show that living in peace with Greeks and Romans has clear advantages. This is the reason why all New Testament writings depict Jesus' Holy Land as idealised postoral landscape although in reality it was a horrifying warzone for generations. Josephus reported that the Jewish- Roman War cost 1.1 million lives. This means that this war had world war character with all its slaughter, co-lateral damage, famine, desease, epidemics, murder and rape.

Modern Translation Efforts

The Bible is the most translated book in the world. The United Bible Societies announced that as of 31 December 2007 the complete Bible was available in 438 languages, 123 of which included the deuterocanonical material as well as the Tanakh and New Testament. Either the Tanakh or the New Testament was available in an additional 1,168 languages, in some kind of translations, like the interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme translation (e.g. some Parallel Bible, with interlinear morphemic glossing).

In 1999, Wycliffe Bible Translators announced Vision 2025—a project that intends to commence Bible translation in every remaining language community by 2025. It was realised that, at the rates of Bible translation at that point, it would take until at least 2150 until Bible translation began in every language that was needing a translation. Since the launch of Vision 2025, Bible translation efforts have increased dramatically, in large part due to the technology that is now available. Due to the increase, at current rates, Bible translation will begin in every language by 2038, thus being 112 years faster.

As of September 2023, they estimated that around 99.8 million people spoke those 1,268 languages where translation work still needs to begin. This represents 17.1% of all languages (based off an estimate of 7,394 total languages) and 1.3% of the human population (based of a global population of 7.42 billion).

In total, there are 3,736 languages without any Bible translation at all, but an estimated 1,148 of these (with a population of 9.6 million people) are likely to never need a Bible because they are very similar to other languages, or spoken by very few speakers where the language will die out very soon.

Bible translation is currently happening in 3,283 languages in 167 countries. This work impacts 1.15 billion people, or about 15.5 percent of all language users, who have (or will soon have) new access to at least some portions of Scripture in their first language.

Popularity in US: The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association release monthly and annual statistics regarding the popularity of different Bibles sold by their members in

the United States. In 2023, the top 10 best-selling translations were the following:

1. New International Version

2. King James Version

3. English Standard Version

4. New Living Translation

5. Christian Standard Bible

6 New King James Version

7 Reina-Valera (Spanish)

8 New International Reader's Version

9 New American Standard Bible

10 New Revised Standard Version

Sales are affected by denomination and religious affiliation. For example, the most popular Jewish version would not compete with rankings of a larger audience. Sales data can be affected by the method of marketing. Some translations are directly marketed to particular denominations or local churches, and many Christian booksellers only offer Protestant Bibles, so books in other biblical canons (such as Catholic and Orthodox Bibles) may not appear as high on the CBA rank.

A study published in 2014 by The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University and Purdue University found that Americans read versions of the Bible as follows:

1. King James Version (55%)

2. New International Version (19%)

3. New Revised Standard Version (7%)

4. New American Bible (6%)

5. The Living Bible (5%)

6. All other translations (8%)

Differences in Bible translations

Modern critical editions incorporate ongoing scholarly research, including discoveries of Greek papyrus fragments from near Alexandria, Egypt, that date in some cases within a few decades of the original New Testament writings. Today, most critical editions of the Greek New Testament, such as UBS4 and NA27, consider the Alexandrian text-type corrected by papyri, to be the Greek text that is closest to the original autographs. Their apparatus includes the result of votes among scholars, ranging from certain {A} to doubtful {E}, on which variants best preserve the original Greek text of the New Testament.

Critical editions that rely primarily on the Alexandrian text-type inform nearly all modern translations (and revisions of older translations). For reasons of tradition, however, some translators prefer to use the Textus Receptus for the Greek text, or use the Majority Text which is similar to it but is a critical edition that relies on earlier manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type. Among these, some argue that the Byzantine tradition contains scribal additions, but these later interpolations preserve the orthodox interpretations of the biblical text—as part of the ongoing Christian experience—and in this sense are authoritative. Distrust of

— THE HOLY BIBLE — IN BASIC ENGLISH

the textual basis of modern translations has contributed to the King-James-Only Movement.

Dynamic or formal translation policy

A variety of linguistic, philological and ideological approaches to translation have been used. Inside the Bible- translation community, these are commonly categorized as:

1. Dynamic equivalence translation

2. Formal equivalence translation (similar to literal translation)

3. Idiomatic, or paraphrastic translation, as used by the late Kenneth N. Taylor

though modern linguists, such as Bible scholar Dr. Joel Hoffman, disagree with this classification.

Other translation approaches include:

4. Literary translation, where the reader's experience of the piece as literature is prized, as used used in the Knox Bible

5. Metrical translation, where prose is rendered in a rhythmic form, as represented by Old English and Middle English texts

6. Prose translation, where no attempt is made to render the lyrical aspect of some poem or song, as King Alfred's prose translation of the first fifty Psalms.

As Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the Bible, like all languages, have some idioms and concepts not easily translated, there is in some cases an ongoing critical tension about whether it is better to give a word-for-word translation, to give a translation that gives a parallel idiom in the target language, or to invent a neologism.

For instance, in the Douay Rheims Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, New American Bible Revised Edition, which are the English language Catholic translations, as well as Protestant translations like the King James Bible, the Darby Bible, the Recovery Version, the Literal Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version, the Modern Literal Version, and the New American Standard Bible are seen as more literal translations (or "word-for-word").

Translations like the New International Version and New Living Translation sometimes attempt to give relevant parallel idioms. The Living Bible and The Message are two paraphrases of the Bible that try to convey the original meaning in contemporary language.

The further away one gets from word-for-word translation, the easier the text becomes to read while relying more on the theological, linguistic or cultural understanding of the translator, which one would not normally expect a lay reader to require. On the other hand, as one gets closer to a word- for-word translation, the text becomes more literal but still relies on similar problems of meaningful translation at the word level and makes it difficult for lay readers to interpret due to their unfamiliarity with ancient idioms and other historical and cultural contexts.

Doctrinal differences and translation policy

In addition to linguistic concerns, theological issues also drive Bible translations. Some translations of the Bible, produced by single churches or groups of churches, may be seen as subject to a point of view by the translation committee.

For example, the New World Translation, produced by Jehovah's Witnesses, provides different renderings where verses in other Bible translations support the deity of Christ. The NWT also translates kurios as "Jehovah" rather than "Lord" when quoting Hebrew passages that used YHWH. The authors believe that Jesus would have used God's name and not the customary kurios. On this basis, the anonymous New World Bible Translation Committee inserted Jehovah into the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures (New Testament) a total of 237 times while the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) uses Jehovah a total of 6,979 times to a grand total of 7,216 in the entire 2013 Revision New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures while previous revisions such as the 1984 revision were a total of 7,210 times while the 1961 revision were a total of 7,199 times.

A number of Sacred Name Bibles (e.g., the Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition) have been published that are even more rigorous in transliterating the tetragrammaton using Semitic forms to translate it in the Old Testament and also using the same Semitic forms to translate the Greek word Theos (God) in the New Testament—usually Yahweh, Elohim or some other variation.

Other translations are distinguished by smaller but distinctive doctrinal differences. For example, the Purified Translation of the Bible, by translation and explanatory footnotes, promoting the position that Christians should not drink alcohol, that New Testament references to "wine" are translated as "grape juice”.

Translations triggered by the Reformation

In the 16th century, the Bible was not only a sacred book but also a secret book. Martin Luther had a Bible in his hand the very first time when he entered university. Bible translation existed before but they were made for the scholars only. Luther ruthlessly used Gutenberg's new invention of the printing system, snatched the Bible from clerics and laid it into the hand of the believers. His revolution was about language as much as about religion and power politics of the ruling Roman (Catholic) Church. He created a new German language by putting features of all dialects together and by doing so, he woke up the national consciousness among Germans they were not aware of at first; and he encouraged Tyndale and others to do the very same.

The earliest printed edition of the Greek New Testament appeared in 1516 from the Froben press, by Desiderius Erasmus, who reconstructed a Greek text from several recent manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type, to accompany his Latin revision and philological annotations. He produced four later editions of this text. Erasmus was Catholic, and his

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ad fontes preference for the Greek manuscripts rather than the Latin Vulgate led some traditionalist theologians to view him with suspicion. This Latin, Greek and annotations were used by subsequent Reformation vernacular translators.

The first complete Dutch Bible, partly based on the existing portions of Luther's translation, was printed in Antwerp in 1526 by Jacob van Liesvelt.

The first printed edition with critical apparatus (noting variant readings among the manuscripts) was produced by the printer Robert Estienne of Paris in 1550. The Greek text of this edition and of those of Erasmus became known as the Textus Receptus (Latin for "received text"), a name given to it in the Elzevier edition of 1633, which termed it as the text nunc ab omnibus receptum ("now received by all").

The churches of the Protestant Reformation translated the Greek of the Textus Receptus to produce vernacular Bibles, such as the German Luther Bible (1522), the Polish Brest Bible (1563), the Spanish "Biblia del Oso" (in English: Bible of the Bear, 1569) which later became the Reina-Valera Bible upon its first revision in 1602, the Czech Melantrich Bible (1549) and Bible of Kralice (1579-1593) and numerous English translations of the Bible. Tyndale's New Testament translation (1526, revised in 1534, 1535 and 1536) and his translation of the Torah (1530, 1534; Pentateuch, 5 Books of Moses) and the Book of Jonah were met with heavy sanctions given the widespread belief that Tyndale changed the Bible as he attempted to translate it. Tyndale's unfinished work, cut short by his execution, was supplemented by Myles Coverdale and published under a pseudonym to create the Matthew Bible, the first complete English translation of the Bible. Attempts at an "authoritative" English Bible for the Church of England would include the Great Bible of 1538 (also relying on Coverdale's work), the Bishops' Bible of 1568, and the Authorized Version (the King James Version) of 1611, the last of which would become a standard for English speaking Christians for several centuries.

The first complete French Bible was a translation by Jacques Lefévre d'Etaples, published in 1530 in Antwerp. The Froschauer Bible of 1531 and the Luther Bible of 1534 (both appearing in portions throughout the 1520s) were an important part of the Reformation.

The first English translations of Psalms (1530), Isaiah (1531), Proverbs (1533), Ecclesiastes (1533), Jeremiah (1534) and Lamentations (1534), were executed by the Protestant Bible translator George Joye in Antwerp. In 1535 Myles Coverdale published the first complete English Bible also in Antwerp.

By 1578 both Old and New Testaments were translated to Slovene by the Protestant writer and theologian Jurij Dalmatin. The work was not printed until 1583. The Slovenes thus became the 12th nation in the world with a complete Bible in their language. The translation of the New Testament was based on the work by Dalmatin's mentor, the Protestant Primoz Trubar, who published the translation of

the Gospel of Matthew already in 1555 and the entire testament by parts until 1577.

Following the distribution of a Welsh New Testament and Prayer Book to every parish Church in Wales in 1567, translated by William Salesbury, Welsh became the 13th language into which the whole Bible had been translated in 1588, through a translation by William Morgan, the bishop of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant.

Samuel Bogustaw Chylinski (1631-1668) translated and published the first Bible translation into Lithuanian.

In 1660, John Eliot published the Eliot Indian Bible in the language of the Massachusett people, an indigenous American group who lived in the area around what is today Boston, Massachusetts. This was the first translation of the Bible into an indigenous American language. This translation was produced by Eliot in an effort to convert the dwindling population of Massachusett to Christianity in praying towns such as Natick, Massachusetts.

Slavic Versions

The earliest Old Church Slavonic translations are connected with the arrival of the brothers Cyril and Methodius in Moravia in 863, and resulted from the desire to provide vernacular renderings of those parts of the Bible used liturgically. The oldest manuscripts derive from the 11th and 12th centuries. The earliest complete Bible manuscript, dated 1499, was used for the first printed edition (Ostrog, 1581). This was revised in Moscow in 1633 and again in 1712. The standard Slavonic edition is the St. Petersburg revision of 1751, known as the Bible of Elizabeth.

The printing of parts of the Bulgarian Bible did not begin until the mid-19th century. A fresh vernacular version of the whole Bible was published at Sofia in 1925, having been commissioned by the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

The Serbian and Croatian literary languages are identical; they differ only in the alphabet they use. To further the dissemination of Protestantism among the southern Slavs, Count Jan Ungnad set up a press in 1560 at Urach that issued a translation of the New Testament, in both Glagolitic (1562-63) and Cyrillic (1563) characters. The efforts of the Serbian leader Vuk Karadzié to establish the Serbo-Croatian vernacular on a literary basis resulted in a new translation of the New Testament (Vienna, 1847) that went through many revisions.

The spread of the Lutheran Reformation to the Slovene- speaking provinces of Austria stimulated the need for vernacular translations. The first complete Slovene Bible, translated from the original languages but with close reference to Luther's German, was made by Jurij Dalmatin (Wittenberg, 1584). Not until two centuries later did a Slovene Roman Catholic version, rendered from the Latin Vulgate, appear (Laibach, 1784—1802).

Between the 9th and 17th centuries the literary and ecclesiastical language of Russia was Old Slavonic. A vernacular Scriptures was thus late in developing. An

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incomplete translation into the Belorussian dialect was prepared by Franciscus Skorina (Prague, 1517-19) from the Latin Vulgate and Slavonic and Bohemian versions, but not until 1821 did the first New Testament appear in Russian, an official version printed together with the Slavonic. With the more liberal rule of Alexander II, the Holy Synod sponsored a fresh version of the Gospels in 1860. The Old Testament was issued at St. Petersburg in 1875. A Jewish rendering was undertaken by Leon Mandelstamm, who published the Pentateuch in 1862 (2nd ed., 1871) and the Psalter in 1864. Prohibited in Russia, it was first printed in Berlin. A complete Bible was published in Washington in 1952.

No manuscript in the Czech vernacular translation is known to predate the 14th century, but at least 50 complete or fragmentary Bibles have survived from the 15th. The first complete Bible was published in Prague in 1488 in a text based on earlier, unknown translations connected with the heretical Hussite movement. The most important production of the century, however, was that associated principally with Jan Blahoslav. Based on the original languages, it appeared at Kralice in six volumes (1579-93). The Kralice Bible is regarded as the finest extant specimen of classical Czech and became the standard Protestant version.

Closely allied to the Czech language, but not identical with it, Slovakian became a literary language only in the 18th century. A Roman Catholic Bible made from the Latin Vulgate by Jiti Palkovi %3 was printed in the Gothic script (2 vol. Gran, 1829, 1832) and another, associated with Richard Osvald, appeared at Trnava in 1928. A Protestant New Testament version of Josef Roha 3 ek was published at Budapest in 1913 and his completed Bible at Prague in 1936. A new Slovakian version by Stefan ZlatoS and Anton Jan Surjansky was issued at Trnava in 1946.

A manuscript of a late 14th-century Psalter is the earliest extant example of the Polish vernacular Scriptures, and several books of the Old Testament have survived from the translation made from the Czech version for Queen Sofia (Sarospatak Bible, 1455). Otherwise, post-Reformation Poland supplied the stimulus for biblical scholarship. The New Testament first appeared in a two-volume rendering from the Greek by the Lutheran Jan Seklucjan (K6nigsberg, 1553). The “Brest Bible” of 1563, sponsored by Prince Radziwitt, was a Protestant production made from the original languages. A version of this edition for the use of Socinians (Unitarians) was prepared by the Hebraist Szymon Budny (Nieswicz, 1570-82), and another revision, primarily executed by Daniel Mikotajewski and Jan Turnowski (the “Danzig Bible”) in 1632, became the official version of all Evangelical churches in Poland. This edition was burnt by

the Catholics and had to be subsequently printed in Germany.

The standard Roman Catholic version (1593, 1599) was prepared by Jakob Wujek whose work, revised by the Jesuits, received the approval of the Synod of Piotrkow in 1607. A revised edition was put out in 1935.

Hungarian versions

The spread of Lutheranism in the Reformation period gave rise to several vernacular versions. Janos Sylvester (Erd6s1) produced the first New Testament made from the Greek (Sarvar, 1541). The Turkish occupation of much of Hungary and the measures of the Counter-Reformation arrested further printing of the vernacular Bible, except in the semi- independent principality of Transylvania. The first complete Hungarian Bible, issued at Vizsoly in 1590, became the Protestant Church Bible.

In the 20th century, a new standard edition for Protestants was published, the New Testament appearing in 1956 and the Old Testament (Genesis to Job) in 1951 and following. A new modernized Catholic edition of the New Testament from the Greek appeared in Rome in 1957.

Non-European Versions

Translations of parts of the Bible are known to have existed in only seven Asian and four African languages before the 15th century. In the 17th century Dutch merchants began to interest themselves in the missionary enterprise among non- Europeans. A pioneer was Albert Cornelius Ruyl, who is credited with having translated Matthew into High Malay in 1629, with Mark following later. Jan van Hasel translated the two other Gospels in 1646 and added Psalms and Acts in 1652. Other traders began translations into Formosan Chinese (1661) and Sinhalese (1739).

A complete printed Japanese New Testament reputedly existed in Miyako in 1613, the work of Jesuits. The first known printed New Testament in Asia appeared in 1715 in the Tamil language done by Bartholomius Ziegenbalg, a Lutheran missionary. A complete Bible followed in 1727. Six years later the first Bible in High Malay came out.

The distinction of having produced the first New Testament in any language of the Americas belongs to John Eliot, a Puritan missionary, who made it accessible to the Massachusetts Indians in 1661. Two years later he brought out the Massachusetts Indian Bible, the first Bible to be printed on the American continent.

By 1800 the number of non-European versions did not exceed 13 Asian, four African, three American, and one Oceanian. With the founding of missionary societies after 1800, however, new translations were viewed as essential to the evangelical effort. First came renderings in those languages that already possessed a written literature. A group at Serampore (in India) headed by William Carey, a Baptist missionary, produced 28 versions in Indian languages. Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China, translated the New Testament into Chinese in 1814 and completed the Bible by 1823. Adoniram Judson, an American missionary, rendered the Bible into Burmese in 1834.

With European exploration of the African continent often came the need to invent an alphabet, and in many instances the translated Scriptures constituted the first piece of written

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literature. In the 19th century the Bible was translated into Amharic, Malagasy, Tswana, Xosa, and Ga.

In the Americas, James Evans invented a syllabary for the use of Cree Indians, in whose language the Bible was available in 1862, the work of W. Mason, also a Wesleyan missionary. The New Testament appeared in Ojibwa in 1833, and the whole Bible was translated for the Dakota Indians in 1879. The Labrador Eskimos had a New Testament in 1826 and a complete Bible in 1871.

In Oceania, the New Testament was rendered into Tahitian and Javanese in 1829 and into Hawaiian and Low Malay in 1835. By 1854 the whole Bible had appeared in all but the last of these languages as well as in Rarotonga (1851).

In the 20th century the trend toward the development of non-European Bible translations was characterized by an attempt to produce “union” or “standard” versions in the common language underlying different dialects. One such is the Swahili translation (1950) that makes the Scriptures accessible to most of East Africa. Within the realm of non- European translation there has also been a movement for the updating of versions to bring them in line with the spoken language, especially through the use of native Christian scholars. The first example of this was the colloquial Japanese version of 1955.

By 1970 some part, if not the entire Bible, had been translated into more than 100 languages or dialects spoken in India and over 300 in Africa.

TRANSLATIONS INTO ROMANCE LANGUAGES

(Italian, Spanish, Portugiese, French)

Italian Versions

The vernacular Scriptures made a relatively late appearance in Italy. Existing manuscripts of individual books derive from the 13th century and mainly consist of the Gospels and the Psalms.

These medieval versions were never made from the original languages. They were influenced by French and Provencal renderings as well as by the form of the Latin Vulgate current in the 12th and 13th centuries in southern France. There is evidence for a Jewish translation made directly from the Hebrew as early as the 13th century.

The first printed Italian Bible appeared in Venice in 1471, translated from the Latin Vulgate by Niccolo Malermi. In 1559 Paul IV proscribed all printing and reading of the vernacular Scriptures except by permission of the church. This move, reaffirmed by Pius IV in 1564, effectively stopped further Catholic translation work for the next 200 years.

The first Protestant Bible (Geneva, 1607, revised 1641) was the work of Giovanni Diodati, a Hebrew and Greek scholar. Frequently reprinted, it became the standard Protestant version until the 20th century. Catholic activity was renewed after a modification of the ban by Pope Benedict XIV in 1757. A complete Bible in translation made directly from the Hebrew and Greek has been in progress under the sponsorship of the Pontifical Biblical Institute since the 1920s.

Spanish Versions

The history of the Spanish Scriptures is unusual in that many of the translations were based, not on the Latin Vulgate, but on the Hebrew, a phenomenon that is to be attributed to the unusual role played by Jews in the vernacular movement.

Nothing is known from earlier than the 13th century when James I of Aragon in 1233 proscribed the possession of the Bible in “romance” (the Spanish vernacular) and ordered such to be burnt. Several partial Old Testament translations by Jews as well as a New Testament from a Visigoth Latin text are known from this century. In 1417 the whole Bible was translated into Valencian Catalan, but the entire edition was destroyed by the Inquisition.

Between 1479 and 1504, royal enactments outlawed the vernacular Bible in Castile, Leon, and Aragon, and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 transferred the centre of Spanish translation activity to other lands. In 1557, the first printed Index of Forbidden Books of the Spanish Inquisition prohibited the “Bible in Castilian romance or any other vulgar tongue,” a ban that was repeated in 1559 and remained in force until the 18th century. In 1916 the Hispano-Americana New Testament appeared in Madrid as an attempt to achieve a common translation for the entire Spanish-speaking world. The first Roman Catholic vernacular Bible from the original languages was made under the direction of the Pontifical University of Salamanca (Madrid, 1944, 9th ed. 1959).

Portuguese Versions

The first Portuguese New Testament (Amsterdam), the work of Joao Ferreira d'Almeida, did not appear until 1681. The first complete Bible (2 vol., 1748-53) was printed in Batavia (in Holland). Not until late in the 18th century did the first locally published vernacular Scriptures appear in Portugal. A revision of d'Almeida was issued in Rio de Janeiro (in Brazil), the New Testament in 1910 and the complete Bible in 1914 and 1926; an authorized edition in modernized orthography was published by the Bible Society of Brazil (New Testament, 1951; Old Testament, 1958). A new translation of the New Testament from Greek by José Falc4o came out in Lisbon (1956-65).

French Versions

The deep conflicts that characterized the history of Christianity in France made it difficult for one authoritative version to emerge.

The first complete Bible was produced in the 13th century at the University of Paris and toward the end of that century Guyart des Moulins executed his Bible Historiale. Both works served as the basis of future redactions of which the Bible printed in Paris (date given variously as 1487, 1496, 1498) by order of King Charles VIII, is a good example.

The real history of the French Bible began in Paris, in 1523, with the publication of the New Testament, almost certainly the work of the Reformer Jacques Lefévre d'Etaples (Faber

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Stapulensis). The Old Testament appeared in Antwerp in 1528 and the two together in 1530 as the Antwerp Bible. The first true Protestant version came out in Serriéres, near Neuchatel, five years later, the work of Pierre Robert, called Olivétan. This version was frequently revised throughout the 16th century, the most celebrated editions being Calvin's of 1546 and that of Robert Estienne (Stephanus) of 1553. The Roman Catholics produced a new version, the Louvain Bible of 1550, based on both Lefevre and Olivetan. Modernizations of Olivetan appeared in succeeding centuries. The most important French version of the 20th century is the Jerusalem Bible prepared by professors at the Dominican Ecole Biblique de Jérusalem (Paris, 1949-54, complete, 1956).

TRANSLATIONS INTO GERMANIC LANGUAGES (German, Dutch, Scandinavian, English)

Translation into German

The early Old Testament in Gothic has already been described. The New Testament remains are far more extensive and are preserved mainly in the Codex Argenteus (c. 525) and Codex Gissensis. The translation, essentially based on a Byzantine text, is exceedingly literal and not homogeneous. It is difficult to determine the degree of contamination that the original Gospels translation of Ulfilas had undergone by the time it appeared in these codices.

Nothing is known of the vernacular Scriptures in Germany prior to the 8th century when an idiomatic translation of Matthew from Latin into the Bavarian dialect was made. From Fulda (in Germany) c. 830 came a more literal East Franconian German translation of the Gospel story. In the same period was produced the Heliand (“Saviour”), a versified version of the Gospels. Such poetic renderings cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as translations. There is evidence, however, for the existence of German Psalters from the 9th century on. By the 13th century, the different sects and movements that characterized the religious situation in Germany had stimulated a demand for popular Bible reading. Since all the early printed Bibles derived from a single family of late 14th-century manuscripts, German translations must have gained wide popularity. Another impetus towards the use of the German Scriptures in this period can be traced to mystics of the Upper Rhine. A complete New Testament, the Augsburg Bible, can be dated to 1350, and another from Bohemia, Codex Teplensis (c. 1400), has also survived.

The Wenzel Bible, an Old Testament made between 1389 and 1400, is said to have been ordered by King Wenceslas, and large numbers of 15th-century manuscripts have been preserved.

The first printed Bible (the Mentel Bible) appeared at Strassburg no later than 1466 and ran through 18 editions before 1522. Despite some evidence that ecclesiastical authority did not entirely look with favour upon this vernacular development, the printed Bible appeared in

Germany earlier, and in more editions and in greater quantity than anywhere else.

A new era opened up with the work of Martin Luther, to whom a translation from the original languages was a necessary and logical conclusion of his doctrine of justification by faith—to which the Scriptures provided the only true key. His New Testament (Wittenberg, 1522) was made from the second edition of Erasmus' Greek Testament. The Old Testament followed in successive parts, based on the Brescia Hebrew Bible (1494). Luther's knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic was limited, but his rendering shows much influence of Rashi, the great 11th—12th-century French rabbinical scholar and commentator, through the use of the notes of Nicholas of Lyra. The complete Lutheran Bible emerged from the press in 1534. Luther was constantly revising his work with the assistance of other scholars, and between 1534 and his death in 1546, 11 editions were printed, the last posthumously. His Bible truly fulfilled Luther's objective of serving the needs of the common man, and it, in turn, formed the basis of the first translations in those lands to which Lutheranism spread. It proved to be a landmark in German prose literature and contributed greatly to the development of the modern language.

The phenomenal success of Luther's Bible and the failure of attempts to repress it led to the creation of German Catholic versions, largely adaptations of Luther. Hieronymus Emser's edition simply brought the latter into line with the Vulgate. Johann Dietenberger issued a revision of Emser (Mainz, 1534) and used Luther's Old Testament in conjunction with an Anabaptist (radical Protestant group) version and the Ziirich (Switzerland) version of 1529. It became the standard Catholic version. Of the 20th-century translations, the Griinewald Bible, which reached a seventh e