Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #6 Revisions of revisions

With the years some english people came to believe that God prepared another world language. Though Spanish and Chinese or Sinitic languages (Sino-Tibetan language family: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Gan, Hakka, Xiang, and Cantonese sharing the common literary language wenyan) are bigger world languages, they do think that

English is that world language. And one reason is because of the preservation of the word. {Why should God’s Word be restricted to English?}

Because often those people not knowing enough the other languages and not able to compare them with the original Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew language, they like to place their own language in the first place, not seeing that in many of Bible editions in their language words were not always translated exactly or not seeing that certain words where changed in names in place to taking it for the things they meant in the original language.

In the past some English scholars knew that sometimes the Hebrew and Greek way of saying things could be too complicated for some English speaking people, of which approximately 330 to 360 million have that language as their first language. They did find God His Word so important they wanted all people, young and old, educated and not schooled ones, to be able to come in contact with those precious words. Looking at the level of reading they wanted to adapt the  language of the text to such levels.
The translators wanted to keep the Divine Author in view but found it important to bring over His message. They looked at the meaning of what was said in the original text and translated or defined loosely what was meant. The (more or less) free rewording of an expression or text, as an explanation, clarification, or translation gave way to different paraphrased Bible translations.

Outside cover of Revised Version of Bible, bound in leather with a full yapp, Published by Oxford in 1885.

Others looking at such loosely translated versions started to attack those translations and got the wheel going with lots of discussions saying this or that translation was a corrupted one. Also reasons for a new translation gave the impression to others that they should doubt the sincerity of the translation. as such Muslims got food to call the Bible corrupted, looking at sayings in prefaces, like the scholars’ introduction of the Revised Standard Version of The Bible produced in 1971 as proof of this. {Christian Scholars Admit To Corrupting The Bible} In the Preface are these words:

The King James Version has grave defects…these defects are so many and so serious as to call for revision.

Under The Milky Way writes

Muslims find these statements by Christian scholars to be self-incriminating. For Christian scholars to say that the King James Version of the Bible has grave defects which require revision is taken as a self-evident admission that either the Revised Standard Version (RSV) or the King James Version (KJV) of The Bible or both have been intentionally distorted with the intention of fabricating false teaching. {Christian Scholars Admit To Corrupting The Bible}

Though this translation was called to be the first and the only officially authorised and recognised revision of the King James Version in Britain, having the Old Testament edited four years later than the New Testament, which saw the light in 1881. The Apocrypha got printed in 1894. Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, whose texts  formed also the basic for the New World Translation (NWT) where the best known of the translation committee members. Their stated aim was

“to adapt King James’ version to the present state of the English language without changing the idiom and vocabulary,”

and

“to adapt it to the present standard of Biblical scholarship.”

To those ends, the Greek text that was used to translate the New Testament was believed by most to be of higher reliability than the Textus Receptus used for the KJV. The readings used were compiled from a different text of the Greek Testament by Edwin Palmer. {Palmer, Edwin, ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ. The Greek Testament] with the Readings Adopted by the Revisers of the Authorised Version. London: Simon Wallenberg Press, 2007. ISBN 1-84356-023-2}

This version was adapted and revised as the “Revised Version, Standard American Edition” or getting names as American Revised Version, the American Standard Revision, the American Standard Revised Bible, and the American Standard Edition, but at the end of the 20th century commonly known as the American Standard Version (ASV). Here-fore Philip Schaff had recruited scholars from different denominations (Baptist, Congregationalist, Dutch Reformed, Friends, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal, and Unitarian) who began work in 1872 to complete it 29 years later.

The Revised Version (both the 1885 and the American Standard Version of 1901) are some of the Bible versions that are authorized to be used in services of the Episcopal Church, the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. For the American version was chosen to bring in again God’s Divine Name and where normally the tetragrammaton stood in the original text, it is consistently rendered Jehovah in 6,823 places of the ASV Old Testament, rather than YHWH or rather than LORD as it appears in the King James Bible.

That choice of omitting God’s Name would become more important in later years, several editors afraid of publishing God’s Holy Name and therefore preferring to print the ‘meaningless’ word ‘Lord’ (in later years even omitting the big capitals) so that people could not see the difference between the Lord Most High, the Adonai Elohim Hashem Jehovah, and God His son, the other lord between the many lords.

During the mid-20th century again a revision appeared on the market wanting

“to put the message of the Bible in simple, enduring words that are worthy to stand in the great Tyndale-King James tradition.”

Revised Standard Version

In a first stage a New Testament (first edition), 1946 (originally copyrighted to the International Council of Religious Education), six years later followed by the Old Testament and thus offering the full ‘Protestant Bible’. A Catholic version was accomplished with the Apocrypha in 1957. Again receiving some modification and a Modified edition (1962) followed by the RSV Catholic Edition (RSV-CE), (NT 1965, Complete Bible 1966). those editions got again revisions with publications in 1971, 1973, an Apocrypha expanded edition (1977) and a RSV Second Catholic (or Ignatius) Edition (RSV-2CE) in 2006.
In later years, the RSV served as the basis for two revisions – the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of 1989, using gender-neutral language, and the  Protestant evangelical English Standard Version (ESV) of 2001.

A revision in 1973 ordered the books in a way that pleased both Catholics and Protestants, dividing the library into four sections:

1. The Old Testament (39 Books)
2. The Catholic Deuterocanonical Books (12 Books)
3. The additional Eastern Orthodox Deuterocanonical Books (three Books; six Books after 1977)
4. The New Testament (27 Books)

Four years later that ‘Common Bible’ got the Apocrypha expanded to include 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and Psalm 151, three additional sections accepted in the Eastern Orthodox canon (4 Maccabees again forming an appendix in that tradition), although it still does not include additional books in the Syriac and Ethiopian canons. This action increased the Common Bible to 84 Books, making it the most comprehensive English Bible translation to date with its inclusion of books not accepted by all denominations. The goal of the Common Bible was to help ecumenical relations among the churches.

Facing all those revisions of revisions this Summer the non-profit publisher Crossway released what they are describing as a “permanent” English biblical translation which has  sought to be “as literal as possible” while maintaining clarity of expression and literary excellence, but still shall need some updating. But such updating sometimes can bring wrong texts.

17 years after it was first authorized by Crossway, its publisher, the translation oversight committee changed just 52 words across 29 verses — out of more than 775,000 words across more than 31,000 verses — for what they called the final “permanent text” edition. The board then voted, unanimously, to make the text “unchanged forever, in perpetuity.”

“The text of the ESV Bible will remain unchanged in all future editions printed and published by Crossway—in much the same way that the King James Version (KJV) has remained unchanged ever since the final KJV text was established almost 250 years ago (in 1769),”

Crossway stated on its website.

One difference: While the ESV copyright is held universally by Crossway, the KJV copyright held by the Crown of England is only valid in the United Kingdom. So modified versions of the KJV have been popping up in the United States and elsewhere for several hundred years. (Christian Today has explored whether copyrights help or hurt Bible translation.)
The publisher’s intended goal was

“to stabilize the [ESV], serving its readership by establishing the ESV as a translation that could be used ‘for generations to come,’”

The editor desires for

“there to be a stable and standard text that would serve the reading, memorizing, preaching, and liturgical needs of Christians worldwide from one generation to another.”

This September they wrote:

“Our goal at Crossway remains as strong as ever to serve future generations with a stable ESV text. But the means to that goal, we now see, is not to establish a permanent text but rather to allow for ongoing periodic updating of the text to reflect the realities of biblical scholarship such as textual discoveries or changes in English over time.”

That way the same will happen to the ESV as to the KJV that people are going to think they have it about the same Bible translation, though might have a totally different version.

What happened in the past is that many people each time a new revision came unto the market, certainly with a different name several Christians reacted strongly against the new text. Lots of church members prefer a text that doesn’t and won’t ever change, not a text that is on the path of continual improvement. This also comes mainly because several denominations stick to only one Bible translation and do not, like several non-trinitarian groups, have a roster of different Bible translations to look at, taking every time an other version as standard for the next year, having their members to think about the essence of the text and not pinpointing to human doctrinal teachings or limiting themselves just to one Bible version.

Tremper Longman III, a member of the New Living Translation (NLT) committee said

But making a translation permanent ignores the need for updates that reflect scholars’ advances in their understanding of the text, as well as the continuing development of English as a living language.

He continued

“Most translators and linguists would say that such an approach to translation is actually less accurate in terms of communicating the thought of the ancient writer to a modern audience.”

A collection of Bibles in Taiwanese. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People should always remember that language is a living thing and by the years words may change meaning or additional (new) words may be better suited to bring over the meaning of those old writing, of which researchers still get more and new insights. Longman also remarks

“The English language changes, and my guess is that over the years even this particularly type of translation will sound more and more stilted, just as the KJV does to modern readers.”

Bible translations to polish language by Czesław Miłosz. On the left Five Megillot, in center Book of Job, on right Psalms (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Publishers are aware that the copyrights of a publication are limited in time and as such it is more profitable to create a whole new Bible version to keep the money coming into the till. At certain times there are also new preachers of high position who want to have their notes presented in a bible version they feel good with in a language of the time they are living in, what again demands a new Bible translation, under a new name.

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Preceding articles:

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #1 Pre King James Bible

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #2 King James Bible versions

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #3 Women and versions

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #4 Steps to the women’s bibles

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #5 Further steps to women’s bibles

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Additional reading

1. Absolute Basics to Reading the Bible
2. Finding and Understanding Words and Meanings
3. Lord in place of the divine name
4. Lord or Yahuwah, Yeshua or Yahushua
5. Lord and owner
6. People Seeking for God 7 The Lord and lords
7. Another way looking at a language #5 Aramic, Hebrew and Greek
8. Another way looking at a language #6 Set apart
9. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #13 Prayer #11 Name to be set apart
10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God
11. The Bible and names in it
12. Let us recognise how great God is
13. Listening and Praying to the Father
14. Written to recognise the Promissed One
15. Holiness and expression of worship coming from inside
16. Hashem השם, Hebrew for “the Name”
17. Background to look at things
18. Religious people and painful absence of spring of living water
19. 2001 Translation an American English Bible
20. NWT and what other scholars have to say to its critics
21. Some Restored Name Versions
22. The most important translation…
23. Accuracy, Word-for-Word Translation Preferred by most Bible Readers
24. Listening and Praying to the Father

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From Mary Harwell Sayler’s article Lent: Let the Bible readings begin!

Further related articles

1. The inspiration of Scripture
2. The Preservation of Scripture
3. The Challenge of Translating
4. English Bible Translations
5. Infographic on English Bible Translations
6. How Trustworthy Are Bible Translations?
7. The most important translation…
8. Advice for The Church (Part 3 – Translation)
9. What Makes A Bible Translation Good?
10. Where was the Bible before 1611? How can we know God endorsed the KJV?
11. The King James Bible and the Restoration
12. The King James Removed Verses?
13. Study the Word for More Than Words
14. The Bible or The Watchtower?
15. What is the New World Translation?
16. Brief Introduction to the Greek Text of the New Testament
17. I believe the King James Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.
18. King James Only?
19. King James Only–Refuted
20. Six Reasons To Not Follow “King James Version-onlyism”
21. New Testament Textual criticism
22. Textual Criticism Pt. 1
23. Manuscripts in the Old Testament Synagogue 
24. Textual Criticism Pt. 1
25. Which is the best English Bible?
26. 128 Source Greek Text for NT Translation
27. 133 Komma Johanneum in die King James Version.
28. ESV Men’s Devotional Bible
29. Top Five Premium ESV Bibles for Christmas 2015 (plus two)
30. The English Standard Version of the Bible
31. ESV Classic Reference Bible (ESV1) in Burgundy Goatskin by R. L. Allan & Son
32. ESV Journaling Bible: Interleaved Edition in Natural Brown Cowhide
33. ESV Heirloom Thinline Bible in Brown Calfskin (Crossway)
34. Bible Reviewer: ESV Single Column Journaling Bible
35. Crossway Reverses Decision to Make ESV Bible Text Permanent
36. Does the ESV Honour the Holy Spirit?
37. ESV for “Joe the Bus Driver”
38. (Lost in) Permanent Translation
39. New International Version Bible at 50 Years
40. Book Review, “Guys Slimline Holy Bible,” Tyndale House publishers
41. Girls Slimline Holy Bible
42. Sanctuary: A Devotional Bible for Women, New Living Translation
43. Bible Review: Tyndale Select Reference Edition
44. Neither Conservative or Liberal … Let’s Be Just!
45. Lent: Let the Bible readings begin!
46. Trinitarian Bible Society
47. Was Dr. John R. Rice a Heretic?
48. Straightway
49. Applying God’s Holy Word
50. How to Study Your Bible…a book review
51. Basic Principles for “Doing Theology”
52. Synod Dunnville 2016 (7)

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Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #4 Steps to the women’s bibles

Not having enough background of the Jewish Koine Greek, or Jewish Hellenistic Greek, the variety of Koine Greek (hē koinē dialektos ‘the common language’) or “common Attic”  found in a number of Alexandrian dialect texts of Hellenistic Judaism, most notably the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible which at the time of the King James Bible‘s first edition was not yet available, as well as Greek Jewish texts from Palestine. This made that lots of words for previous Bible translations and the Authorised Version, where not yet understood properly and of some words they thought it were persons (names) instead of things (nouns) and situations.

Important historical sites of Hellenistic and medieval Judaism. – Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Words and word elements were adopted and adapted into Latin over c.1,500 years, and passed through Latin into many European and other languages, being used in the main for scholarly and technical purposes. The flow into English was at first very limited and largely religious, such as Old English cirice and its descendant church (from kūriakón dôma the Lord’s house).

Katharina von Bora (1499–1552) one of the most important participants of the Reformation because of her role in helping to define Protestant family life and setting the tone for clergy marriages.

At the beginning this knowledge of languages was a man’s job, but from the 19th century women began to have their say as well. Lots of Christians have the wrong idea that women in the ancient times had nothing to say. Many also think that in Christianity women played no role at all. they should know that the Set Apart or Holy Scriptures  acknowledges and celebrates the priceless value of a virtuous woman (Proverbs 12:4; 31:10; 1 Corinthians 11:7).

Whilst by the Jews there where not so many women teachers or rabbi’s, from the beginning the master teacher Jeshua had a big heart for them and had many women around him, following him everywhere they could and talking about his actions. The Bible teaches women are not only equals with men (Galatians 3:28), but are also set apart for special honour (1 Peter 3:7). Jeshua also knew how in the past the the priceless value of a virtuous woman was celebrated and insisted those around him to respect the woman also. (Proverbs 12:4; 31:10; 1 Corinthians 11:7).  Not only did the master teacher encourage their discipleship by portraying it as something more needful than domestic service and always treated women with the utmost dignity — even women who might otherwise be regarded as outcasts (Matthew 9:20-22; Luke 7:37-50; John 4:7-27).

“1  After this, Jesus travelled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; 3 Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.” (Luke 8:1-3 NIV)

“38  As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”” (Luke 10:38-42 NIV)

Clearly the listening to Jesus’ teaching was for the rabbi important, because he would not be long with them. for him it was also important that they would know what they had to talk about when he would be gone, because they had to go out into the world and witness about what he had done, and for telling others about the coming Kingdom of God. All those who wanted to be called a disciple or follower of Christ had to witness for him.

“You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.” (Acts 22:15 NIV)

Already from the start women where there with Jesus.  Christ’s first recorded, explicit disclosure of His own identity as the true Messiah was made to a Samaritan woman (John 4:25-26). When he was gone there were also women present in the room when the Spirit came over the apostles.  From then onwards they too were not afraid any more to come out with their beliefs. Soon they too took also their role in the preaching and some of them even became renowned.

“In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which, when translated, is Dorcas), who was always doing good and helping the poor.” (Acts 9:36 NIV)

Often it were women who opened up their house for followers of Christ coming together and to lead the meetings.

“When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.” (Acts 12:12 NIV)

Also when things where not so clear for some they dared to call them with them and explain it so they could better understand the truth. Also women who talked about Jesus but did not know everything well, were helped by the apostles so that they could do a better job.

“13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshipper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptised, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.” (Acts 16:13-15 NIV)

Throughout history there have always been faithful women spreading the Word of God.

It might well be that the energetic monk and young theologian Martin Luther, who felt himself to be “a sinner with an unquiet conscience,” was stimulated by the former Benedictine and Cistercian nun Katharina von Bora, who had fled her convent with several other nuns or ‘vestal virgins’, to Wittenberg, and who became, at the age of 26,  his  wife in 1525 (him being 41) and became known as “die Lutherin”.  She became the “boss of Zulsdorf,” after the name of the farm they owned, and the “morning star of Wittenberg” for her habit of rising at 4 a.m. to take care of her various responsibilities, administering and managing the vast holdings of the monastery, breeding and selling cattle, and running a brewery in order to provide for their family and the steady stream of students who boarded with them and visitors seeking audiences with her husband. It can well be that her being at the site of the prosecuted Luther, made him to continue his translation work of the Bible and not giving up his ideas.

In the two following centuries it were women who often took care that the children got to hear the Word of God at home, whilst they were able to hide this sacred book for the persecutors. Those who fled from the European continent to look for a New World also carried with them the Holy Bible in their language or in Latin.

In the 17th century religious groups found their way to the New World and at certain places founded their own colonies so that they could perfectly practice their own faith. Religious liberty for others — a concept Americans would later take for granted — was not part of the Puritans‘ plan. Instead, founding Governor John Winthrop envisioned a model “Citty [sic] upon a hill,” an example of Christian unity and order. Not incidentally, women were expected to play a submissive and supporting role in this society.

Anne Hutchinson, née Anne Marbury

At the Massachusetts Bay Colony a skilled midwife and herbal healer with her own interpretation of Puritan doctrine, challenged the leaders of this “wilderness theocracy,” as Barbara Ritter Dailey describes it.
Anne Hutchinson  [Anne Marbury Hutchinson (1591-1643)] eldest daughter of a strong-willed Anglican priest who had been imprisoned and removed from office because of his demand for a better-educated clergy, had probably inherited the strong will of her father, taking with her a legacy of biblical scholarship and religious independence.

When the Anglican Church silenced one of her favourite teachers, John Cotton, one of England’s outstanding Puritan ministers, one of New England’s first generation, leader in civil and religious affairs, and a persuasive writer on the theory and practice of Congregationalism, left for the colony of Massachusetts in America, Hutchinson became extremely distraught. She finally persuaded her husband to leave for America, so that she could follow her religious mentor.

William Hutchinson was granted a desirable house lot in Boston, and both husband and wife quickly became church members.
When she was criticized for failing to attend weekly prayer meetings in the homes of parishioners, she responded by holding meetings in her own home. She began by reiterating and explaining the sermons of John Cotton but later added some of her own interpretations, a practice that was to be her undoing. As her meetings became more popular, Hutchinson drew some of Boston’s most influential citizens to her home. Many of these were town merchants and artisans who had been severely criticized for profiteering in prices and wages; they saw in Hutchinson’s stress on grace a greater freedom regarding morality and therefore more certainty of their own salvation. But others came in search of a more meaningful and personal relationship with their God. As she attracted followers and defenders, the orthodox Puritans organized to oppose her doctrines and her advocates.

Cotton was chiefly responsible for the exile of Anne Hutchinson, because of her antinomian doctrines, and for the expulsion of Roger Williams.They continued to preach and used their own words. Quoting from the Bible in a non literal way became common practice and would be later taken up in presenting fragments or stories from the Bible. This free telling of Bible stories was also taken up in other languages and was breeding ground for children’s Bibles and freely quoted or paraphrased Bible translations.

The Ritual Dance of the Shakers, Shaker Historical Society

The priests and male clerics mostly kept the bible in their hand and sometimes read some phrases out of it. They still were in the majority, though some ladies walked to the forefront and got followers. It had not all to be literate women who took charge.
An unlettered daughter of a blacksmith who was probably named Lees joined at the age of 22 joined the faith group Shaking Quakers, or Shakers, because of the shaking and dancing that characterized their worship (It originally derived from a small branch of English Quakers founded by Jane and James Wardley in 1747). Ann Lee married in 1762, a union that tradition holds was unhappy and may have influenced her later doctrinal insistence on celibacy. She became the group their accepted leader and was known as Ann the Word or Mother Ann. Although illiterate, she claimed the gift of tongues and the ability to discern spirits and work miracles. She was also convinced of the holiness of celibacy, an idea stemming from her own experience of losing four children at or soon after their birth. In 1774 she led a band of eight to America, where, two years later, at Watervliet, N.Y., the first Shaker settlement in America was founded. The Shaker communities flourished in the mid-19th century and contributed a distinctive style of architecture, furniture, and handicraft to American culture. The communities declined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The two American converts who followed Mother Ann as Lead Elder — Joseph Meacham (1787–1796) and Lucy Wright (1796–1821) — developed an institutional structure for less antagonistic relations with society.

At that time, a woman’s leadership of a religious group was considered to be a ‘sect leader’ and as a radical departure from Protestant Christianity. Living apart from her husband Elizur Goodrich, she like him committed herself fully to Shakerism and within a decade rose to leadership within the Shakers movement, with the power and authority which women were not allowed in other religions.

Wright was fully aware of our task of witnessing and sent missionaries to preach across New England and upstate New York as well as into the western wilderness, where those preachers recruited proselytes and established new Shaker villages in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana.
Under Wright’s administration, Shakers standardized and increased book and tract publishing for the widely-scattered religious society. Their first statement of beliefs was Testimony of Christ’s Second Appearing in 1810, followed by a hymnal which served much the same purpose in 1813. This way the bible-fragments were brought to the general public in ordinary simple words.

In the early nineteenth century the movement expanded into Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. By the mid-1820s about 4,000 believers lived in sixteen communal villages, usually with residential “Great Houses” surrounded by meetinghouses, barns, mills, workshops, and smaller residences for children and probationary members. A hierarchy of elders and eldresses who had completely abandoned the sinful world were in charge.

Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875) American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States.

In the New World several Female Missionary Societies saw the light and invited men as well as women to proclaim the Word of God.  The Female Missionary Society of the Western District hired in this way Charles Grandison Finney who came to promote social reforms, such as abolition of slavery and equal education for women and African Americans. From 1835 he taught at Oberlin College of Ohio, which accepted all genders and races, opening the way for more women able to read the Bible.

The Christians who believed only in One God and wanted others also to know the biblical truth, saw with dismay how Finney used scare tactics to gain converts.

Across the board, many thought that his habitual use of the words you and hell “let down the dignity of the pulpit.” {Charles Finney Father of American revivalism}

During the 16th and 17th century Anabaptists were heavily prosecuted in Europe because of their view of Jesus his position and man’s position in this world. By the many searchers for the truth lots of them found they could not take on the human doctrines like the Trinity and found that people had to be fully aware of what believing meant and when to commit themselves to the Only One God. From the Low countries many went to America. On the boat-trip they had a very good opportunity to speak about the biblical truth to others form different denominations. also the English doctor John Thomas who as ship’s surgeon on the Marquis of Wellesley, took the occasion to share his ideas with many people on board. When this boat docked in New York, Thomas travelled on to Cincinnati, Ohio where he became convinced by the Restoration Movement (also known as the or the Stone-Campbell Movement) of the need for baptism and joined them in October 1832. Looking for the “church within” we can imagine that people tried also to express themselves freely to show others how they understood the Word of God.

The Restoration Movement developed from several independent strands of religious revival that idealized apostolic Christianity. They were united in the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. After his bad experience fearing for his life when the boat had nearly sunk, Thomas took his vow to God seriously and went going from one place to another, preaching the Word of God. Many of his followers came to “the Brotherhood”, and started to have meetings in their houses or barns to study the Word of God. For them it was clear that human doctrines and church creeds divide and that real Christians should be under Christ. for them God’s Word was clearly given to all people and the Bible was not to be the matter only for clergy. For them all Christians should take the Bible as their guide and leader and should suppress all divisive doctrines and practices.

One of Thomas his disciples would find enough people interested to print pamphlets and tracts. He also started as a Christian restorationist minister and became better known as Pastor Russell, being the instigator of Russellism or founder of the Russellites, opposite the Thomasites or followers of Dr. Thomas who founded the Christadelphians, Brothers in Christ who took studying the bible as one of their priorities (hence the other name Bible Students).

Dr Thomas also wrote for and was editor of the Apostolic Advocate which first appeared in May 1834, whilst Charles Taze Russell started only in July 1879 with publishing his monthly religious journal, Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence. In 1881 he co-founded Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society with William Henry Conley as president, providing the establishment of an international Bible Student movement. In 1884 the corporation was officially registered, with Russell as president. From then onwards those Bible Students tried to bring Bible fragments in the common language of the day. For them women had also their say and were worthy co-operators to produce articles and to bring bible texts in contemporary American English.

It was his successor as society president, Joseph Rutherford who brought a wide division in the Bible student movement and created the Jehovah’s Witnesses who would work at translating the Word of God, doing a marvellous job, presenting bibles in many languages all over the world, so that nobody would have an excuse he or she could not find a Bible in a language he or she understands.

Mary Jane Patterson (1840–1894)

In 1862 Mary Jane Patterson became the first African-American woman to receive a B.A degree in the New World. She received a recommendation for an “appointment from the American missionary Association as a … teacher among freedmen.” In 1865 Patterson became an assistant to Fanny Jackson Coppin at the Philadelphia’s Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania). In 1869 to 1871 Patterson taught in Washington, D. C., at the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth known today as Dunbar High School (Washington, D.C.). She served as the school’s first Black principal, from 1871 to 1872. She was reappointed from 1873 to 1884. During her administration, the school grew from less than 50 to 172 students, the name “Preparatory High School” was dropped, high school commencements were initiated, and a teacher-training department was added to the school. Patterson’s commitment to thoroughness as well as her “forceful” and “vivacious” personality helped her establish the school’s strong intellectual standards.
We can imagine by those standards being a Christian life style and good moral where essence.

Already around the turn of the 18th to 19th century women had started wanting to have a stronger voice in the education of children. Also parents started looking more at how to bring up children together in a community. They had seen the public school system starting to develop going away from certain ways of life preferred by them. The spiritual aspect was important and could not be forgotten. Discontented with the new public school system more alternative education developed in part as a reaction to perceived limitations and failings of traditional education. In many of such schools at that time the Bible and Christian life formed an important element of educational basic training. A broad range of educational approaches emerged, including alternative schools, self learning, homeschooling and unschooling.

Benjamin Wilson (1817–1900)

In 1840 the English family Wilson though originally Baptists, joined the growing Campbellite movement and moved to the New World four years later. In Geneva, Illinois the family began to distance themselves from the Campbellites. In 1846 Benjamin Wilson wrote his first letter to the other ex-Campbellite John Thomas, as recorded in the latter’s magazine The Herald of the Future Age, agreeing with the Thomas’ views on the immortal soul – the initial cause of his break with Campbell. There is considerable correspondence in Thomas’ magazines from various members of the Wilson family over the next several years.

Just as John Thomas had been re-baptised in 1847, Benjamin Wilson was rebaptised in 1851, marking off a new start from the Campbellites.

The first page of the Complutensian Polyglot

From 1855 to 1869 Benjamin Wilson published a monthly religious magazine, the Gospel Banner, which merged with John Thomas’s magazine, Herald of the Coming Kingdom.

In 1857 the autodidact Biblical scholar Benjamin Wilson presented a first section of a side-by-side two-language New Testament version like the New Testament in Greek and Latin, had been completed in 1514 with the Complutensian printed by Axnaldus Guilielmus de Brocario at the expense of Cardinal Ximenes at the university at Alcalá de Henares (Complutum) and the Antwerp Polyglot, printed by Christopher Plantin (1569-1572, in eight volumes folio). Polyglot means, literally poly or multi tongue or multi lingual, “through tongue” or “many / several languages” and is understood to signify “interlinear.”

In England there had also been a polyglot translation by Brian Walton who was aided by able scholars and used much new manuscript material (London, 1657). It included the Ethiopic Psalter, Canticle of Canticles, and New Testament, the Arabic New Testament, and the Gospels in Persian. His prolegomena and collections of various readings mark an important advance in biblical criticism.

It was in connection with this polyglot that Edmund Castell produced his famous Heptaglott Lexicon (two volumes folio, London, 1669), a monument of industry and erudition even when allowance is made for the fact that for the Arabic he had the great manuscript lexicon compiled and left to the University of Cambridge by William Bedwell. {Free Encyclopedia Wikipedia}

The Bible was also published in several languages by Elias Hutter (Nuremberg, 1599-1602), and by Christianus Reineccius (Leipsic, 1713-51). Ten years before the “Polyglot Bible in eight languages” (2 vols., London, 2nd ed. 1874) the Christadelphians produced the complete two-language Emphatic Diaglott translation, of the New Testament by Benjamin Wilson. For the Greek text he based it on the various Readings of the Vatican Manuscript, No. 1209; the text used by the German rationalist Protestant theologian Johann Jakob Griesbach, who was the earliest biblical critic to subject the Gospels to systematic literary analysis. In this translation the name of God is also restored, so that readers could clearly see about whom was spoke and who said something, the lord Jeshua (Jesus Christ) or the Lord of lords”Jehovah“.

In this Interlineary literal Word for Word English translation ‘Signs of Emphasis’ were given; whilst under each Greek word the English equivalent is printed. In the slim right-hand column of each page is presented a modern English translation as made by Benjamin Wilson. Also a copious selection of ‘References’; many appropriate, illustrative, and exegetical ‘Foot-notes’; and a valuable ‘Alphabetical Appendix’ are given. This combination of important items could not be found in any other book at that time.

Such literal translations made many bible Students to see much things more clearly. Also Charles T. Russell, learned that the inspired Greek Scriptures speak of the second “presence” of Christ, for the Diaglott translated the Greek word “parousía” correctly as “presence,” and not as “coming” like the King James Version Bible. Accordingly when C. T. Russell began publishing his new Bible magazine in July of 1879, he called it Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence.

The Christadelphians allowed also the Millenial Dawn Bible Students (later the Watchtower Society) to distribute Wilson’s work widely around the world from 1902. Also the Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith and the Church of the Blessed Hope which he founded are still part of the Christadelphian movement which still print this Bible translation.

Bible students form the Zion’s Watchtower suggested that,

Every student of God’s plan, as presented in the Tower, ought to have the aid which the Diaglott affords.

As such this translation became a useful attribute for the later standard Bible of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, The New World Translation.

In 2004, the Abrahamic Faith Beacon Publishing Society brought home The Emphatic Diaglott and re-published a new version of it, working in partnership with The Christadelphian Advancement Trust.

In the homeschooling opposite to traditional Christian schools it were mostly women who took up the job as teacher. Having only bibles in Old English they wanted books in a more contemporary language and put pressure on the existing clergy. From the congregations also came a louder cry to provide them with modern language bibles.

King James Version of the Bible (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Answering that cry from the housewives and teachers in 1870 an invitation was extended to American religious leaders for scholars to work on the revision of the Authorized Version/King James Bible of 1611. In 1871, thirty scholars were chosen by Philip Schaff. The denominations represented on the American committee were the Baptist, Congregationalist, Dutch Reformed, Friends, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal, and Unitarian.

In England also there was a request to have a revision and by the Convocation of Canterbury in 1870 two companies were formed, one each for the Old and New Testaments to revise the King James Version. Parallel companies in the United States received the work of the English scholars to return their comments. For those at work it was made clear only a revision and not a new translation was contemplated.

The New Testament was published in England on May 17, 1881, and three days later in the United States, after 11 years of labour. Over 30,000 changes were made, of which more than 5,000 represent differences in the Greek text from that used as the basis of the King James Version. Most of the others were made in the interests of consistency or modernization.

In the traditional churches there was not much interest in the Old Testament, this not fitting in with the accent of their teaching on Jesus, instead of God.

On certain points the English and Americans did not agree. At that time the Americans still gave in to the British revisers and published preferred readings and renderings in an appendix to the Revised Version. In 1900 the American edition of the New Testament, which incorporated the American scholars’ preferences into the body of the text, was produced. A year later the Old Testament was added, but not the Apocrypha. The alterations covered a large number of obsolete words and expressions and replaced Anglicisms by the diction then in vogue in the United States.

As shown above women and the general American public made use to talk about the Bible and to use it at home. The publishers could not ignore their wishes and provided them with some official version which could offer an alternative for the partly published Bible books and for the unofficial translations into modern speech made from 1885 which had gained popularity. Their appeal reinforced by the discovery that the Greek of the New Testament used the common non-literary variety of the language spoken throughout the Roman Empire when Christianity was in its formative stage.

The notion that a nonliterary modern rendering of the New Testament best expressed the form and spirit of the original was hard to refute. This, plus a new maturity of classical, Hebraic, and theological scholarship in the United States, led to a desire to produce a native American version of the English Bible. {Encyclopaedia Britannica}

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Preceding articles:

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #1 Pre King James Bible

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #2 King James Bible versions

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #3 Women and versions

Next: Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #5 Further steps to women’s bibles

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Additional reading

1. Codex Sinaiticus available for perusal on the Web
2. Bible Translating and Concordance Making
3. Looking at notes of Samuel Ward and previous Bible translation efforts in English
4. Written and translated by different men over thousands of years
5. Rare original King James Bible discovered
6. King James Bible Coming into being
7. Celebrating the Bible in English
8. TheBible4Life KJV Jubileum
9. What English Bible do you use?
10. The Most Reliable English Bible
11. 2001 Translation an American English Bible
12. NWT and what other scholars have to say to its critics
13. New American Bible Revised Edition
14. The NIV and the Name of God
15. Archeological Findings the name of God YHWHUse of /Gebruik van Jehovah or/of Yahweh in Bible Translations/Bijbel vertalingen
16. Dedication and Preaching Effort 400 years after the first King James Version
17. Hebrew, Aramaic and Bibletranslation
18. Some Restored Name Versions
19. Anchor Yale Bible
20. iPod & Android Bibles
21. Missed opportunity for North Korea
22. What are Brothers in Christ
23. Wanting to know more about basic teachings of Christadelphianism
24. Around C.T.Russell

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Further reading

1. Jennifer Strauss, ‘The Anabaptist Cages, Münster’
2. The Bible: Kept Pure in All Ages
3. Where was the Bible before 1611? How can we know God endorsed the KJV?
4. AV1611: England’s Greatest Achievement
5. Earliest Known Draft of 1611 King James Bible Is Found
6. Ye King Iames Bible
7. King James Version
8. Thees, Thous, and Wot Nots
9. The King James Bible
10. The King James Bible and the Restoration
11. King James Only? (Ethernal Christ)
12. KJV Only? (Lynn Thaler)
13. KJV Onlyism: What It Does And Doesn’t Mean
14. King James XV
15. Christian Scholars Admit To Corrupting The Bible
16. What’s wrong with the New King James?
17. Is it true no doctrines are changed in modern versions?
18. The King James AV 1611 Bible vs. The New International Version
19. I got saved reading the NIV. How can you say it’s no good?
20. Why should God’s Word be restricted to English?
21. The Attack on the Bible
22. John 3:16 isn’t the gospel that saves men’s souls today
23. New Age Deism
24. New Age Deism: Part Two
25. Inside Orthodox Judaism: A Critical Perspective On Its Theology
26. Mailbox Monday August 29: on Katharina von Bora
27. 11th April 1612. Dangerous Heresy.
28. Book Review: The Reformers and Their Stepchildren by Leonard Verduin
29. women.born.before | 05 feb 1760
30. Settler Colonialism and the Freedom of Religion
31. Searching for Religious Freedom
32. Freedom From and For Religion
33. This Week in History – Kicked to the Curb by a Pilgrim
34. King Survey: Women and Other Puritans
35. The Puritans: Church and State
36. Midweek Blog: Anne Hutchinson, the “Unnatural Woman”
37. Paddling the Hutch: Ned P. Rauch takes the plunge
38. Great Information Wrapped Inside This Human Struggle
39. The Puritan identification with the Bible
40. Despite Roger Williams’ Efforts, Providence Burns in 1676
41. Williams
42. Roger Williams in Art
43. Mass Moments: Roger Williams Banished
44. Research Reading IV
45. Research Reading V
46. History Weekend: The Shakers, pt. 1
47. Quakers
48. Commonwealth – Part Two
49. A Catalogue of Severall Sects & Opinions
50. History of the Anabaptist Head Covering
51. Faith in the Head Covering
52. Persecuted in Revolutionary Baltimore: The Sufferings of Quakers
53. Half an hour in James Watt’s Workshop
54. The Advices & Queries project
55. The Violent Seduction of Thomas Paine by Rocket Kirchner
56. The Last Runaway Review
57. Stantons in America
58. Eber Sherman, ,7th Great-Grandfather
59. Birmingham Quakers and the Spanish Civil War
60. Hidden Nearby: Charles Grandison Finney’s Birthplace
61. Free Charles Finney Book!
62. The reward of fervent prayer, Charle G. Finney
63. Midweek Blog: Charles Finney, Staring at You Until You Join His Revival
64. “Could God Forgive A Man Like That?”
65. Joseph Logan land, 127 acres, Ninety Six District, South Carolina, 1785
66. Alexander Campbell & the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
67. Restoration
68. The Restoration Movement, Acapella & the Trinity
69. The Future of the Restoration Movement, Part 2
70. Charles Taze Russell – “Don’t read your Bible”
71. Apocalyptic Forecasts
72. Women’s History: Mary Jane Patterson
73. Some Notes on Bible Translations
74. What is Wrong with Evangelicals in America?
75. For Us or Against Us: The Politics of the Christian Right & the Shutdown
76. Icon: Tacy Cooper
77. The Secret of Powerful Revivals Are the Intercessors Praying Behind the Scenes
78. Les origines de nos traditions dans l’Eglise : Partie 1
79. Edifying Christian Biographies That Will Bless Every True Christian!
80. A Visit to Pembroke College
81. Hospitality
82. ‘Tis a Gift
83. A weekend away
84. Simple gifts
85. Becoming Visible: Quaker Outreach at Colleges
86. Turbulent Londoners: Ada Salter, 1866-1942
87. A Spicy Letter to Preachers
88. On Church Leadership (an email exchange with Sándor Abonyi of Hungary) – Pt.1: “The First Button”
89. My way is the best
90. ELCA Repudiates the Doctrine of Discovery, Next Up: Mennonite Church USA
91. A glimpse of Missouri’s Amish
92. Freedom of religion
93. Book Review – Recovering the Margins of American Religious History: The Legacy of David Edwin Harrell, Jr. (Waldrop and Billingsley, eds.)
94. Book Review: The Churches of Christ in the 20th Century: Homer Hailey’s Personal Journey of Faith (David Edwin Harrell, Jr.)
95. Churches of Christ – The Road Ahead
96. Some Notes on Bible Translations

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Related articles

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• The Middle West hiding in the Middle East – Beyond Foreignness
• Bible Statistics
• How much ‘overexaggeration’ is enough?
• Ancient Jewish scroll now legible
• Thoughts On Classical Education from Martin Cothran – The Reading Mother
• Looking at notes of Samuel Ward and previous Bible translation efforts in English
• Written and translated by different men over thousands of years
• The Bible a book of books

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