Bible translations

Hebrew and Greek are languages that most of the Bible was written in. The fact that languages change over time, affects how the Bible is translated. A translation that was easy to read when it was first produced may not be so clear later on. An example of this is the King James Version which was first produced in 1611. It became one of the most popular English Bibles. The wording used in the King James Version even affected the English language. When the King James Version first appeared, the English words it used sounded modern. But as time went by, some of those words began to sound old-fashioned, and today they are difficult to understand. The same thing happened with early Bible translations in other languages.

History
The first 39 books of the Bible were written by the Jews, or Israelites. They were the ones first “entrusted with the sacred pronouncements of God.” (Romans 3:1, 2) They originally wrote these books in either Hebrew or Aramaic. However, by the third century BCE, many Jews no longer understood Hebrew. When Alexander the Great conquered a large part of the world, the Greek Empire spread. As a result, Greek became the common language in the areas that Greece ruled, and many people began to speak Greek instead of their own language (Daniel 8:5-7, 20, 21). This included many Jews, so it became difficult for them to understand the Bible in Hebrew.

Greek Septuagint

 * Main: Greek Septuagint

Some 250 years before Jesus was born, the first five books of the Bible were translated into Greek. Later, the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures were also translated. This translation became known as the Greek Septuagint. It is the first known written translation of the whole Hebrew Scriptures. The Septuagint made it possible for Greek-speaking Jews to read the Hebrew Scriptures in Greek. John Chrysostom of the fourth/fifth century CE said that by his day, Jesus’ teachings had been translated into the languages of the Syrians, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, Ethiopians, and innumerable other peoples. Eventually, the Bible was translated into other commonly spoken languages, such as Syriac, Gothic, and Latin.

Wycliffe Bibles

 * Also: Opposition to English translation

Over the years, many powerful leaders tried to prevent people from reading the Bible. Some God-fearing men sought to make the Bible available to all, such as John Wycliffe, who lived in England during the 14th century. He believed that everyone should be able to read the Bible. During his lifetime, most people in England had never heard the Bible’s message in their language. Bibles were very expensive, and each copy had to be written out by hand. So, very few people owned a Bible. Also, most people at that time could not even read. Those who went to church may have heard the Bible read out loud in Latin, but that was an old language that common people did not understand.

In 1382, the English translation later known as the Wycliffe Bible was produced. It quickly gained popularity among followers of Wycliffe. Desiring to get God’s Word into the mind and heart of ordinary people, itinerant preachers known as the Lollards, traveled on foot from village to village all over England. The Lollards read the Bible to people and gave them handwritten copies of parts of it. Their work made the Bible very popular again. However, the clergy hated Wycliffe, his Bible, and his followers. They persecuted the Lollards and destroyed all the Wycliffe Bibles they could find. Even though Wycliffe had already died, the clergy declared him a heretic, or an enemy of the Church. They dug up his bones, burned them, and threw the ashes into the river Swift. But many people wanted to read and understand God’s Word, and the Church could not stop this. In the hundreds of years that followed, people in Europe and other parts of the world began to translate and print the Bible in languages that many could understand.

New World Translation
The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures is a modern-language Bible. This translation is available in whole or in part in over 150 languages, thus being available to a vast part of the population today. Its clear wording allows the message of God’s Word to reach the heart (Ps. 119:97). The New World Translation aims to significantly restore God’s Divine name to its rightful place in the Scriptures, including the New Testament.