The Julia Evelina Smith Parker Translation is considered the first complete translation of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

into English by a woman. , she is still the only woman to have translated the entire Bible unaided. The Bible was titled ''The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments; Translated Literally from the Original Tongues'', and was published in 1876.Paul, William, "Smith, Julia E. ''English Language Bible Translators'', p. 212-213, McFarland & Co., 2003.

Translator

Julia E. Smith (1792–1886), of

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had a working knowledge of

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and

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. Her father had been a Congregationalist minister before he became a lawyer. Having read the Bible in its original languages, she set about creating her own translation, which she completed in 1855, after a number of drafts. The work is a strictly literal rendering, always translating a Greek or Hebrew word with the same word wherever possible. Smith accomplished this work on her own in the span of eight years (1847 to 1855). She had sought out no help in the venture, even writing, "I do not see that anybody can know more about it than I do."Metzger, Bruce M., The Bible in Translation, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2001 Smith wanted to be as literal as possible, partially as a result of a failed end-of-the-world prediction by William Miller, which claimed to be based on biblical texts. Smith believed this failure stemmed from straying from the original languages of the Bible, and she set about to create a better translation.

Translation style

Smith's insistence on complete literalness, plus an effort to translate each original word with the same English word, combined with an odd notion of Hebrew tenses (often translating the Hebrew

imperfect tense The imperfect (abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to w ...

with the English

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) resulted in a translation that some regard as mechanical and often nonsensical. One notable feature of this translation was the prominent use of the Divine Name, Jehovah, throughout the Old Testament of this Bible version. An example of Smith's literal translation is Jeremiah 22:23:

Publication

Smith began her translation in 1847 and finished it in 1855. The New Testament was published in 1881, the Old Testament in 1884, and the

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in 1894. In 1876, at 84 years of age, some 21 years after completing her work, she finally sought publication. The publication costs ($4,000) were personally funded by Julia and her sister Abby Smith. The 1,000 copies printed were offered for $2.50 each, but her household auction in 1884 sold about 50 remaining copies.

Importance

The translation was one of only a few contemporary English translations out of the original languages available to English readers until the publication of the

Revised Version The Revised Version (RV) or English Revised Version (ERV) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version. It was the first and remains the only officially authorised and recognised revision of the King James Versio ...

in 1881–1894. This makes it an invaluable Bible for its period. The translation fell into obscurity as it was for the most part too literal and lacked any flow.

References

External links