''The Bible: An American Translation'' (AAT) is an
English version of the Bible consisting of the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
translated by a group of scholars under the editorship of
John Merlin Powis Smith, the
Apocrypha
Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...
translated by
Edgar J. Goodspeed, and the
New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
translated by
Edgar J. Goodspeed.
Editions
This translation has been made available in a number of editions as shown here:
In the preface to the 1931 edition, Powis Smith and Goodspeed wrote, "The rapid advance of learning in recent years in the fields of history, archaeology, and language has thrown new light upon every part of the Bible. At the same time our changing English speech has carried us farther and farther from the sixteenth-century diction in which all our standard versions of it are clothed. Yet the great messages of the Old and New Testaments were never more necessary than in our present confused and hurried life. We have, therefore, sought to produce a new translation of them, based upon the assured results of modern study, and put in the familiar language of today."
Reception and legacy
The initial reaction to the use of this translation, rather than the
King James Bible
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...
of the 1600s, was poor, but the idea of a 20th century Bible version was accepted over time.
A similarly named Bible translated by William Beck, was published in 1976. This was a reaction against the
Revised Standard Version.
Concordia Theological Seminary website, ''The Springfielder'', January 1976 Volume 40, Number 1 Page 19 ''Dr William Beck’s American Translation of the Old Testament'', by Raymond F Surburg
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See also
* List of English Bible translations
References
1935 non-fiction books
American Translation
American Translation
External links
The New Testament: An American Translation (1923)The Old Testament: An American Translation (1927)The Bible: An American Translation (1931)The Short Bible: An American Translation (1933)The Junior Bible: An American Translation (1936)The Complete Bible: An American Translation (1939)The Bible: An American Translation (1947 printing)The Apocrypha: An American Translation (1959)
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