The Literal Standard Version (LSV) is a
Modern English
Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England
England is a Count ...
translation of the Bible with a number of distinctive features. It describes itself as the most literal translation of the Bible into the modern English language.
The first edition was published on February 2, 2020.
History
Work on the Literal Standard Version began in early 2018 with completion of the first edition shortly before its February 2020 publication. U.S. copyright was obtained in January 2020, but the LSV was subsequently released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (
CC BY-SA
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bui ...
). The open-ended licensing allows English distribution and translation to be done commercially and non-commercially by other publishers and organizations as long as sufficient attribution is included.
The translation team made the digital version freely available shortly after release.
The LSV became available on
eBook
An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...
platforms, such as Kindle, Nook, and Kobo in May 2020.
Translation philosophy
As expounded in the preface, the translators have defined their translation philosophy as follows: "The goal of any good translation is to produce a readable text that preserves the original autographic meaning and comes as close as possible to translating, word-for-word, manuscripts that accurately represent the original writings." Regarding Scripture in general, the translators have taken a conservative approach, adhering to both
inerrancy and
infallibility
Infallibility refers to unerring judgment, being absolutely correct in all matters and having an immunity from being wrong in even the smallest matter. It can be applied within a specific domain, or it can be used as a more general adjective. Th ...
, while recognizing that this high view of Scripture ultimately applies only to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek autographs.
The introduction defines a threefold philosophy that undergirds the translation: "Since context and sentence structure are as vital to translation as capturing the proper meaning of each word, the translators of the LSV have used these three key principles in translation: 1. Preservation of verb tenses, 2. Consistent word-for-word translation, and 3. Preservation of word order when readability is unimpacted, but revised word order when necessary for readability."
Textual basis
The LSV is a major revision of
Robert Young's Literal Translation
Literal translation, direct translation, or word-for-word translation is the translation of a text done by translating each word separately without analysing how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence.
In translation theory, anoth ...
.
The Old Testament is based upon the
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...
(MT) with strong influence from the
Septuagint
The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
(LXX). As an example, the LXX chronology in Genesis is set next to the MT. The
Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...
(DSS) were consulted in places.
The New Testament is based upon the
Textus Receptus
The (Latin for 'received text') is the succession of printed Greek New Testament texts starting with Erasmus' ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) and including the editions of Robert Estienne, Stephanus, Theodore Beza, Beza, the House of Elzevir ...
and
Majority Text, although the translators consulted other manuscripts: "in certain, specific instances other manuscript versions and text-types are used where the evidence seems incontrovertible (e.g., the
LXX and
DSS in the Hebrew and Aramaic; the Alexandrian in the Greek)."
Distinctive features
Like a growing number of translations, the LSV uses a name, rather than a title, in translating the
Tetragrammaton
The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliteration, transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from ...
. However, the transliterated Tetragrammaton (YHWH) is used instead of
Yahweh
Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...
out of respect for the differing bodies of research on the pronunciation of the
unpointed name.
Besides the Tetragrammaton, the two most distinctive features of the LSV include its use of justified text blocks throughout mimicking the style of the ancient manuscripts and as an attempt to regard the entirety of Scripture as equally important, and the use of the
caesura mark to distinguish lines of poetic literature.
Given its highly literal nature, the translation has been described as mechanically word-for-word,
which inclines it towards a higher reading level, ideal for deeper research into the meaning of the original languages and the study of biblical idioms and intra-biblical cross references, although it is significantly easier to read than Robert Young's 1862 translation.
Similar to the
New King James Version, the LSV capitalizes all pronouns and most nouns referring to God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the ''Angel'' or ''Messenger'' of the Lord.
The way in which the LSV handles verb tenses, particularly in regard to the Hebrew Old Testament, is best summarized by the arguments presented in Robert Young's original preface to his 1862 translation.
Formats
The LSV has been released in such formats as paperback, hardcover, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Apple Book, PDF, EPUB, theWord, inW
ORD Bible, e-Sword, and MySword, with leather-bound and DBL Paratext-based publications forthcoming. It is also available through numerous Bible apps and online Bible readers, such as
Olive Tree
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...
,
American Bible Society, and
Biblica.
References
External links
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