As long-time viewers of this site will recognize we have inaugurated a complete overhaul of the Original Bible Project Website with new software that will support a wide range of new features. This will include updated Translation Sample releases, news items and information related to the Project, and lots of discussion of translation issues along the way. Rather than carry on our main communication through periodic newsletters as we have done over the past decade this new Web site will allow us to be in touch with those interested in the Transparent English Bible on a frequent and regular basis. We are particularly pleased that through the Web we will be able to easily reach people living in any country in the world, whereas in the past, sending surface/air mail reports through conventional means to those outside the United States was becoming prohibitive financially.

If you have not already subscribed our e-mail list please go to our contact page and sign up. This will allow us to reach all of our interested readers with more immediate news items and special alerts related to the Project. You may also use that page to offer us feeback via e-mail and to pose whatever questions you have.

I am completely committed to seeing this wonderful Project through to the end. I just looked up some dates. The OBP was officially incorporated on September 11, 1991. It came to me through the inspiration of the late and beloved Dr. Ernest L. Martin who had visited me here in Charlotte in early 1991 and invited me to Portland in May of that year to discuss his beginning ideas. I actually began work in May, 1992. At the time I remember telling Dr. Martin that I was sure it would be a five-year Project. Of course I had no idea of what would turn out to be the complexity of the task. Moreover, I did not anticipate the ways my academic and professional career would require so much of my time, particularly in the areas of archaeology, research, publishing, and now serving as Chair of a growing Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Martin always had faith that the OBP would come out at the “right time” and he encouraged me along the way to take advantage of the opportunities that were before me as a scholar. I think he saw everything working out eventually as a harmonious whole-even if things did not unfold according to the timetable we initially anticipated. I would like to think he was correct in that positive faith he always maintained.

I should point out for those who are fairly new to the Project that much of it depends on one person-me. That was our deliberative decision from the beginning. Many translations have teams of scholars working on various books with the final product synthesized by editorial deliberation. What we decided was that the basic translation, of both the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament would come first from one editor, in consultation with others, and then be reviewed by teams of scholars. Our decision was based on our desire to achieve an absolute consistency in our method and approach to the translation. If I were completely free to work on this and only this, and did not have a job or career, I suppose I could have met my original five-year projection. I still believe our decision was correct and I am thoroughly committed both to the concept and the task before us.

For reasons of cost and efficiency we want to move most of our operations to the Internet and handle things electronically through e-mail and the Web site. If some of you do not personally use the Web or e-mail I imagine one of your children or grandchildren or a friend or relative would be more than pleased to assist you in this. Our plans are to put our current Translation Samples on the Web site so anyone can download them and print them out and our new releases will be handled the same way. Material can then be released more quickly and efficiently and everyone on our e-mail sign-up list will be regularly informed of new materials and major news of the project. If there are any of our long-term supporters who absolutely have no way to access the Internet or the Web we will of course mail you these materials. However, we anticipate almost everyone can move to this new medium with a bit of help from friends or relatives.

I should also want to be sure that everyone knows that we have moved our OBP editorial and administrative office to Charlotte, NC. For all the years of the Project we have never really had an “office” per se, but Bob Ellsworth, who has done so much for us over the years has allowed us to use his own business office in Pasadena and has voluntarily carried on all our administrative duties single-handedly. I have now secured shared office space at a very economical cost here in Charlotte The office, which houses the David Horowitz Memorial Library, is lovely and has room for all my books and research materials. This growing library, focused on biblical and historical research, is perfect match for us in terms of space. Having our own dedicated place is a first for us and I think it will make a tremendous difference in our operational efficiency. The new address to which you should now direct all correspondence is: 2124 Crown Centre Drive, Suite 200, Charlotte, NC 28227. The telephone number is 704-841-3689. Your can reach us via e-mail at the Web site under “Contact.”

As we begin to ramp things up again we will continue our work as previously planned with our outside editors and consulting academic readers working with us. I recently met informally with Dr. Haak in Washington, D.C. at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting. Dr. Haak has served as our general Hebrew Bible editor and he remains fully committed to our concept and task.

I want to thank all of you who have loyally been with us all these years. We are getting new people every day through the Web site. The interest in this kind of translation, and the publication of the Bible with the books in the manuscript order as originally arranged is high. I know of no other translation like this one and I have an unwavering commitment to seeing it through to the end.

In Hebrew, the normal word order in a sentence is opposite from English; verb first, then the subject/noun. Thus you would say “Walked Abraham from the city.” In such cases we do not keep the Hebrew order, since this, again, is an English translation, and we want to use “good” English. However, there are cases when the Hebrew reverses the norm and puts the subject/noun first, followed by the verb—precisely as we do in English. What this does then is to emphasize the subject. It is like saying “Abraham walked to the city,” as a way of stressing that it was Abraham and not another. Now as some of you have surely noticed, we already do place pronouns in bold type when they are emphasized. Thus, if you look at Genesis 3:15b: “ . . .he will strike you on the head and you will strike him on the heel.” Normally the Hebrew verb includes the pronoun, so it does not even appear. If a writer wants to show emphasis the pronoun appears, and we put it in bold type. I think this added feature of putting the subject of a sentence in bold, whenever the word order indicates emphasis, will add another unique and very useful feature to the TEB.

Another issue that some of our readers have raised is the matter of chapters and verses. Someone wrote recently: “I think it would be fantastic if there could be a special version of the TEB that did not include the man-made chapter and verse divisions. I understand the practical use for them for study purposes, so I’m not suggesting that no version of the TEB have them. I’m just suggesting that there be two versions–one with the chapter and verse divisions and one without.”

It is the case that the chapter and version divisions currently used are not in the original manuscripts and they are often quite arbitrary, senseless, and sometimes even misleading. It is also true that for purposes of reference they have become essential. It is possible that we could easily produce an electronic version of the TEB with the chapters and verses removed. I doubt we would ever do that in a printed edition. The appeal would just be too limited. However, if you look at a page of our text as we currently produce it, you will notice that the original “white spaces” or manuscript divisions of the text stand out, even with the “chapters and verses” included. In other words they dominate the page and give the reader the feeling of the original. For example, here is Gen 18:33-19:1.

33 And YHVH walked, as he finished speaking toward Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. Chapter 19:1 And two of the messengers came Sodom-ward in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. And Lot saw, and he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself down, two nostrils toward the soil.

You can easily see at a glance that although we have the modern chapter division marked, there is no break in the original text—and for good reason. The author wants you to read straight from 18:33 to the next verse, without a pause. It is all one context and still very much a part of the same story. This is a feature, combined with the “white spaces” that do occur in the original manuscripts, that virtually no other English translation offers (the Koren Jerusalem Bible is a welcome exception). The overall look of a page of the TEB does in fact reflect the look of the original manuscripts in terms of spacing and breaks. Here is a sample of the page look.

Quite a few of you have urged us to adopt “Hebraic” names and terminology for persons and places mentioned in the Bible. Thus “Abraham” would be “Avraham,” “Jacob” would be “Yaaqov,” “Jerusalem” would be “Yerushayim,” and “Judah,” would be “Yehuda.” The idea is that the English reader would be able to hear and become familiar with the “original” Hebrew way of pronouncing names. The idea has a certain appeal, but how many of you could figure out the following: Mitzraim (Egypt); Paras (Persia); Yishme’elim (Ishmaelites); and Par’o (Pharaoh)? Several English translations have adopted this practice, including the Koren Jerusalem Bible Tanakh and David Stern’s edition of The Complete Jewish Bible. We made a decision several years ago that since this is an English translation, we should stay with English versions of Biblical names. What is the point of pronouncing names as if one were speaking Hebrew? Think about it—the word Yochanan in Hebrew becomes Ioannes in Greek, John, in English, but then Juan in Spanish, Johann in German, and Jean in French! There is one obvious exception—we have determined, as most of you know, to leave the various names of God untranslated—thus YHVH, ELOHIM, EL SHADDAI, and so forth.

Most modern/font translations in keeping with traditional prohibitions against pronouncing the name of God have adopted a complicated and confusing system of translating the names and designations for Deity in the Hebrew Bible. The Tetragrammaton (Yahweh) is thus translated LORD in all capital letters. The problem with this practice is that it then creates confusion with the Hebrew term Adonai which does mean Lord. Accordingly most modern translations distinguish this without the capital letters. This is fine until you have the terms used together: YHVH Adonai which would then become the nonsensical LORD Lord. To address this redundancy the translators in such cases opt for GOD (all caps) for YHVH. But here another problem is createdthe normal terms for God (El Eloah and Elohim) are also rendered God throughout with no distinction so that you can end up with GOD being redundant with God if Adonai is also used. The simple solution is to reflect in every case the Hebrew terms actually used without attempting translations that only further confuse. So in the TEB you will find written in all CAPS these special names or terms for Deity:

YHVH (Yahweh or Yehovah)brYAH (shortened form of YHVH)
ADON (Master or Lord)brADONAI (plural of ADON)
EL ELOAH and its plural ELOHIM (the terms for God)
ELYON (Most High)
SHADDAI (Breasts or Protector/Destroyer)

The TEB has also included notes on the 134 places where it is said that the scribes (Sopherim) removed the name YHVH for theological reasons altering it to ADONAI in the standard Masoretic text (MT). For example in Genesis 18:3 27 30 and 32 where Abraham is speaking to Yahweh the traditional text has Adonai or Lord to avoid what was considered an extreme anthropomorphism. The TEB notes the 18 emendations of the Sopherim for example see Genesis 18:22.

One may properly ask but why another translation of the Bible Just in recent years we have seen the appearance of the New American Standard Bible the New International Version the New King James Version the New English Bible the New Jerusalem Bible and most recently the New Revised Standard Version. All of these are excellent works representing the collective wisdom of thousands of top Biblical scholars. Do we really need another ?
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