Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 15:1 | After these words, the word of Jehovah was to Abram in a vision, saying, Thou shalt not fear, Abram: I a shield to thee, thy reward great exceedingly. |
| 15:2 | And Abram will say, My Lord Jehovah, what wilt thou give to me, and I going childless, and the son of Masek in my house, he Eliezer of Damascus? |
| 15:3 | And Abram will say, Behold, to me thou gavest no seed, and behold the son of my house shall inherit me. |
| 15:4 | And behold, the word of Jehovah was to him, saying, This shall not inherit thee, for truly he who shall come forth from thy bowels shall inherit thee. |
| 15:5 | And he will bring him forth without, and will say, Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if thou shalt be able to count them: and he will say to him, So shall be thy seed. |
| 15:6 | And he believed in Jehovah; and it shall be reckoned to him justice. |
| 15:7 | And he will say to him, I am Jehovah who brought thee from Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit it. |
| 15:8 | And he will say, My Lord Jehovah, how shall I know that I shall inherit it? |
| 15:9 | And he will say to him, Take to me a heifer of three, and a goat of three, and a ram of three, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. |
| 15:10 | And he will take to him all these, and he will divide them, asunder in the midst, and will put each of its parts divided, opposite its companion: and the birds he divided not |
| 15:11 | And the birds will come down upon the dead carcases, and Abram will drive them together. |
| 15:12 | And the sun shall be going down, and a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold terror and great darkness fell upon him. |
| 15:13 | And he will say to Abram, Knowing thou shalt know that thy seed shall be a sojourner in the land not to them; and they shall serve them and they shall humble them four hundred years. |
| 15:14 | And also the nation whom they shall serve, I will judge, and after this they shall come forth with great substance. |
| 15:15 | And thou shalt go to thy fathers in tranquillity; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. |
| 15:16 | And the fourth generation they shall turn back hither: for the crime of the Amorite has not been completed till now. |
| 15:17 | And the sun shall be going down, and it was thick darkness, and behold a furnace of smoke and a lamp of fire that passed over between these pieces. |
| 15:18 | In that day Jehovah cut out a covenant with Abram, saying, To thy seed gave I this land from the river of Egypt, to the great river, the river Euphrates: |
| 15:19 | The Kenites and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites; |
| 15:20 | The Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims; |
| 15:21 | And the Amorites and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. |
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
The Julia Evelina Smith Parker Translation is considered the first complete translation of the Bible into English by a woman. The Bible was titled The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments; Translated Literally from the Original Tongues, and was published in 1876.
Julia Smith, of Glastonbury, Connecticut had a working knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. 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." 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 with the English future) results in a translation that is mechanical and often nonsensical. However, such a translation if overly literal might be valuable to consult in checking the meaning of some individual verse. One notable feature of this translation was the prominent use of the Divine Name, Jehovah, throughout the Old Testament of this Bible version.
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.
The translation fell into obscurity as it was for the most part too literal and lacked any flow. For example, Jer. 22:23 was given as follows: "Thou dwelling in Lebanon, building as nest in the cedars, how being compassionated in pangs coming to thee the pain as in her bringing forth." However, the translation was the only Contemporary English translation out of the original languages available to English readers until the publication of The British Revised Version in 1881-1894.(The New testament was published in 1881, the Old in 1884, and the Apocrypha in 1894.) This makes it an invaluable Bible for its period.