Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 2:1 | I Said in my heart, Go now, I will prove thee with gladness, and look thou upon good: and behold, this also vanity. |
| 2:2 | To laughter I said, It is mad: and to gladness, What did this? |
| 2:3 | I examined in my heart to draw my flesh with wine, and my heart led in wisdom; and to lay hold upon folly till that I shall see what this good to the sons of man which they will do under the heavens the number of the days of their life. |
| 2:4 | I magnified my work; I builded to me houses; I planted to me vineyards: |
| 2:5 | I made to me gardens and pleasure grounds, and I planted in them a tree of all fruit |
| 2:6 | I made to me pools of waters to water from them the forest, causing trees to spring forth. |
| 2:7 | I obtained servants and maids, and sons of the house were to me; also obtaining cattle, and many sheep were to me more than all that were before me in Jerusalem. |
| 2:8 | I gathered to me also silver and gold, and the wealth of kings, and the provinces: I made to me men singing and women singing, and the delights of the sons of men, a wife and mistresses. |
| 2:9 | And I was magnified and increased more than all being before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom stood to me. |
| 2:10 | And all that mine eyes asked I kept not back from them, and I withheld not my heart from all gladness; for my heart rejoiced from all my labor: and this was my portion from all my labor. |
| 2:11 | And I looked upon all my works my hands made, and upon the labor I labored to do, and behold, all vanity and striving of the spirit, and no profit under the sun. |
| 2:12 | And I turned to see wisdom, madness, and folly: for what the man that shall come after the king? with those things they did already. |
| 2:13 | And I saw there is profit to wisdom more than to folly, as the excellence of the light above darkness. |
| 2:14 | The wise, his eyes in his head; and the foolish one goes in darkness: and I knew, I also, that one event will meet with them all. |
| 2:15 | And I said in my heart, As the event of the foolish one, also I, it will meet me; and wherefore then was I more wise? And I spake in my heart, This is also vanity. |
| 2:16 | For no remembrance for the wise with the foolish one forever, since in the days coming, all being forgotten. And how will the wise die? with the foolish one. |
| 2:17 | And I hated life, for evil to me the work done under the sun: for all vanity and striving of the spirit |
| 2:18 | And I hated all my labor I laboring under the sun: leaving it to the man who shall come after me. |
| 2:19 | And who shall know whether he shall be wise or foolish? And he shall have dominion over all my labor which I labored, and was wise under the sun. Also this is vanity. |
| 2:20 | And I turned about to let my heart despair for all the labor I labored under the sun. |
| 2:21 | For there is man his labor in wisdom, and in knowledge and in success; and to man not laboring in it he shall give his portion. Also this is vanity and much evil. |
| 2:22 | For what was to man in all his labor, and in the striving of his heart, he labored under the sun? |
| 2:23 | For all his days pains, and vexation, his labor; also in the night his heart rested not Also this it is vanity. |
| 2:24 | Not good in man he shall eat and drink and cause his soul to see good in his labor. Also this I saw that it is from the hand of God. |
| 2:25 | For who shall eat, and who shall hasten forth above me? |
| 2:26 | For to a man good before his face, he gave wisdom and knowledge and gladness: and to him sinning, he gave labor, to gather and to heap up, to give to the good one before the face of God. Also this is vanity and the striving of the spirit. |
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.