Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 1:1 | The song of songs which is to Solomon. |
| 1:2 | He shall kiss me from the kisses of his mouth: for thy good breasts are above wine. |
| 1:3 | To the odor of the good ointments thy name shall be poured forth an ointment; for this, the maidens loved thee. |
| 1:4 | Draw me, we will run after thee: the king brought me to his chambers: we will exult and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy breasts above wine: the upright loved thee. |
| 1:5 | I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. |
| 1:6 | Thou shalt not see me, I am black; the sun searched me: my mother's sons were angry with me; they set me to watch the vineyards; my vineyard I watched not for me. |
| 1:7 | Announce to me, thou whom my soul loved, where thou wilt feed, where thou wilt lie down at noon: wherefore shall I be as he covered by the herds of thy companions. |
| 1:8 | If thou shalt not know for thyself, O fair one among women, come forth for thyself at the heels of the flock, and feed thy kids by the shepherds' tents. |
| 1:9 | To my mares in Pharaoh's chariots I likened thee, O my neighbor. |
| 1:10 | Thy cheeks were beautiful with with rows, thy neck with strings of pearls. |
| 1:11 | We will make for thee rows of gold, with marks of silver. |
| 1:12 | The king yet in his divan, my spikenard gave its odor. |
| 1:13 | A bundle of myrrh my beloved to me; he shall lodge between my breasts. |
| 1:14 | A cluster of cypress my beloved to me in the vineyards of the kids' fountain. |
| 1:15 | Behold thee fair, my friend; behold thee beautiful; thine eyes are doves'. |
| 1:16 | Behold thee beautiful, my beloved, also pleasant: also our bed is green. |
| 1:17 | The walls of our houses cedars, our carved ceilings, cypresses. |
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.