Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 5:1 | I Came to my garden, my sister, O spouse: I gathered my myrrh with my spices; I ate my droppings with my honey; I drank my wine with my milk: Eat, O friends; drink ye, and drink to the full, O beloved ones. |
| 5:2 | I slept and my heart waked: the voice of my beloved knocks at the door; Open to me, my sister, my friend, my dove, my perfect one: my head was filled with dew, my locks with the drops of the night |
| 5:3 | I put off my tunic, and how shall I put it on? I washed my feet; how shall I defile them? |
| 5:4 | My beloved sent his hand from the hole, and my bowels were disquieted for him. |
| 5:5 | I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dropped myrrh, and my fingers, myrrh overflowing upon the hands of the bolt |
| 5:6 | I opened to my beloved, and my beloved turned about, he passed away: my soul went forth in his speaking: I sought and I found him not; I called him and he answered me not |
| 5:7 | They watching going round about in the city, found me; they struck me, they wounded me: they watching the wall took away my veil from me. |
| 5:8 | I adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye shall find my beloved, what ye shall announce to him: I am pierced by love. |
| 5:9 | What is thy beloved above the beloved, O beautiful one among women? What thy beloved above the beloved, that thou didst thus adjure us? |
| 5:10 | My beloved is white and ruddy, bearing the standard of ten thousand. |
| 5:11 | His head purified gold, his locks waving branches, black as a raven. |
| 5:12 | His eyes as doves upon channels of waters washed with milk, sitting upon fulness. |
| 5:13 | His cheeks as beds of spices, towers of aromatic herbs: his lips lilies, dropping overflowing myrrh. |
| 5:14 | His hands rings of gold completed in Tarshish: his bowels wrought ivory covered over with sapphires. |
| 5:15 | His legs bases of white marble, founded upon of pure gold: his aspect as Lebanon, choice as the cedars. |
| 5:16 | His palate, sweetness: he is all loveliness. This my beloved, and this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. |
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.