Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 61:1 | The spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah anointed me to announce good news to the afflicted, he sent me to bind up to the broken of heart, to call freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to the bound. |
| 61:2 | To call the year of acceptance to Jehovah, and the day of vengeance to our God; to comfort all those mourning; |
| 61:3 | To set to those mourning in Zion, to give to them adorning instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, the vestment of praise for the spirit of faintness; and it shall be called to them, The mighty trees of justice of the planting of Jehovah, to be honored. |
| 61:4 | And they shall build the perpetual wastes; they shall raise up the former desolations, and they renewed the cities of the waste, the desolations of generation and generation. |
| 61:5 | And strangers stood and fed your sheep, and the sons of the stranger, your husbandmen and your vinedressers. |
| 61:6 | And ye shall be called the priests of Jehovah, serving our God; he shall say to you, Ye shall eat the strength of the nations, and ye shall take place in their honor. |
| 61:7 | For your shame the second place; and they shall rejoice in reproach, their portion: for this in their land they shall inherit the second place; eternal joy shall be to them. |
| 61:8 | For I Jehovah love judgment, hating robbery for burnt-offering; and I gave their works in truth, and I will cut out to them an eternal covenant |
| 61:9 | And their seed was known among the nations, and their offspring in the midst of the peoples: all seeing them shall recognise them, for they the seed Jehovah blessed. |
| 61:10 | Rejoicing, I will rejoice in Jehovah, my soul shall exult in my God, for he put upon me the garments of salvation, and he clothed me with a robe of justice, as a bridegroom will be a priest with a turban, and as a bride will be adorned with her dress. |
| 61:11 | For as the earth will bring forth her sprout, and as a garden will cause the things sown to sprout, so the Lord Jehovah will cause justice and praise to sprout before all nations. |
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.