Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
13:1 | This third I come to you. By mouth of two witnesses, and three, shall every word be established. |
13:2 | I have said before, and say beforehand, as being present the second; and being away now I write to them having sinned before, and to all the rest, that, if I should come again, I will not spare: |
13:3 | Since seek proof of Christ speaking in me, who to you is no weak, but has power in you. |
13:4 | For also if he was crucified from weakness, but he lives from the power of God. For also we are weak in him, but we live with him from the power of God to you. |
13:5 | Try yourselves, if ye are in the faith; prove yourselves. Or know ye not yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless ye are not tried? |
13:6 | And I hope that ye shall know that we are not untried. |
13:7 | And I pray to God that ye do nothing evil; not that we appear tried, but that ye do good, and we be as untried. |
13:8 | For we are not able anything against the truth, but for the truth. |
13:9 | For we rejoice when we be weak, and ye be able: and this also we pray, your restoration. |
13:10 | For this I write these things being absent, that being present I should not wound severely, according to the power which the Lord gave me for building up, and not for pulling down. |
13:11 | As to the rest, brethren, rejoice. Be adjusted, be comforted, think the same, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall with you. |
13:12 | Greet ye one another in a holy kiss |
13:13 | All the holy ones greet you. |
13:14 | The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit with you all. Amen. |
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.