LICENCE

Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
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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. 


Public Domain