Bible

From the Webmaster

12/18/2024 I am converting all of the zipped mySword modules on this site to straight *.bok.mybible formats. If you visit us from a cell phone, you do not have to unzip these files. I am also changing the format somewhat. I am getting away from individual descriptions, and just making library lists where you can directly download the files.
If you come across a post that doesn't have a download link, please post a note to me in the comments of that post (no download), and I will try to get the file uploaded and linked to that post. We have had glitches in the past, and some posts lost their downloads. Basically, I am taking down all posts (650 posts on the site), and checking each one to see if they have their download, and if not adding it. Most do not. Once I take it down, it will repost (1 per day) until I am caught up and can work on new posts. Note that MySword reads theWord modules and esword modules now, so use them if you have them. Check these sites twmodules.com and eswordlibrary.com
If you can use these mysword modules in your Christian life and ministry, I need a big favor from you. I need you to pray for me. I sustain this website alone, out of my own living expense money. The Google Adsense ads have been adding to my income at the rate of 5 US cents per day for Google Adsense Ads as a daily total on 32 of my sites, all of them combined earn me a nickel per day except on bad days when it is less. I have been hacked continually, and these sites breakdown or are hacked, so I need your prayers. Please pray that God would protect this labor of love. If you cannot donate, please pray for me at least.
-- David Cox, Webmaster

Lexham English Bible [LEB]

The Lexham English Bible (LEB) New Testament

Summary

The Lexham English Bible (LEB) New Testament was published and released by Logos Bible Software in October 2010. It lists as General Editor W. Hall Harris, III. The Old Testament translation was completed in 2011.




According to its foreword, the translator’s intent was to achieve:

“unparalleled…transparency with the original language text…. It was produced with the specific purpose of being used alongside the original language text of the Bible. Existing translations, however excellent they may be in terms of English style and idiom, are frequently so far removed from the original language texts of scripture that straightforward comparison is difficult for the average user…. The ability to make such comparisons easily in software formats…makes the need for an English translation specifically designed for such comparison even more acute.”

The LEB is relatively literal and was derived from an interlinear translation of the Greek NT. An unusual feature of the LEB is the use of corner brackets to mark idioms in the English translation. Italics are used to indicate words supplied by the translator with no direct equivalent in the underlying Greek.
At its release, it only included the New Testament and was simultaneously offered for free use for Logos users as well as other popular software suites, including freeware such as e-Sword and The SWORD Project. These have since been updated to include the Old Testament. It can also be accessed in its entirety on websites listed below. The LEB is available under a very permissive license which allows royalty-free commercial and non-commercial use.

Download

Download: Lexham English Bible [LEB]

Lighthouse Bible [LHB]

Lighthouse Bible [LHB]




Summary

The Lighthouse Bible preserves the meaning, style, and words of the King James Version as far as possible while modernizing the language. Occasionally old words like “ye” and “thou” are left in. Verses that are in the KJV but left out in many modern versions have been included. This translation was done using the e-Sword software as well as online dictionaries of the English language. Factors taken into account in the translation process were the definitions of words in the KJV as found in old dictionaries, the way in which words and expressions are used elsewhere in the KJV, the underlying Hebrew and Greek and their English translations, and the context of the passage. Also, five Bible commentaries, those of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Barnes, Wesley, Clarke, and Matthew Henry, as well as the 1599 Geneva Bible Translation Notes, were frequently consulted for insight into the meaning of the passage.
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Smith’s Literal Translation [SLT]

Smith’s Literal Translation [SLT]

Summary

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.

(This Bible version is not by the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith)

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.

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. 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.” Continue reading