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The Darby Bible (DBY, formal title The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby) refers to the Bible as translated from Hebrew and Greek by John Nelson Darby.
Darby published a translation of the New Testament in 1867, with revised editions in 1872 and 1884. After his death, some of his students produced an Old Testament translation based on Darby's French and German translations (see below). The complete Darby Bible, including Darby's 3rd edition New Testament and his students' Old Testament, was first published in 1890. [1]
Darby's purpose was, as he states in the preface to his English NT, to make a modern translation for the unlearned who have neither access to manuscript texts nor training and knowledge of ancient languages of the Scriptures. He was the principal scholar for a number of translations – and not the sole translator of any one of the various translations that bear his name. He worked with various brethren who had academic and spiritual qualifications. He also acknowledges dependence on the critical work of Samuel Prideaux Tregelles and various other scholars. Darby's translation work was not intended to be read aloud. His work was for study and private use. In his own oral ministry he generally used the English KJV.[ citation needed ]
When Darby first issued his New Translation into English he wrote in the preface to the Revelation: "if the reader find my translation exceedingly similar to Mr. William Kelly's, I can only rejoice in it, as mine was made a year or two before his came out, and he has never seen mine up to the time of my writing this ..." (Darby went on to write that his New Testament translation had been lying by him for some years then.) In his introduction to the 1871 German version, he wrote, "In the issue of this translation, the purpose is not to offer to the man of letters a learned work, but rather to provide the simple and unlearned reader with as exact a translation as possible."
In the Old Testament Darby translates the covenant name of God as "Jehovah" instead of rendering it "LORD" or "GOD" (in all capital letters) as most English translations do. Among other widely used English translations aside from The Darby Bible, other versions have followed this practice, such as Robert Young's Literal Translation (1862, 1898),The Julia E. Smith Parker Translation (1876), The American Standard Version (1901), The Bible in Living English (1972), Green's Literal Translation (1985), Recovery Version (1999), Holman Christian Standard Bible [Yahweh-2004], the Lexham Bible [Yahweh-2011], New Heart English Bible, Jehovah Edition (2010), The Divine Name King James Bible (2011), the Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation (1961, 1984, 2013) and the Legacy Standard Bible (Yahweh-2021). The footnotes of many editions (such as the 1961 Modified Notes Edition) of Darby Bible's New Testament indicate where "Lord" ("Kurios" in Greek) in the scripture text probably refers to Jehovah. The 1961 Modified Notes Edition of the Darby Bible includes the 1871 New Testament Preface, which says in part: "All the instances in which the article is wanting before Kurios are not marked by brackets; but I give here all the passages in which Kurios, which the LXX employ for Jehovah, thence transferred to the New Testament, is used as a proper name; that is, has the sense of 'Jehovah.'" It then gives a listing of those places.
For some verses the Darby New Testament has detailed footnotes which make reference to his scholarly textual criticism comparisons. [2]
Critics of the Darby Bible include Charles Spurgeon. [3]
Genesis 1:1-3 [4]
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.
Isaiah 34:14 [5]
And there shall the beasts of the desert meet with the jackals, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; the Lilith also shall settle there, and find for herself a place of rest.
Psalm 119:89 [6]
LAMED. For ever, O Jehovah, thy word is settled in the heavens.
Matthew 6:9-13 [7]
Thus therefore pray *ye*: Our Father who art in the heavens, let thy name be sanctified, let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done as in heaven so upon the earth; give us to-day our needed bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but save us from evil.
John 1:1-3 [8]
In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.*He* was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one [thing] received being which has received being.
John 7:16–17 [9]
Jesus therefore answered them and said, My doctrine is not mine, but that of him that has sent me. If any one desire to practise his will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is of God, or that I speak from myself.
Philippians 4:13 [10]
I have strength for all things in him that gives me power.
The Darby Bible in German is known as the "Elberfelder Bibel". Julius Anton von Poseck (1816–1896) had been translating some NT Epistles into German. In 1851 he sent his work in progress to Darby for review. This stimulated Darby to begin work in 1854 on a full translation and he proceeded on the German translation with von Poseck and Carl Brockhaus (1822–1899). The German NT was published in 1855. When von Poseck moved to England in 1857, the Old Testament translation was made by Darby, Brockhaus and a Dutch Hebraist, Hermanus Cornelis Voorhoeve (1837–1901). The OT work commenced 1869 and was completed in 1871, when the whole Bible was published. Since then there have been a number of significant updates and revisions, including the revisions in 1960, 1975, 1985 by R. Brockhaus Verlag Elberfeld (entitled: "Elberfelder Bibel") and most recently in 2003 by Christliche Schriftenverbreitung Hückeswagen (entitled: "Elberfelder Übersetzung, Edition CSV Hückeswagen").
Darby's principles of translation are in the Introduction to his German translation of the New Testament:
"Now whilst the learned can examine the original text, this privilege is out of the reach of the unlearned, and of those unacquainted with that text. It has therefore been our endeavour and object to give a helping hand to the latter class, and to furnish them at a small cost with as faithful and exact a representation as possible of the divine word in their own language. Undoubtedly every translation must be more or less defective, and we by no means value our work so highly as that we would set aside one more perfectly executed by another hand. How great the difficulties are of conveying the expressions of one language, especially of the rich Greek, in another, those alone can tell who have tried to make a translation. [...] We might indeed have clothed many passages in more elegant German, but, without being in bondage to words, we have been governed throughout by the thought that the faithful rendering of the original text outweighs every other consideration; and the more so because we believe with the very fullest conviction the divine inspiration of the holy scriptures as the revelation of the infinite wisdom of God, and the expression of His gracious character in Jesus Christ. But since no one is able to grasp the whole expanse of this revelation, and often a meaning beyond the comprehension of the translator lies hidden in a sentence, which would be lost in a free translation but may be found in a more literal one, through deeper teaching of the Holy Spirit—it is evidently necessary to reproduce the original text as in a mirror." [11]
William Joseph Lowe (1840–1927) and Pierre Schlumberger were in the translation team for the Pau-Vevey French translation which was first issued in 1859. The title page read, '.' Darby worked on this project in Pau, Southern France, but the work was done primarily for the numerous Brethren in French-speaking Switzerland. The translation of the New Testament was reissued in 1872, 1875 and 1878. The complete Bible appeared in 1885. [12]
The 'Darby' New Translation of the New Testament in Dutch is chiefly the work of H. C. Voorhoeve, but he seems to have leaned somewhat on the labours of the German team. His work has gone through a number of revisions. The most recent (5th) edition of the Voorhoeve Testament known as the 'Telos' translation is the work of J. Klein Haneveld, Willem J. Ouweneel, Henk P. Medema and Gerard H. Kramer in 1982. This last edition has been updated and is republished by Grace Publishing House in 2018.
An anonymous 'Darby' type translation of the Psalms also exists and is available from Uit Het Woord Der Waarheid, Aalten, Netherlands.
Numerous biographies of Darby suggest he completed work on an Italian New Testament. His work has not been located but a translation based on his French work was completed by Plymouth Brethren members, Edward Lawrence Bevir (1847–1922) (one of JND's peers) and revised by Alexander Carruthers (1860–1930). The Italian NT was first issued in 1890 and a revision was completed in 1930. It is still in print (2008).
This edition of the New Testament arose out of the peculiar tendency among the Taylor Exclusive Brethren to complete and exact uniformity. Its page layout is almost precisely similar to the English edition produced by the Taylor Brethren in 1961 and published by AB Petersons Foerlag, Gothenburg. The principal work was done by Eric Carrén and is in fact a tertiary translation based on the German and other Darby translations of the New Testament.
The Swedish 'Darby' New Testament is still in print (2008).
Previous attempts to produce a 'Darby' type translation of the New Testament had been made by a Glanton brother. He tentatively published at least two of Paul's Epistles in booklet form (copies held at Cross Archive, London).
A number of foreign language translations show their dependence upon Darby's work. These include W. H. Westcott's Congo vernacular Bible, Victor Danielson's Faroese work and the Romanian Bible published by Gute Botschaft Verlag, Dillenburg, Germany. [13] A Slovak New Testament has been issued by Kingston Bible Trust on the basis of Darby's work. It contains annotations by F. E. Raven.
The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures is a translation of the Bible published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society; it is used and distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses. The New Testament portion was released first, in 1950, as The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, with the complete New World Translation of the Bible released in 1961.
John Nelson Darby was an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, one of the influential figures among the original Plymouth Brethren and the founder of the Exclusive Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern dispensationalism and futurism. Pre-tribulation rapture theology was popularized extensively in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, and further popularized in the United States in the early 20th century by the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible.
Jah or Yah is a short form of the tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the personal name of God: Yahweh, which the ancient Israelites used. The conventional Christian English pronunciation of Jah is, even though the letter J here transliterates the palatal approximant. The spelling Yah is designed to make the pronunciation explicit in an English-language context, especially for Christians who may not use Hebrew regularly during prayer and study.
The Matthew Bible, also known as Matthew's Version, was first published in 1537 by John Rogers, under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew". It combined the New Testament of William Tyndale, and as much of the Old Testament as he had been able to translate before being captured and put to death. Myles Coverdale translated chiefly from German and Latin sources and completed the Old Testament and Biblical apocrypha, except for the Prayer of Manasseh, which was Rogers', into the Coverdale Bible. It is thus a vital link in the main sequence of English Bible translations.
The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. As of September 2023 all of the Bible has been translated into 736 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,264 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,658 languages.
Partial Bible translations into languages of the English people can be traced back to the late 7th century, including translations into Old and Middle English. More than 100 complete translations into English have been produced. A number of translations have been prepared of parts of the Bible, some deliberately limited to certain books and some projects that have been abandoned before the planned completion.
The New American Standard Bible is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published by the Lockman Foundation, the complete NASB was released in 1971. New revisions were published in 1995 and 2020. The NASB relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. It is known for preferring a literal translation style that generally preserves the structure of the original language when possible, rather than an idiomatic style that attempts to match natural English usage.
There are various names of God, many of which enumerate the various qualities of a Supreme Being. The English word god is used by multiple religions as a noun to refer to different deities, or specifically to the Supreme Being, as denoted in English by the capitalized and uncapitalized terms God and god. Ancient cognate equivalents for the biblical Hebrew Elohim, one of the most common names of God in the Bible, include proto-Semitic El, biblical Aramaic Elah, and Arabic ilah. The personal or proper name for God in many of these languages may either be distinguished from such attributes, or homonymic. For example, in Judaism the tetragrammaton is sometimes related to the ancient Hebrew ehyeh. It is connected to the passage in Exodus 3:14 in which God gives his name as אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְ
Jehovah is a Latinization of the Hebrew יְהֹוָהYəhōwā, one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The Tetragrammaton יהוה is considered one of the seven names of God in Judaism and a form of God's name in Christianity.
In contrast to the variety of absolute or personal names of God in the Old Testament, the New Testament uses only two, according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. From the 20th century onwards, "a number of scholars find various evidence for the name [YHWH or related form] in the New Testament.
The Emphatic Diaglott is a diaglot, or two-language polyglot translation, of the New Testament by Benjamin Wilson, first published in 1864. It is an interlinear translation with the original Greek text and a word-for-word English translation in the left column, and a full English translation in the right column. It is based on the interlinear translation, the renderings of eminent critics, and various readings of the Codex Vaticanus. It includes illustrative and explanatory footnotes, references, and an alphabetical appendix.
The Tetragrammaton, or the Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym יהוה, the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left, are yodh, he, waw, and he. The name may be derived from a verb that means "to be", "to exist", "to cause to become", or "to come to pass". While there is no consensus about the structure and etymology of the name, the form Yahweh is now accepted almost universally, though the vocalization Jehovah continues to have wide usage.
Bible translations into French date back to the Medieval era. After a number of French Bible translations in the Middle Ages, the first printed translation of the Bible into French was the work of the French theologian Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples in 1530 in Antwerp. This was substantially revised and improved in 1535 by Pierre Robert Olivétan. This Bible, in turn, became the basis of the first French Catholic Bible, published at Leuven in 1550, the work of Nicholas de Leuze and François de Larben. Finally, the Bible de Port-Royal, prepared by Antoine Lemaistre and his brother Louis Isaac Lemaistre, finished in 1695, achieved broad acceptance among both Catholics and Protestants. Jean-Frédéric Ostervald's version (1744) also enjoyed widespread popularity.
The Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition (SSBE) is a Sacred Name Bible which uses the names Yahweh and Yahshua in both the Old and New Testaments. It was produced by Jacob O. Meyer, based on the American Standard Version of 1901 and it contains over 977 pages. The Assemblies of Yahweh printed 5,500 copies of the first edition in 1981. It is also used by some members of the Sacred Name Movement.
Sacred Name Bibles are Bible translations that consistently use Hebraic forms of the God of Israel's personal name, instead of its English language translation, in both the Old and New Testaments. Some Bible versions, such as the Jerusalem Bible, employ the name Yahweh, a transliteration of the Hebrew tetragrammaton (YHWH), in the English text of the Old Testament, where traditional English versions have LORD.
The Voice is a modern language, dynamic equivalent English translation of the Bible developed by Thomas Nelson and the Ecclesia Bible Society. The original New Testament was released in January 2011, the revised and updated New Testament was released in November 2011, and the full Bible was released in April 2012.
The Bible usually uses the name of God in the singular, generally using the terms in a very general sense rather than referring to any special designation of God. However, general references to the name of God may branch to other special forms which express his multifaceted attributes. The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible reveals YHWH as the personal name of God, along with certain titles including El Elyon and El Shaddai. Jah or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh, and often sees usage by Christians in the interjection "Hallelujah", meaning "Praise Yah", which is used to give God glory. In the New Testament the terms Theos, Kyrios and Patēr are additionally used to reference God.
"I am the LORD thy God" is the opening phrase of the Ten Commandments, which are widely understood as moral imperatives by ancient legal historians and Jewish and Christian biblical scholars.
Bible translations into the languages of Indonesia and Malaysia have a lot of common history up until the modern era. Apart from the shared Malay language which historically was the lingua franca of the Malay Archipelago and forms the basis for the national languages of Indonesia and Malaysia today, portions of the Bible have been translated into a variety of indigenous languages in the region.
The Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) is an English translation of the Bible that was released in 2021. It is an update to the New American Standard Bible Updated Edition, with permission from the Lockman Foundation, as an alternative to the 2020 Revision of the NASB. The LSB was produced and edited by a team of faculty from The Master's Seminary and is published by Three Sixteen Publishing, Inc., in partnership with the Lockman Foundation and with funding from the John MacArthur Charitable Trust.
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