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The World English Bible (WEB) FAQ
Last updated: 4 June 2004
Last change: changed author contact information.
This Frequently Asked Questions document covers the following about
the World English Bible (WEB):
Why create yet another English translation of the Holy Bible?
Why is the copyright such a big deal?
Isn't it dangerous not to copyright the WEB?
What is the World English Bible?
Who is behind the WEB Revision work?
What are your qualifications to do translation work?
What is the WEB Translation Philosophy?
What original language texts are you using?
How does the WEB compare to other translations?
What about the King James Only movement?
What makes you think that you can compete with multi-million dollar
publishers?
What kind of editing help do you want?
How do you publish draft portions of the WEB?
How do I join the WEB mailing list?
How do I get off of the WEB mailing list?
How do I change my address on the WEB mailing list?
Is anyone else working on a public domain, Modern English
translation?
When will the WEB be completed?
Can I get a printed copy of the WEB?
Why the name WEB?
Will any major publishers be interested in the WEB?
Why do you use "Yahweh" for God's name in the Old Testament?
Why don't you capitalize pronouns referring to God?
Why do you use contractions?
Does the WEB include the Apocrypha?
Where can I get the WEB?
How can I help support the WEB work?
Who Maintains this FAQ?
_____________________________________________________________
Why create yet another English translation of the Holy Bible?
_____________________________________________________________
That is a good question. There are more than 40 English translations
of the Holy Bible. Unfortunately, all of them are either (1) archaic
(like the KJV and ASV of 1901), or (2) covered by copyright restrictions
that prevent unrestricted free posting on the internet or other media (like
the NIV and NASB). The Bible in Basic English (BBE) was in the Public
Domain in the USA (but not all countries) for a while, but its
copyrighted status was restored by GATT. (The BBE used a rather
restricted subset of English, anyway, limiting its accuracy and
readability.) In other words, there is NO OTHER complete translation
of the Holy Bible in normal Modern English that can be freely copied
(except for some limited "fair use") without payment of royalties
and/or publisher permission. This is the vacuum that the World English
Bible is filling.
_____________________________________
Why is the copyright such a big deal?
_____________________________________
The copyright laws of most nations and the international treaties
that support them are a mixed blessing. By granting authors and
translators a legal monopoly (for a limited, but very long, time) on
the right of copying and "first sale" of their works, the law makers have
made writing and translating very profitable for some people whose works
are in great demand. This has, no doubt, been a factor in the creation
of many of the good Modern English translations of the Holy Bible that
we now enjoy. The problem with this system, with respect to the Holy
Bible, is that it has had the effect of limiting distribution of God's
Word in modern languages. For example, I cannot legally post copies of
the entire New International Version of the Holy Bible on my web site
in a downloadable, searchable, and readily copiable format without the
permission of the International Bible Society and Zondervan (copyright
owner and publisher). Zondervan won't grant such permission unless
they get a significant royalty (they quoted me $10,000 + $10/copy
distributed) and unless I convince them that my Bible search software
is "good enough" for them. Needless to say, the Bible search software
that I am writing with the intention of distributing as donorware will
not come with the NIV.
The problem of copyright protection of Modern English translations of
the Holy Bible is not just significant on the Internet and various
electronic information services. It also affects people who want to
quote significant portions of Scripture in books, audio tapes, and
other media. This drives up the price of preaching the Gospel. Basic
economics tells us that this is not a good thing when our goal is to
fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). For example, the "free"
Bibles that the Gideons place cost more if they use a modern version,
like Thomas-Nelson's New King James Version, than if they use the (more
difficult to read) King James Version.
Naturally, I'm not suggesting that we abolish the copyright law or
that existing Modern English translations be immediately released to
the Public Domain. I understand the way that the profits from the sales
ofthe NIV, for example, help fund other language translations at the
International Bible Society (as well as helping to enrich some folks
at Zondervan). I also understand that the business of Bible sales has
helped establish a good supply of Bibles in many parts of the world,
in a variety of formats, sizes, styles, and colors. What we are doing is
liberating at least one Modern English translation of the Holy Bible
from all copyright restrictions -- a translation that is trustworthy,
accurate, and useful for evangelism and discipleship.
Another concern where copyright restrictions come into play is in
translation and creating derivative works. For example, the copyright
notice of the NASB expressly forbids making translations or derivative
works based on the NASB without getting permission from the Lockman
Foundation. I don't know if they would make this easy or hard,
expensive or cheap, but I do know that there will be no need to even ask
when using the WEB.
____________________________________________
Isn't it dangerous not to copyright the WEB?
____________________________________________
No. Copyright protection is intended to protect the income of the
copyright holder's sales of a work, but we are planning to GIVE AWAY
the right to make copies of this version of the Holy Bible to anyone who
wants it, so we have nothing to lose that way. There is some argument
for copyrighting a Bible translation just to retain some legal control
against some evil, cultic revision of a translation. The God's Living
Word translations of John's Gospel and John's letters are copyrighted
only for this reason, for example, even though blanket permission to
make unlimited copies of that translation is published with them. This
legal leverage is so much weaker than God's protection of His own Word
that it is of questionable value. (See Revelation 22:18-19.) The only
other major concern is that somebody might later claim a copyright on
the WEB and remove it from the Public Domain. Because there is a
timely and public declaration of the Public Domain status of the WEB by
those who are working on it, that would not work, and they would not be
able to defend such a bogus copyright claim.
With a Public Domain work, there is a hazard of confusion if many people
start revising it or making derivative works from it and call it the
same thing. For that reason, the name "World English Bible" is a
trademark that may only be used to identify the World English Bible as
published by Rainbow Missions, Inc., and faithful copies of that work.
In addition, official distributions of the World English Bible are
digitally signed to provide a tamper-evident seal.
________________________________
What is the World English Bible?
________________________________
The World English Bible is an update of the American Standard Version
of 1901, which is in the Public Domain. The revision is also in the
Public Domain, which sets it apart from other revisions of the ASV,
like the New American Standard Bible and the Revised Standard Version.
The first pass of the translation, which has already been done, was to
convert about 1,000 archaic words and word forms to modern equivalents
using a custom computer program. The second through seventh phases
consist of manual editing and proofreading. The initial manual pass is
to add quotation marks (the ASV of 1901 had none), update other
punctuation, update usage, and spot check the translation against the
original languages in places where the meaning is unclear or
significant textual variants exist. The subsequent passes are to review
of the results of the previous pass. In each pass, volunteers read the
current draft, looking for typos, unclear passages, etc., then report
back to the main editors <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, who check the suggestions
and merge the best suggestions into the master draft. As this is going
on, the draft at the WEB web page is updated.
______________________________
Who is behind the WEB editing?
______________________________
Rainbow Missions, Inc., a Colorado nonprofit corporation -- and many
volunteers who are born again and seeking to daily follow the leading
of the Holy Spirit, along with many who have gone before in the
creation of the American Standard Version of the Holy Bible.
_________________________________
Is the WEB a one-man translation?
_________________________________
Many people have been involved in the production and editing of the
World English Bible from a variety of backgrounds. Because this is a
revision of the American Standard Version of the Revised Bible, we
start with the over 50 Evangelical scholars who worked on that
project. They, in turn, relied on the work of those who had gone
before them. We also rely on the work of many scholars who have
found, compiled, combined, and published the excellent and highly
accurate Hebrew and Greek texts from which we work. We also rely on
the excellent lexicons of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek that are
available to us.
In addition to these excellent references that represent literally
hundreds of years of combined labor by many committed Christian men
and women, we have access to the United Bible Society handbooks on
Bible translation and a large number of other English translations to
compare and consult.
Among the volunteers who have contributed to this project, we have
people who attend various churches, including Baptist, Methodist,
Pentecostal, non-denominational, and many more. This broad
representation helps guard against introducing sectarian bias into
the work. In addition, the novel technique of publishing draft copies
of the World English Bible on the Internet provides additional
protection against bias, because all serious comments are carefully
considered and the wording compared to the original language.
Although we don't demand credentials from people who comment on the
translation by email, we do validate their comments before deciding
what to do with them.
We do have one senior editor who is responsible for decisions
regarding the text, but he is also accountable to several other
Christians. Everyone who has authority to decide on the wording in
the World English Bible believes in the inspiration by the Holy
Spirit of the text as recorded by the original authors. In addition,
we also believe that the Holy Spirit is still active in preserving
the text and helps us in our work to the extent that we let Him.
____________________________________________________
What are your qualifications to do translation work?
____________________________________________________
Volunteers who work on the Bible text must believe that the Holy
Bible is God's Word, and must not be altered in meaning. Good
doctrine comes from the Bible, not the other way around. Among us, we
have a variety of talents, including language scholarship, computer
skills, and many years of study of God's Word. The most important
qualification, however, is the call of God. Master's Degrees are nice
(and I have one), but that is not required of all who work on this. A
good grasp of the English language, an understanding of the
Scriptures, and a deep love for God are all more important.
_______________________________________
What is the WEB Translation Philosophy?
_______________________________________
The WEB must:
* be done with prayer -- specifically prayer for inspiration by the
Holy Spirit.
* be accurate and reliable (Revelation 22:18-19).
* be understandable to the majority of the world's English-speaking
population (and therefore should avoid locale-specific usage).
* be kept in the Public Domain (and therefore be done by volunteers
and/or funded by donations).
* be made available in a short time, because we don't know the exact
time of our Lord's return.
* preserve the essential character of the original 1901 publication.
* use language that is not faddish, but likely to retain its meaning
for some time.
* render God's proper Name in the Old Testament as "Yahweh."
* resolve unclear passages by referring to the original Hebrew and
Greek.
* be done with utmost respect for God and His Word.
* be done by Christians from a variety of denominations and
backgrounds.
* retain (at least for now) the ASV 1901's pronoun capitalization
rules (lower case "he" referring to God).
* retain (at least for now) the ASV 1901's use of "he" when that word
might mean ("he and/or she").
Bible translation (as with any natural language translation) is a
balancing act, where the translators seek to preserve the following:
* The meaning of each thought or sentence.
* The meanings of individual words in their context.
* The shades of meaning implied by word forms, tense, etc.
* The impact and tone of each passage.
* The style of the original authors who were inspired by the Holy
Spirit.
* Faithfulness to the target language (English, in this case).
Note that some of the above goals are at odds with one another, like
preservation of the original style vs. faithfulness to the target
language, and expressing the last bit of the shades of meaning vs.
preserving the impact. Still, it is possible to retain a good balance.
Different balance points are chosen by different translation
committees. Indeed, many translations can be characterized by the weight
the translators gave to each of the above items. For example, The
Amplified Bible excels at getting the meaning across, but falls down
hard on impact, style preservation, and faithfulness to the target
language.
The New Living Translation excels at preserving the meanings of entire
thoughts, impact, and faithfulness to the target language, but loses
some of the style and shades of meaning. The New International Version
excels at most of the above, but loses some elements of style and some
of the subtleties of wording. The World English Bible attempts to
balance all of the above with a fairly literal translation.
Some people like to use the terms "formal equivalent" and "dynamic
equivalent." Neither of these exactly describe what we are doing,
since we have borrowed ideas from both, but I suppose that we are closer
to formal equivalence than dynamic equivalence.
___________________________________________
What original language texts are you using?
___________________________________________
Since this is primarily an update of the 1901 edition, the choices
made by the original 50 or so Evangelical scholars that made this
translation hold unless reference is made to the original languages to
help with places where the Elizabethan English is not clear, or where
major textual variants are known to exist. In this case, we are using
the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, also called The Stuttgart Bible, in
the Old Testament, and the Byzantine Majority Text as published for use
with The Online Bible in the New Testament (M-Text). This choice of
Greek text is very close to what the KJV translators used, but does take
advantage of some more recently discovered manuscripts. Although there
are good scholarly arguments both for and against using the Byzantine
Majority Text over the "Alexandrian" text based on the dating and
critical editing work of Nestle and Aland and published by the United
Bible Societies (UBS), we find the following to be compelling reasons:
* The UBS text has a lot of "dropout" errors relative to the M-Text.
Diligent scribes with a respect for God's Word are more likely to miss
copying something (i.e. by skipping a line, etc.) than to make up a
line to add in.
* Different scribes copying the same passage aren't all likely to
make the same mistakes at the same places, even though some mistakes
are likely to be copied over many times.
* When a scribe had a choice of manuscripts to copy, he would normally
copy the one that he trusted the most, thus causing the most trusted
text to be copied more often.
* The UBS text relies heavily on the dating of the media upon which
the text was written, but those texts that are used more and trusted
more would both be copied more often and worn out from use sooner.
* The UBS text is heavily weighted to a small number of manuscripts
relative to those available to us.
* The UBS text is heavily weighted to a small number of manuscripts
relative to those available to us, and relies heavily on one
manuscript
that was pulled from a trash can at a monastery.
* The Holy Spirit takes an active interest in preserving what He has
inspired.
* In those few sections where the M-Text and UBS text differ
significantly, I have taken my question of textual choice directly to
God, and God chose to answer me by confirming in several different
ways
that reading which the M-Text rendered. The main passage in question
is
in Mark 16, but there are others, too. While I certainly don't claim
to
be infallible, I do know when to say, "Yes, Sir" and follow the
direction I see the Lord pointing me in.
_______________________________________________
How does the WEB compare to other translations?
_______________________________________________
The WEB is different enough to avoid copyright infringement, but
similar enough to avoid incurring the wrath of God. By "different
enough," I mean that the wording is about as different from any one
Modern English translation as the current translations differ from
each
other. By "similar enough," I mean that the meaning is preserved and
that the Gospel still cuts to the very soul. It is most similar to the
ASV of 1901, of course, but I suppose that similarities will be found
with other translations.
The WEB doesn't capitalize pronouns pertaining to God. This is similar
to the NRSV and NIV, and the same as the original ASV of 1901. Note
that this is an English style decision, because Hebrew has no such thing
as upper and lower case, and the oldest Greek manuscripts were all upper
case. I kind of prefer the approach of the NKJV and NASB of
capitalizing these pronouns, because I write that way most of the time
and because it is a way of offering greater honor to God. I admit that
it is kind of a throw-back to the Olde English practice of
capitalizing pronouns referring to the king. This is archaic, because we
don't capitalize pronouns that refer to our president. It is also true
that choosing to capitalize pronouns relating to God causes some
difficulties in translating the coronation psalms, where the psalm was
initially written for the coronation of an earthly king, but which also
can equally well be sung or recited to the praise of the King of Kings.
Capitalizing pronouns relating to God also makes for some strange
reading where people were addressing Jesus with anything but respect.
In any case, in the presence of good arguments both ways, we have
decided to leave these as they were in the ASV 1901 (which also gives
us fewer opportunities to make mistakes).
The WEB, like the ASV of 1901, breaks the KJV tradition by printing
God's proper Name in the Old Testament with a spelling closest to what
we think it was pronounced like, instead of rendering that Name as
"LORD" or "GOD" (with all caps or small caps). The current scholarly
consensus has shifted from spelling this Name as "Jehovah" to spelling
it as "Yahweh." There are a couple of other English translations that
use "Yahweh," so this is not new, per se, but it does set it off a
little from other translations.
Because World English Bible (WEB) uses the Majority Text as the basis
for the New Testament, you may notice the following differences in
comparing the WEB to other translations:
* The order of Matthew 23:13 and 14 is reversed in some translations.
* Luke 17:36 and Acts 15:34, which are not found in the majority of
the Greek Manuscripts (and are relegated to footnotes in the WEB)
may
be included in some other translations.
* Romans 14:24-26 in the WEB may appear as Romans 16:25-27 in other
translations.
* 1 John 5:7-8 may read differently in some translations.
________________________________________
What about the King James Only movement?
________________________________________
May God open their eyes and give them a sound understanding.
If you prefer the King James Version of the Holy Bible, then, by all
means, read it and do it. I think that the KJV was a wonderful
Contemporary English translation of the Holy Bible when it came out.
It has been mightily used by God and has had (and continues to have) a
profoundly good impact. Unfortunately, the evolution of the English
language continually erodes its value as time goes on. It is now
outsold by the excellent New International Version, for many good
reasons.
I guess that there are a few people that seem to believe that the KJV
is more accurate than the original Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Bible,
and that all the other versions are tainted with heresy and conspiracy.
I've read some of their literature. I found it to be some of the most
non-Christian and illogical literature that I have endured, thus
further proving the claim that the KJV is the only valid Bible to be
wrong, at least in my mind. I guess I've now put myself on record as
being a heretic in their eyes, but I must follow God, rather than men.
___________________________________________________________________
What makes you think that you can compete with multi-million dollar
publishers?
___________________________________________________________________
Indeed, throwing another Modern English translation into the "market"
to "compete" with solid translations like the NIV and publishing
giants like Zondervan sounds as silly. It sounds like that, perhaps,
until you consider that the primary target for the WEB is royalty-free
distribution of the Holy Bible in unlimited copies made by many people
using many computers, tape recorders, photocopiers, and presses all
over the world. This is a "market" that the "giants" have excluded
themselves from. Indeed, if they change that policy (don't hold your
breath waiting for them to), we win, anyway. If we win this area, that
is enough to justify this effort. If we do an excellent job, the WEB
might possibly start competing in more conventional areas (like printed
Bibles in bookstores), but not because of any significant effort or
marketing on our part. After all, the bookstores have lots of Bibles in
Modern English, already.
Once you look at the whole picture of what is going on, the
multi-million dollar publishers and Bible translators really don't
have much of an effect on us, nor do we have much of an effect on them.
The result of the combined efforts of both is simply more complete
availability of the Holy Bible in Modern English.
Of course, it does take considerable effort to pull off a decent Bible
translation -- even a language update like the WEB. Fortunately, there
are lots of people willing to volunteer some time to help with this
cause, and the Internet helps bring those people together.
The real bottom line, though, is that this is God's project, and He is
fully capable of providing everything that we need to accomplish His
goals.
______________________________________
What kind of editing help do you want?
______________________________________
Specifically, we need people who will read drafts of WEB chapters
carefully, checking the following things, and email suggestions for
improvements in the following areas:
* Typos & spelling errors.
* Punctuation errors.
* Grammar & usage errors.
* Unclear wording or wording that may be misunderstood.
* Wording that varies in meaning from other good Bible translations
(realizing that some will vary due to "textual variants" in the
underlying original languages).
* Wording that may inadvertently be "too close" to any copyrighted
Modern English translation for too many verses in a row (thus
risking charges of copyright infringement).
* Questions that come up with respect to specific portions of the
translation.
* Inconsistencies in style, usage, or translation.
Note that all suggestions made in line with the above mentioned
translation philosophy will be seriously considered. There is no
guarantee, of course, that any suggestion will result in a change,
especially in those areas that involve judgment calls, because we are
likely to get conflicting suggestions for the same passage. If in
doubt, suggest or ask, anyway. We want to eradicate as many of the above
problems that tend to distract from the meaning and message of the
Holy Bible.
_____________________________________________
How do you publish draft portions of the WEB?
_____________________________________________
Draft portions of the WEB are published in the WEB mailing list, at
http://ebible.org/bible/web, in ftp://ebible.org/pub/new, and in
the unmoderated Usenet news groups alt.bible and alt.christnet.bible.
Once the WEB translation is done, we plan to continue it as a daily
Bible reading list.
___________________________________
How do I join the WEB mailing list?
___________________________________
There are actually three mailing lists that can properly be called the
WEB mailing list:
bible -- Daily World English Bible readings and some announcements
hnv -- Daily HNV readings and some announcements
webnews -- News about status of World English Bible translation and
publication.
The easy way (if you have access to the World Wide Web) is to visit
http://ebible.org/subscribe.htm and follow the instructions there.
If you can't do the above, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the
single line in the body of the message (not the subject) with
"subscribe" followed by the list name, like:
subscribe bible
Expect somewhere around 4 chapters of the Holy Bible per day, along
with related material (like this FAQ, the glossary, and announcements
pertaining to the WEB).
_________________________________________
How do I get off of the WEB mailing list?
_________________________________________
Visit http://ebible.org/subscribe.htm and follow the instructions
there, or send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the single line in
the body of the message (not the subject) saying "unsubscribe" followed
by the list name, like:
unsubscribe bible
If you don't have access to the account you are unsubscribing from,
then add your old email address to the line, like
unsubscribe bible [EMAIL PROTECTED]
but substitute your own email address for [EMAIL PROTECTED] If that
doesn't work, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] for help from a real person (but
please be patient, as I have a serious backlog of email, and don't
read
it every day).
___________________________________________________
How do I change my address on the WEB mailing list?
___________________________________________________
Just unsubscribe from the old address and subscribe from the new
address, using the instructions, above.
______________________________________________________________________
Is anyone else working on a public domain, Modern English
translation?
______________________________________________________________________
Yes. Dr. Maurice Robinson is overseeing another project to revise the
ASV into what he is calling the Modern American Standard Version
(MASV).
That project is not on quite as ambitious schedule, but it should be
worth looking at when it is done. There are now some other works, too,
like the Updated King James Version at
http://www.geocities.com/updatedkjv/. People often ask if we are aware
of the New English Translation (http://www.netbible.org), and we are,
but it is not Public Domain. They do allow free downloads for personal
use, though, and there is a lot of scholarly work that went into that
translation.
_______________________________
When will the WEB be completed?
_______________________________
The New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs are finished (but we will
still consider well-justified edits and typo corrections). We
are attempting to complete the first manually-edited draft of the Old
Testament by Christmas 2004. (This isn't a promise. It is a target,
but
it should give you something of an idea.) It will probably take
several
months after that to get the whole Bible into print. You can see the
current revision status at http://eBible.org/web/.
____________________________________
Can I get a printed copy of the WEB?
____________________________________
You can get a bound, printed copy of of the New Testament plus Psalms
and Proverbs of the World English Bible by ordering it on line at
http://www.messianicbook.net/Scriptures.htm or by ordering it from a
book store. Order ISBN 0-9703344-2-7 (paperback), or ISBN
0-9703344-7-8
(case laminate cover).
_________________
Why the name WEB?
_________________
World: because God's Word is to the whole world, and this translation
is to be read by English-speaking people all over the world.
English: a language spoken by about 10% of the people in the world.
Bible: God's Holy Book.
WEB: This translation of the Holy Bible travels by way of the
World-Wide
Web, aided by its copyright-free status.
___________________________________________________
Will any major publishers be interested in the WEB?
___________________________________________________
Several publishers that don't already own rights to another modern
English translation of the Holy Bible are likely to be interested.
____________________________________________________________
Why do you use "Yahweh" for God's name in the Old Testament?
____________________________________________________________
"Yahweh" is the most probable best transliteration of this most holy
proper name from the Hebrew consonants YOD HE WAW HE, or YHWH. This
holy name is sometimes rendered "Jehovah" based on the mixture of the
vowels for "Adonai" (Lord) with the consonants "YHWH" as it is written
in some later Hebrew manuscripts. The original Hebrew manuscripts had no
vowels, and we believe that the vowels for "adonai" were added to
reflect the tradition of avoiding pronouncing God's name, and saying
"Lord" instead, and was not an indication of how the name should be
pronounced by those so bold as to actually utter God's name. This is a
break from the tradition of the KJV and others that use "LORD" or "GOD"
with all caps or small caps to translate "YHWH", and use "Lord" (normal
mixed case) to translate "Adonai" and "God" (normal mixed case) to
translate "Elohim."
That tradition gets really confusing in some places, especially since
"Yahweh" is used in conjunction with "Lord" and "God" in many places
in the Old Testament. Since God's proper name really is separate from
the titles "Lord" and "God" in the original Hebrew, we wanted the
English translation to reflect that fact, even when read aloud.
In some places, "Yah," a shortened version of God's Name is used. This
is how it is written in the Hebrew manuscripts in those places.
As a concession to strong tradition among Messianic Jews, the Hebrew
Names Version of the World English Bible uses "LORD" or "GOD" (all
capital letters) for "Yahweh" and "Yah." We acknowledge that there are
a wide variety of opinions on this subject, with preferences for using
"HaShem" or "The Name." Nevertheless, we are confident that the
current rendition is pleasing to the Lord and acceptable to the majority
of the Messianic Jews for whom we have made this translation available.
Some people would also like to see "God" replaced with "Elohim." We
think that would be confusing for readers of the WEB and not desired
by the majority of the readers of the HNV.
___________________________________________________
Why don't you capitalize pronouns referring to God?
___________________________________________________
In Hebrew, there is no such thing as upper and lower case. The
original Greek manuscripts were written in all upper case letters.
Therefore, this is mostly a question of English style more than a
question of conforming to the original language texts. English style
is a moving target, and there is not widespread agreement on
capitalization of pronouns referring to God. In the time of the King
James Version, it was common practice to capitalize pronouns
pertaining to any king or other national leader. Since God is the King
of Kings, it only made sense to capitalize pronouns referring to God. In
modern English, we don't do that, even when writing very respectfully.
In modern English, it is considered correct to either capitalize or not
capitalize pronouns referring to God, but the practice should be
consistent within a book. Other contemporary translations of the Holy
Bible into English are pretty much evenly split between capitalizing
and not capitalizing these pronouns.
There are three other translational issues involved. One is that it
seems rather awkward to translate quotations of people who were
deriding Jesus Christ, and who at that point didn't believe that He was
the spotless Son of God, capitalizing the pronouns they used to refer to
Him. The New American Standard Bible handles this by putting in a
footnote to explain that they capitalized the pronouns because of who
Jesus Christ is, not who the speaker thought He was.
Another issue is that in some of the coronation psalms, it was clear
that the psalm was originally written for the coronation of an earthly
king (i. e. King Solomon), but the psalm applies and is used more
often to sing praises to the King of Kings. In that case, it is
difficult to choose which case to use for the pronouns. By not
capitalizing pronouns pertaining to God, we as translators preserve the
ambiguity of the original Scriptures and leave the application to the
Holy Spirit and the reader.
The third translational issue is a more practical one. Because the
World English Bible is an update of the American Standard Version of
1901, which does not capitalize pronouns referring to God, it would
have required reviewing all pronouns in the Bible for capitalization,
determining from the context which referred to God and which did not.
Even when done carefully, there is a risk of making errors in the
process, and in some cases (such as those mentioned above), footnotes
would be in order to explain the ambiguities that would be totally
unnecessary without the capitalization.
Therefore, we have decided to retain the ASV's capitalization rules
in the Bible text.
____________________________
Why do you use contractions?
____________________________
Because the Greek New Testament was written not in the formal
written register of the language, but in the informal register of
the language used by common people, we have decided to use the less
formal spoken register of the English language. This sounds much
more natural when read aloud. The primary difference noticeable
between spoken or informal written English and formal written
English is the greater use of contractions.
___________________________________
Does the WEB include the Apocrypha?
___________________________________
The World English Bible has a companion Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical
section. This section is a revision of the KJV Apocrypha. (The ASV had
no such section.) Opinions and teachings regarding these books vary
from denomination to denomination and among Christians within those
denominations. We believe that these books have value in helping
people understand the context of the Old and New Testaments, and that
they contain some godly wisdom. These books are also considered to be a
part of the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church and some other
denominations. Therefore, we believe that they are worth preserving. The
World English Bible is an ecumenical work for both Catholic and
Protestant use. We aren�t going to pretend to resolve all doctrinal
differences, but we are able to provide a translation that should be
good for all believers in Jesus Christ who speak English.
________________________
Where can I get the WEB?
________________________
At http://ebible.org/bible/web (or http://WorldEnglishBible.org).
____________________________________
How can I help support the WEB work?
____________________________________
1. You can pray for everyone who works on it, that they would be
sensitive to the Holy Spirit and correctly handle God's Holy Word, and
that God would abundantly provide everything needed for this work.
2. You can partner with us, helping us to make the World English
Bible freely available by sending tax-deductible donations to:
Rainbow Missions
PO BOX 275
MESA CO 81643-0275
USA
Rainbow Missions gets its name from the rainbow that is a sign of the
covenant between God and Noah, the rainbow around God's throne, and
the rainbow that suddenly appeared in the clear blue sky right after I
asked God what to name this ministry.
_______________________
Who Maintains this FAQ?
_______________________
This FAQ is maintained by Michael Paul Johnson
(http://kahunapule.org).
This page is kept at http://ebible.org/web/webfaq.htm.
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