STEP Bible News

NET2 Bible - the hidden gem

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 09:20:00 -0700

The NET Bible is a scholarly translation in modern English that sticks to the text, while noting every time a different translation is possible. Those that have used it, love it, but few have even looked at it. The explanation: it has virtually no advertising, because it is free. And so is its new edition: NET2

When someone else's Bible is different from your's, which one is right? You can be fairly sure the NET Bible can tell you. Every time the translators faced different possible translations, they noted the issue. Their thinking was distilled into notes, so we can read their minds.

The NET Bible was created by the Dallas Theological Seminary who were among the first to recognise the potential of the internet. It is difficult to remember Clinton's day, when the whole internet consisted of 8 connected computers. That's when they started work.

The only Bibles that could be freely used in this new electronic world were old ones - written in old language and translated without the latest advances in ancient manuscripts and dictionaries. Two Bible projects set out to fill this gap: the WEB and the NET. It seems they both tried to predict what this new electronic space would be called, and the WEB guessed better.

The World English Bible was created by a missionary, Michael Paul Johnson. He updated the English in the ASV then conformed the NT to the Byzantine text (very similar to the text behind the KJV), and added Apocryphal books from the RV and Brenton's translation of the Septuagint. He made this available on a very open licence that allowed anyone to make changes and publish it, and even sell it if they wished. It has spawned a family of Bibles which individuals have lightly edited to match their thoughts about how God's name should be expressed and other minor differences.

The NET Bible was a much more ambitious project, that produced a valuable style of Bible never seen before. Dallas decided to translate from scratch - something that Michael rejected because he said it would take him 150 years. The best available scholars were commissioned and given the task of not only translating, but also recording what they could have translated. Their decisions and the possible alternatives were summarised as 63,000 notes - an average of two per page. Some notes comment on the meaning - often a nuance that can't be expressed in English. Others comment on other translations that are possible, because the Hebrew or Greek is ambiguous. And some point out when ancient manuscripts vary in a way that affects the translation.

The notes are always useful, but sometimes they are too abbreviated or obscure - here's an easy solution to that. For example, when translating Psa.23.2 they change the familiar "He makes me lie down..." to "He takes me to lush pastures". The translator explains his thinking in a note:

Heb “he makes me lie down in lush pastures.” The Hiphil verb יַרְבִּיצֵנִי (yarbitseni) has a causative-modal nuance here (see IBHS 445-46 §27.5 on this use of the Hiphil), meaning “allows me to lie down” (see also Jer 33:12). The point is that the shepherd takes the sheep to lush pastures and lets them eat and rest there. Both imperfect verbal forms in v. 2 are generalizing and highlight the psalmist’s typical experience."

When you find something like this, copy & paste it into an AI. Tell it this is a note from Psa.23.2 and ask for version reworded in simpler terms. I tried it here - and got an answer that could kindle an inspiring meditation or even a sermon.

The new edition (NET2) is also tagged to the underlying Hebrew and Greek, so you can click on a word and find out about the original that it translated. You can do this at NETBible.org (click on "Greek" to see these details).

This NET2 tagging really shines at STEPBible.org where it integrates with a whole world of information. Click on a word there and you get not only the basic meaning, but also extended information about that word in ancient literature, and the whole grammar is parsed for you. See the video here {THIS SHOULD LINK TO THE NEW VIDEO ON MORPHOLOGY} to discover how this grammar can reveal more about Psalm 23 than even the NET Bible notes.

In STEPBible, you can also click on a word then click to list how that same Hebrew or Greek word is translated in the rest of the Bible. This can be an eye-opener. Hovering over words helps in other ways too. For example, John's gospel starts by describing the Word bringing light into the world, and says "the darkness has not mastered it" or (in other Bibles) "not comprehended", "not apprehended", "not extinguished" - see many more here. The NET Bible discusses the possible meanings, but STEPBible lets you see what only a Greek reader would spot: the links between the words translated "receive" in v.11-12.

When you hover over a word in STEPBible, you discover details about it's original in the green box - and you get much more information if you click on it. You can also see related words which are half-highlighted. The word translated "mastered" is katalambanō, which is related to lambanō and to paralambanō which are translated "received" and "receive" in v.12 and 11 respectively. To someone reading this in Greek the link is as obvious as between "take over" and "take in" or "take up". These highlights help us see the deliberate ambiguity - that the darkness is both opposed to the light and also rejecting it. Like those who reject the truth and end up being opposed to it.

There are many other features to explore in STEPBible, which hosts hundreds of Bibles, and has features that allow you to drill down into their translation - though NET Bible is arguably the best.

STEPBible with NETBible helps you view the translated Bible with total transparency.

David Instone-Brewer,

Biblica Bibles in Majority Languages

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 1 Jan 2021 05:05:00 -0800

Most people in the world speak at least two languages - their mother tongue and a majority language. They need the second language to learn at school, haggle in the market and (often) to read their Bible. We'd like to give everyone a Bible in their mother tongue, but in the mean time, everyone can read it in an up-to-date version of their majority language - thanks to Biblica.

Majority Languages

Biblica, the International Bible Society, is working with STEPBible to include their majority-language Bibles in STEPBible to augment other traditional Bibles already available in these languages. These are currently available through the free website at www.stepbible.org and will later be available for the downloaded STEPBible offline version for those that have limited or no Internet service. This is especially important in the disadvantaged world which is STEPBible's primary target. STEPBible's free distribution policy coheres with Biblica's aim to make their Bibles available to all who wish to read them, especially new generations who have not yet discovered Jesus

Biblica owns and curates the NIV to ensure it keeps up with research and language changes. They aim to translate the Bible as accurately and idiomatically as a United Nations translator. For example, the NIV recently changed the word 'booty' to 'plunder', and 'aliens' to ‘landless immigrants’.

Biblica also supports about a hundred translation committees in other languages. These committees work on Bibles in 'majority' languages - i.e., the languages understood by the majority of people in the world. Those who speak minority languages are usually bilingual - they have to be - because they also need to know a majority language. So these majority languages are closer to being their ‘own’ language than a second language normally is.

These translations now available in STEPBible, like the NIV, are written in a contemporary version of the language, without confusing out-of-date terminology. Often a strict word-to-word translation is useful when studying the underlying Hebrew or Greek. At other times it is useful to read a contemporary language translation that is straightforward to help to understand a Bible passage. STEPBible can show both types of Bibles side by side, with links to the original vocabulary they are translating, and tools to investigate them deeply.

The best of all Bible reading experiences is therefore now freely available in STEPBible. Everyone can read an easy-to-understand Bible in a majority language accessible to them, alongside translations that reflect word order and language traits of the underlying Hebrew and Greek. This mixture is the best way to read the Bible you love, and you can study words in depth when you come across something intriguing.

We would love to learn about how you are use STEPBible. Your feedback will help us to develop and enhance its capabilities. Please email STEPBibleATgmail with a note on how you use STEPBible. What ideas do you have to make STEPBible better? Do you know missionaries, church communities or others who would benefit from STEPBible? If you haven't already, please tell them about this resource. Would you like to help mature STEPBible? Let us know what you're good at. We particularly need help with translations of the interface into other languages.

Every blessing

David Instone-Brewer and the rest of the STEPBible team.

Try out the new Bibles at: www.STEPBible.org

New Amharic Standard Bible 2001

New Arabic Version 2012

Cebuano Contemporary Bible 2014

Czech Living Bible 2012

Kurdish Sorani Standard Version 2020

Chinese Contemporary Bible (Simplified Script) 2011

Chinese Contemporary Bible (Traditional Script) 2012

The Bible in Everyday Danish 2015

Ewé Contemporary Version 2006

Gbagyi New Testament 1997

Hausa Contemporary New Testament 2009

“The Way” Hebrew Living NT 2020

Hiligaynon Bible 2011

Hindi Contemporary Version 2019

The Book of Christ, in Croatian 2000

Igbo Contemporary Bible, New Testament 2019

Indonesian: Firman Allah Yang Hidup 2020

The Holy Word of God, in Gikuyu, Kikuyu 2013

Korean Living Bible 1985

Luganda Contemporary Bible 2019

Malayalam Contemporary Version 2017

Ndebele Standard Bible 2006

New International Readers Version 2014

New International Version 2011

New International Version, UK spelling 2011

Het Boek, in Dutch, Flemish 2007

The Word of God, in Contemporary Chichewa 2016

Persian Contemporary Bible, in Farsi 2020

Polish Living New Testament 2016

Nova Versão Internacional, in Brazilian Portuguese 2011

New Romanian Translation 2016

Central Asian Russian Scriptures 2013

Central Asian Russian Scriptures (with 'Allah') 2013

Central Asian Russian Scriptures, in Tajik 2013

New Russian Translation 2014

Slovenian Living New Testament 2014

Shona Contemporary Bible 2018

Nueva Versión Internacional, in Castilian Spanish 2017

Kiswahili Contemporary Version 2015

Tagalog Contemporary Bible 2015

Thai New Contemporary Version 2007

The Word: Living Tswana New Testament 1993

Akuapem Twi Contemporary Bible 2020 2020

Vietnamese Contemporary Bible 2015

Kiyombe Contemporary Version 2002

Yoruba Contemporary Bible 2019

See them all here.

Bibles in much-loved languages

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 06:23:00 -0700

I saw a grown man cry when he first saw a Bible in his mother tongue. STEPBible now has a bundle of new and partly finished Bibles in new languages from Wycliffe/Unfolding Word, as well as some important Spanish Bibles from Lockman.

New Minority Languages

Wycliffe Associates have created new tools for translating the Bible by non-specialists. They recognise the value of experts and the wonderful tools that already exist for highly trained specialists, but there are many communities who want to communicate the Bible quickly to their generation. These believers are looking forward to 'real' translations by trained translators teamed up with Bible scholars to check their work, but such projects take many years. And these believers want to reach their generation - and quickly.

Their frustration was well-expressed by a small group of former Islamic terrorists who were so excited with their new-found faith that they wanted to devote their time to translating the Bible into their local tongue. They were sent on a course in preparation for learning how to translate the Bible and, first of all, how to use computers. They quietly did all the exercises for several days, as they were introduced to the concepts of word-processing, making backups, looking up information etc, and then they spoke up. "Look, this is taking too long", one said. "A few months ago we were hacking into the Pentagon - we really don't need these lessons!" They were quickly moved on to a more appropriate stream.

Bibles and partial Bibles have already been produced in many languages with more on the way. They are based on the Unlocked Literal Bible or the Unlocked Dynamic Bible - two English Bibles that have been specially translated to create a basis for re-translation. As a Biblical scholar, I am somewhat reluctant to admit that this is necessary, because it is far from ideal. But these believers want to reach their friends, and they don't mind that their translation will be superceded in a few years time when a better translation is made. They need something now!

STEPBible now has several of these new Bibles. Go to www.STEPBible.org and type "ULB", then click on "more..". Some of the Bibles are complete, but others are still being translated. To see which books are available, click on the Copyright notice at the bottom of the page. Interestingly, the book that most Bibles have finished is Galatians - perhaps because this is a brief letter that is great for preaching the Gospel. Others, such as the Lopit language, spoken by 50,000 people in Sudan, started with Luke. This is the Gospel that most population groups come across for the first time, thanks to the massive translation work of the Jesus Film project - but even this is unavailable in Lopit.

The translations with exotic ancient scripts look the most interesting, but actually the most exciting languages are those using a plain latin font - because this usually indicates they had no written language before Bible translators came along. A Kalahari bushman who is now a Bible scholar came to Tyndale House, and I took him to the Bible Society repository in Cambridge. There he was shown a Bible written in his own mother tongue - the seTlhaping dialect of seTswana. He had never seen this language written down, but it was in a latin script, so he could pronounce the words. As he mouthed the words to himself, his eyes filled with tears: this was God's words in the language he spoke at home! He said he had heard of a man once who owned this Bible, but it was lost. The Bible Society has now made it into an electronic Sechuana Tlhaping Bible, so hopefully we'll be able to add this to STEPBible.

Lockman Foundation Bibles

I was excited to hear recently that the Lockman Foundation have generously allowed their Bibles to be distributed freely in non-commercial software. This includes

New American Standard Bible (NASB)
La Biblia de las Américas (LBLA)
Nueva Biblia de las Américas (NBLA)

STEPBible already had the NASB (thanks to their generosity to us) which is especially useful because it is fully tagged to Greek & Hebrew. All their Bibles have a superb set of cross-references, and all follow a philosophy that tries to translate word-by-word. This makes them ideal for reading alongside the originals in STEPBible.

David Instone-Brewer,

Tyndale House, Cambridge

The Ideal Bible Translation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Apr 2019 09:21:00 -0700

The ideal translation is a multitude of Bibles - because there is no one exact way to express the original. STEPBible has so many good translations that it is difficult to know which to use. Here a couple of my favourite powerful and interesting versions that you may not have tried.

The Holman Christian Study Bible is a useful mix of conservative theology with modern translation. It is, like the ESV, a revision of the RSV, which is a revision of the RV, which revised the KJV. This means the easiest way to see the distinctiveness of this translation is to compare it with the ESV at STEPBible. This comparison view turns everything to lower case in order to highlight differences in the translation. These viewpoint quickly found some interesting examples of distinctive translation:
·        Psa.1.1         How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked or take the path of sinners or join a group of mockers!
·        Ps 8:5          You made him little less than God
(“God” in ESV: “the heavenly beings”; in KJV: “angels”)
·        Psa.8.9        Yahweh, our Lord, how magnificent is Your name throughout the earth!
(“Yahweh” is only used when the ‘name’ is important in context)
·        Ps 23:4        Even when I go through the darkest valley…
(ESV/KJV: “… valley of the shadow of death” – italic words come from LXX)
·        Ps 23:6        Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.
(“as long as I live” in ESV: “… forever”. Word-by-word: “to-length-of days”)
·        Matt 6:9-13 Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy. …but deliver us from the evil one. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.] ^{Other mss omit bracketed text}
·        Rom 2:11     There is no favoritism with God.
(ESV: “shows no partiality”)
·        1Cor 5:6      … a little yeast permeates the whole batch of dough
(ESV: “a little leaven leavens the whole lump”)

You are no-doubt interested in the contentious issue of gendered text. The HCSB generally follows the ESV model of translating “brothers” then adding the note: “The Greek word adelphoi can be used as a reference to males only or to groups that include males and females. It is the context of each usage that determines the proper meaning.” There are occasional departures from this e.g.:
·        1Cor.6.6 Instead, believer ^{Lit brothers} goes to court against believer, and that before unbelievers! … 8…– and you do this to believers!
(each underlined word translates adelphos, ‘brother’)
One striking characteristic of HCSB is the everyday feel of modern English, which is particularly evident in reported speech, and when there is sexual content, e.g.:
·        Gen 19:5      “… send them out to us so we can have sex with them!”
·        Gen 19:8      “Look , I’ve got two daughters who haven’t had sexual relations with a man.”
·        Gen 34:2-3   Shechem …. took her and raped her…he became infatuated with Dinah
But it doesn’t go too far, e.g.:
·        Matt 1:25     but did not know her intimately until she gave birth to a son. And he named him Jesus.

I find the HCSB to be a good, accurate translation which has done its best to use plain modern English which often makes the meaning much clearer, e.g. Psa.2.12:
ESV: Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
HCSB: Pay homage to the Son or He will be angry, and you will perish in your rebellion, for His anger may ignite at any moment. All those who take refuge in Him are happy.

HCSB on STEPBible is fully tagged – so you can see it interlinear with Hebrew/Greek or with other tagged translations.

The Berean Study Bible is so new that it isn’t fully proof-read yet, but it is so valuable that STEPBible wanted to have it as soon as possible. It seeks to express the text in the most literal way possible, while using normal English. This has, of course, been claimed by many translation teams, but this attempt has gone one step further: it has been tagged to the Greek and Hebrew from the ground up.

The result is that the translation attempts to follow the word order of the original, though not to the point of making an un-English translation. The electronic marking with each Hebrew and Greek word isn’t new – the same is done for all of STEP’s interlinear Bibles – but I think this is the first time the marking has been added while translating rather than afterwards. This means the translators are always aware that each Hebrew and Greek word should be represented in the English if possible, and it discourages them from adding English words that are additional to the original.

I was very surprised by the fluency of the translation that this produced. I was expecting something strange like the Young’s Literal Translation, or something hopelessly wooden. Instead, I found real English – and yet it follows the Hebrew and Greek like a well-trained dog keeping to heel. This makes it perfect as an interlinear Bible.

Like most Bibles it uses the Leningrad Codex for the OT and Nestle Aland edition of the NT, but it is up-front about times when it departs from them. Like the NIV, it makes a rule of always noting any departure. It puts the extra words in square brackets, for example the words that Cain speaks to Abel which aren’t in the Hebrew but are found in Samaritan, Greek, Latin and Syriac:
· Gen.4:8 Then Cain said to his brother Abel, [“Let us go out to the field.”] And while they were in the field…. Note: SP, LXX, Syriac, Vulgate; Hebrew does not include "Let us go out to the field"

The BSB comes from BibleHub.com which is a great site for studying the Bible. One useful feature that they have (which STEPBible doesn’t) is looking at a single verse in a large number of Bibles – see e.g. Gen.1:1 and Matt.1:1.

Another Bible I’m loving at the moment is the Cambodian Khmer Christian Bible. You may not want to use this, but it is noteworthy – partly because the font it is so pretty, but mostly because these translators have tagged the text to Greek. This is very unusual for a non-English translation, and it is a great example to follow. It gives users that extra level of confidence in their translation. And it means that anyone can see what the words words mean. It also helps to separate the words, because Khmer is written like ancient Greek manuscripts - without spaces between the words! See it here.

David Instone-Brewer,

Tyndale House, Cambridge

NET Bible with 60,000 notes

noreply@blogger.com (Tyndale STEP Project) — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 02:16:00 -0800

The NET Bible is a fresh scholarly translation in modern English with an important and unique feature: notes that record the translators' decisions. STEPBible has these notes in full, so that when we wonder “What’s behind that translation?” the answer is at hand. It even gives new clues about the reason why, for Mary and Joseph, there was no place in Bethlehem.

(If you just want to read about the Christmas mystery, skip to the end)

The NET Bible won my heart as soon as the project started in the 1990s because its aim was to create a Bible in modern English that could be used on the internet for free. The rather banal name “New English Translation” was chosen in order to produce the acronym “NET”, because the publishers recognised that the interNET was where the future lay — and they were right!

The project was audacious. The Bible was translated by a team of 25 international scholars, mostly from Dallas Theological Seminary, but also from different colleges, countries and religious backgrounds — including a few Catholic and Jewish ones. These scholars had to produce a readable English Bible, with academic rigour, and as close to the original text as modern English would allow.

For the first time on a project like this, the public was invited to join in. The initial round of translations were put on the web for “beta testing” and anyone could email in to say “I don't know any Hebrew, but this English doesn’t make sense to me,” or “I’m an expert on this passage and I’d like to point out...”. Knowing the world was looking over their shoulders must have concentrated the minds of the translation committee, because what emerged was a version that stood apart from any one particular denomination. They knew there would be immediate push back if they didn’t produce a text that a wide range of believers could accept.

The other unique feature of the NET Bible is the extensive notes. There are more than 60,000, which averages about 50 notes per chapter, or about two per verse. Some notes explain the background context and lifestyle information needed to understand the text, rather like a study Bible. Others point out when different manuscripts would produce a slightly different translation. The bulk of the notes explain why the text is translated as it is.

Translation always involves some interpretation, and usually the reader just has to trust the experts. This was the first edition that required the translators to explain themselves. If they missed out a word or added one, they had to say why. And if commentators pointed out that something is ambiguous, they had to say why they’d chosen that option — or simply say that it could be understood differently. In many instances the notes simply help to explain aspects of the text which are difficult to express in English. In such cases the notes bring you as close as possible to the original, in English.

The Lumina interface at netbible.org/bible is a great way to view all the notes at a glance and even to search them. It also gives access to the large library of articles and answers to questions that have accumulated on the Bible.org site during several years of interaction over the internet.

At STEPBible.org you can see all the notes, without them getting in the way of the text. Where there is a note about the translation this is indicated with a symbol at the correct point in the text. If you hover over the symbol, the corresponding note appears at the bottom of the screen. You also have access to all the other facilities of STEPBible, such as the verse vocabulary with instant lookup for all instances of the original word.

S.
STEPBible.org includes Bibles in all kinds of languages, with interfaces in all the major ones, so it is perfect for someone reading the Bible in a disadvantaged context. Unfortunately, other languages don’t have as many tools as English readers have, so using NET Bible alongside their own Bible helps those who use English as a second language.

So what about the reason Jesus was born in an animal shed? Imagine a girl about to give birth, turning up at a hotel. Who wouldn't give up their room for her? In a gregarious society like the one in ancient Israel, everyone would soon hear about it, so why didn't anyone help her? A note in the NET Bible at Luke 2:7 gives one possible explanation, where it points out that the word translated “inn” (kataluma) usually means a “guest room”. It tells us that various scholars conclude that Joseph went to his family home, and it was his parents who told them: “There’s no place for you in the guest room.”

Joseph’s family may well have lived in Bethlehem because he was registering for taxation there. The Gospels use this fact to point out Joseph’s Davidic ancestry, but Romans weren’t interested in genealogy. They only wanted to know which door to hammer on when taxes were due.

If Joseph’s family were in Bethlehem while he was working away in Nazareth, perhaps they didn’t have a say in who he chose as his bride. So when Mary turns up, visibly pregnant after too few months of marriage and Joseph admitting he wasn’t the father, the couple may not have been expecting a warm welcome from Joseph’s parents. It would be understandable if, given the whiff of scandal, his parents refused to let Mary and Joseph into their respectable home — telling them to use the shed instead. If the neighbours didn’t want to cause offence by undermining this decision, the family shed would have been the only place for Mary to have her baby. Living with shame and scandal was yet another burden that Jesus bore for us.

The Bible opens up when you use STEPBible and the NET Bible together. They form a great tool for Bible students, or for anyone who ever asks: “What’s behind that translation?”

David Instone-Brewer,

Tyndale House, Cambridge

Bibles with confusing verse numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 10:21:00 -0800

At first glance, all Bibles have the same chapters and verses, but actually there is a bewildering variety of small differences that can occur in any Bible. This often results in different verse numbers, and sometimes even different chapter numbers. Two editions of the same Bible sometimes divide up their chapters differently, resulting in masses of confusing verse numbers. So, if you look up a verse in a commentary, it may refer to a completely different verse in your Bible. The Repository of STEPBible.org now has the data to standardise any Bible with a completely new and simple method.

Imagine that you are sending a letter of condolence to a Catholic friend. As you finish, you want them to find strength in the words “Even though I walk through the valley…”, so you add at the end of your letter “Psalm 23:4”. However, when they open their Bible, they read: “The innocent in hands, and clean of heart, who hath not … sworn deceitfully to his neighbour”. This is Psalm 24:4 in most English Bibles but it is Psalm 23:4 in traditional Catholic Bibles (use "look inside" at Amazon.co.uk/dp/1935302051). Your friend might conclude that you are hinting at some old grievance!

We tend to think that all Bibles have the same chapters and verses, because most English Bibles do. The standard popularised by the King James Version is widely used, but non-English Bibles display a bewildering variety of numbering. We might dismiss these as irrelevant till we try to follow a commentary. Even commentaries not written in English tend to follow English standard numbering, for commercial reasons. So when a reference is given, in which Bible should we look up the text? Bible scholars have a related problem: whenever they cite a Bible reference, they need to add the Hebrew or Greek reference if it is different.

A recent article by Peter Williams in THink magazine (see tyndalehouse.com/magazine) summarises the long history of adding verse and chapter numbers to Bibles, from the rabbis who determined where verses ended, to Estienne who divided up the New Testament while riding on horseback. Marking a text while on a bumpy ride may explain why Beza had to make so many corrections in his edition. This means there are about 100 places where Bibles disagree about where precisely a verse divides. However, these differences are minor compared with the Old Testament.

In Hebrew, the tradition about where verses divide was well preserved, so there are only seven verses where versions differ. However, some much bigger problems occur for other reasons: chapters can start in a different place and the titles to Psalms can be given a verse number of their own – both of which mean that every subsequent verse in that chapter or Psalm is different. This affects almost 2,800 verses in the Hebrew Bible. For example, the last verse in most Old Testaments is Malachi 4:6 but in Hebrew Bibles (and some translations) Malachi ends at 3:24, because chapter three continues, instead of ending at v.18.

These Hebrew differences are minor compared with those in Greek and Latin Bibles. Their numbering is important to modern readers because many translations follow the traditions of these ancient translations. Catholic Bibles have traditionally followed the Latin verse numbering, and the Bibles of Orthodox churches tend to follow Greek traditions.

The Psalms are particularly problematic, because Greek and Latin Bibles merge together Psalms 9 and 10. This is sensible, because they do appear to be parts of the same Psalm, but this means that all subsequent Psalms are numbered differently. However, all Bibles end up with 150 Psalms because Bibles that merge Psalms 9 and 10 also split Psalm 147 into two. This means you can’t identify the numbering simply by counting the Psalms. More differences occur within the Psalm because their titles (such as “A Psalm of David”) are often numbered “v. 1”. This means that the contents of the first verse of the actual Psalm becomes “v. 2” and so one. This extra verse occurs in 63 Psalms, though in four of them, the title is long enough to create two extra verses.

If every Bible followed just one tradition — Hebrew, Greek or Latin – we wouldn’t have much of a problem, because there would be only three or four different versions of versification. Unfortunately virtually no Bible follows one particular tradition of numbering throughout the Bible – they all pick and mix.

Even different editions of the same Bible can be divided up differently. For example, most editions of the Spanish Reina-Valera Antigua (i.e. the traditional version which is still popular, like the KJV) is printed with two different sets of verse numbering. This version followed the Hebrew text closely but the verse numbers often departed from it. Sometimes it followed the Latin (as at Job 40:1-19; 1Sam 20:43), or it followed the combined tradition of Hebrew, Latin and Greek when they disagree with the English standard (as at Num 29:39; 1Sam 24:23; 1Ki 22:43; Jon 2:11); and in one place it has completely idiosyncratic numbering (Job 38:38 — 40:6). Fortunately, in most places it follows the English standard, even when this is different to all the ancient traditions (e.g. all through the Psalms, Neh:3:32; 4:23; Ecc 5:20). However, in modern printings of this version, the numbering often conforms to the English standard throughout — though the only way to discover this is by investigating the divergent passages. Both sets of versification are usefully displayed here.

The existence of an English standard for verse numbering has saved us from total confusion. Although it was popularised by the KJV and can be regarded as a “Protestant” tradition, it has been adopted by virtually all modern Bibles. Even modern Catholic and Orthodox English Bibles have abandoned their traditions to join the majority. The Catholic Jerusalem Bible has a small “V 24” next to Psalm 23 to remind traditional readers that this is Psalm 24 in the Vulgate, but the Catholic NRSV doesn’t even have that. Some Orthodox Bibles (such as Nelson’s Orthodox Study Bible, do follow traditional Greek numbering, but this is now an oddity. However, in the non-English world there is still a great deal of variety.

Till now, the main way to find out what the reference is in a different Bibles was to look it up! Electronic resources often have systems for aligning texts. Some (like BibleWorks) produce separate data for every Bible, while others (such as Sword-based software) produce data for groups of Bibles. However, Bibles can’t be divided into neat groups, so this kind of data is often approximate.

STEPBible.org aims to be available for Bibles in any language or tradition, and seeks to line them up accurately. So we searched for a new solution and developed a powerful though simple new method. We didn’t want to assign Bibles to an approximate group, and we don’t have time to analyse every one of hundreds of Bibles in languages we don’t know. So instead, we compare each Bible to four sets of tradition: the ancient Hebrew, Greek and Latin and the English standard; and we use simple rules to discover which tradition is followed in each chapter.

Bible translators don’t simply make up differences in chapter and verse numbers, but follow an existing tradition. Some will be more influenced by one tradition than another, so when a translation is made by a committee, different sections can end up following different traditions. A modern committee will, of course, be subject to conformity checks, but this wasn’t so easy in previous centuries. As a result, many mixed traditions (as described above for the Spanish RV) were created. Whenever one of these versions became popular, then that peculiar tradition was perpetuated. As a result, many German Bibles have numbering based on Luther’s translation. This means that each Bible tends to have verse numbers which are based on one of those four traditions, though not necessarily the same tradition throughout.

A quick way to analyse Bibles was needed, so we created a test for each section where renumbering can occur. So, for example, if Numbers 17 ends at verse 28, we know that it is following the Hebrew tradition that starts a new chapter after 16:35 instead of continuing to 16:50. So the simple question “What is the last verse number in Numbers 17?” can tell us how to number every verse in those two chapters. Sometimes we have to compare the length of two verses, such as in Psalm 13 where all Bibles have six verses. Hebrew Bibles give the title a verse number, but also merge the last two verses into one, so that the total number of verses remains the same. In that case we can ask “Is verse 1 longer or shorter than verse 3?” If it is longer, then it follows the English standard tradition of including the text of the title within verse 1. Based on the answer to this question, all the verses in the Psalm can be numbered accurately. The specific question is important because the two verses must have sufficiently different lengths for this rule to work in any translation.

These tests and the resulting verse numbering, are now available on the STEPBible Data Repository so that any software can incorporate them. Actually, STEPBible still relies on the Crosswire-invented method at present, which works fairly well. This means that Tyndale House is offering this data in the realisation that other Bible projects may implement it first. This data took a long time to compile and test, so we are making it publically available to save others the work of duplicating it. The repository is on Github because this provides a public forum where improvements can be suggested and monitored by anyone. Any errors or gaps can be reported, so that the data remains accurate and gradually becomes the work of a wider community.

David Instone-Brewer,

Tyndale House, Cambridge

Accurate Bible data without restrictions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 05:33:00 -0700

Accurate STEPBible data is now freely available. Tyndale House has decided to release their STEPBible data on a more flexible public licence to make it easier for other free Bible projects to build on accurate information about the Bible text. Inaccurate data can lead to errors and public humiliation - as I'll describe below.

The software behind STEPBible is available on a public licence (BSD 3-Clause License), so that anyone can make a better version of STEPBible. A couple of teams have used the code to help their own projects. This has also encouraged coders to help maintain and develop STEPBible itself - something we welcome and rely on. So if you have talents in Java and Javascript, with some time to help, do please contact me.

The data behind STEPBible originated with the usual free sources that many enthusiasts have assembled in the past - to whom everone owes huge gratitude. At Tyndale House we set ourselves to test everything and improve its quality, and then feed this back into the community. The Repository of this updated data is on Github at Tyndale.github.io/STEPBible-Data, where anyone can inspect it, suggest corrections, and also download it for their own projects.

The licence (Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0) allows anyone to use and adapt the data to fit their project. They can also make corrections, though changes should be recorded for users to see, and we'd prefer they check with Tyndale House first, so our experts can verify it. Tyndale House previously posted this data with a "No Development" (ND) restriction, to help ensure the data remains accurate, but this imposed a difficult legal restriction for some projects, so we are using this different strategy.

Bodies such as the SBL Biblical Humanities Group have campaigned for Bible data to be more open, so that anyone can use it freely, with less duplication of effort, and to encourage the spread of good research. In Copenhagen this year, ETEN facilitated the meeting of representatives from several organisations, including STEPBible, SIL, UBS, ETCBC, Perseus, Door43 and others, to explore how much private data could be made public. This was the Davos of Bible software, and ground-breaking commitments were made there. One of the results is that STEPBible data will now remove the ND restriction.

The concern that previously prevented this, was that errors might accumulate, unintentionally or even maliciously, so that the trustworthy expertise of Tyndale House scholars might be diluted. Legally, any changes should be reported, but of course this doesn't always happen. To ensure continual trustworthyness, the original Tyndale House data will always be available in the STEPBible Repository. This includes accurate Greek and Hebrew texts with variants, tagged with vocabulary and parsing, along with simple and detailed lexicons based on academic publications, as well as other datasets analysing the Bible text.

In the past, free software has relied on older data sets which did contain errors. A few years ago I was preparing for a radio debate about a controvertial book with 'new revelations' about the family of Jesus. The author's conclusions turned out to result from his mixing up of two Greek words. He claimed that tekton (‘artisan’ or ‘carpenter’ in Mat.13.55; Mark 6.3) "is derived from the root Greek word 'timoria'” (‘punishment’). He added that Jesus’ father was ‘a just man’ (Mt.1.19) and concluded that Joseph was a justice of the peace with the power to judge and punish malefactors! He then published a book based on this ‘discovery’.

"5098" in Strong's Index at e.g. TinyURL.com/StrongsTekton

"5088" in the printed edition of Strong's Index

The author wasn't a biblical scholar, but he was nevertheless an intelligent man who was well trained in another profession - so how did he make this embarrassing mistake? After hunting around I traced the source of his error to the commonly distributed electronic version of Strong’s Index, which is used by most free software. Due to an uncorrected typo ('5098' instead of '5088') it said that tekton comes from timoria.

Sitting with him in the studio, before the red "broadcasting" light turned on, I quickly explained what I'd found, and said that I'd only mention it if he mentioned his 'discovery'. This removed my killer point in the debate, and left him little to talk about, but at least it prevented his public humiliation.

This experience hardened my resolve to develop accurate tools for intelligent people to rely on. Just because someone isn't trained in Biblical Studies shouldn't stop them studying the Bible in as much depth as they want, using information that is checked by scholars and trustworthy. This spurred me to work on STEPBible, and now to make the data available to everyone to use.

David Instone-Brewer,

Tyndale House, Cambridge

Insights into Palm Sunday in STEPBible's Full LSJ.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 Mar 2018 04:41:00 -0700

A good lexicon can open up the Bible in unexpected ways.

The Full Liddel-Scott-Jones Greek lexicon (LSJ) is the most comprehensive guide available for ancient Greek. The version at www.STEPBible.org is much easier to use than the printed version (see a comparison here).

We'll be celebrating Palm Sunday soon, and LSJ provides some interesting insights into this.

STEPBible can help you visualise the scene by understanding the nuances of what the Gospel writers were trying to convey. One thing that stands out is their strange choice of vocabulary.
When you read it in STEPBible, and hover over the word "spread" it tells you something about the materials they spread out for Jesus' donkey to walk on. Matthew and Mark used στρώννυμι (strōnnumi) which is a strange choice because it generally refers to spreading covers on a bed or a couch.

There were other words that would have fitted better. They could have used ἐπιβάλλω (epiballō) “to spread [a covering]” as when you spread a cloth over a table, (LXX Num.4.7) or over an altar (Num.4.11,13) or a cloth over the whole Tabernacle (Num.4.6). Or they could use διαστρώννυμι (diastrōnnumi) ‘to spread [flooring]’ which is used when spreading carpets on the ground (1Sam.9.25). Or there was even the word διαπετάζω? (diapetazō) “to spread out”, implying that the item was folded (as when a well-hole was hidden by a covering in 2Sam.17.19). Or ἀναπτύσσω (anaptussō) ‘to unroll’ which was used when Gideon spread his cloak on the ground to collect all the gold ear-rings from the spoils of their battle (Judg.8.25). All of these were suitable for spreading something on the ground or over other surfaces, so why choose something that always implies a bed or a couch?

If you look at how strōnnumi is used in the NT and LXX, it is clearly restricted to covering a bed ready for sleeping in, or a couch ready for dining in the Roman fashion (which Jews deliberately copied at Passover). It is used once of a woman in Ezek.28.7 but the context makes clear that she is being spread out to be ‘bedded’ by soldiers.

We could note the link with Passover couches and leave it there, but the original readers would have seen much more.

If you click on the word "spread", you can see the entry in Liddell+Scott+Jones. This not only takes data from the Bible, but the whole breadth of ancient Greek literature, so it often gives insights that normal Bible lexicons don't have. You'll see a long definition, but go to the end - to the "Related words" and click on "a strewn bed (στρωμνή)". This will take you to the entry:

στρωμνή,
Aeolic dialect -α, Doric dialect -ά, ἡ, bed spread or prepared: generally, bed, couch, [Refs 7th c.BC+]; mattress, bedding, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; σ. ἄφθιτος, of the golden fleece, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; στρωνύτω στρωμνάς, of the lectisternium, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

The clue into what the Gospel writers expected their readers to understand lies at the end of this entry – the "lectisternium". A quick look at the Wiktheipedia entry will tell you that this is the ancient Roman way to placate the gods. They spread fine cloths on couches and put them in the streets to make t
he gods welcome, especially at times of crisis, though this also developed into regular festivals. They also did it during Triumphs, when a conquering general marched through the city showing off his captives and trophies.

The crowds were welcoming Jesus like a god or a conquering hero. This wasn’t a preacher’s welcome. It was a welcome fit for a king or a god.

This is something that would be obvious to the original readers, but we don't 'get' it unless we use tools like STEPBible. Other Bible lexicons don’t have this detail, because they neglect literature outside the Bible. And this means that the commentaries tend to miss this too.

Why don't more people use the LSJ lexicon?

Because till now it has been difficult to read and difficult to link up with the Bible.

If you compare the normal LSJ entry, you can see that STEPBible has explained the incomprehensible abbreviations, tidied all the bibliographic details into hover-helps, and then added the date of the earliest of the authors for each example. Another problem using the LSJ is that the NT spells the word differently, so the correct entry is difficult to find. However, there's no problem if you use STEPBible because this has already linked to the correct entries in LSJ for the words of the NT and Septuagint.

With www.STEPBible.org we have easy access to the best classical Greek lexicon for even deeper Bible studies.

David Instone-Brewer

Tyndale House Greek New Testament at STEPBible.org

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 10:47:00 -0800

The Tyndale House Greek NT is available at STEPBible.org and it is well worth using. It seeks to be the most accurate representation of the original Greek text.

The editors are Drs Dirk Jongkind and Peter Williams, with support from other Tyndale scholars. The principles behind it are:

* concentrate on the text in the earliest manuscripts
* use the earliest original spelling rather than the standard spelling that was imposed later
* use the punctuation and paragraph divisions found in early manuscripts rather than later editorial choices (see the interesting analysis here)
* scribal errors and differences are analysed in with regard to the individual habits of each scribe

The last point is extremely important, and represents Dirk Jongkind's particular expertise. His doctoral studies found that the individual scribes made different types of mistakes and different decisions when they found apparent errors in manuscripts they copied from. By treating each scribe and manuscript individually, the history of differences in manuscripts can be unraveled more securely.

They also have a different emphasis when looking for the reason behind changes. When a scribe fails to copy a text exactly, it might be due to his error, or because he thinks the previous scribe made an error in the manuscript he is copying, or because he thinks he can improve the text in some way. The improvements may be minor - such as changing the order of the words or their spelling - or it might be more serious such as adding details from a parallel gospel, removing ambiguities or (as some scholars claim) to make the text conform with accepted theology.

Jongkind concluded from his research that most errors are due to human error. The Tyndale House Greek NT is therefore edited on the assumption that differences are more likely to be accidental than intentional.

Comparisons with other Greek NT editions produce some surprising conclusions. We now have three widely used modern editions: the NA/UBS texts (which keep in line with each other), the SBL GNT, and the new Tyndale House GNT. Each of these give different emphases to the reasons for scribal changes, and assign different weight to the various sources for the text. The surprise is how similar they turn out to be. There are, of course, thousands of changes, but the vast majority of these are very minor - spelling and punctuation differences, pairs of words in reverse order, or slight grammatical differences that make no difference to the meaning. Even among the minority of places where the meaning of the text is different, these never result in a change to the basic message.

One conclusion we can draw from this surprising similarity is that we can now be sure what the earliest Greek NT looked like. It is as if three teams of transcribers took a bundle of handwritten documents and all produced similar texts. In other words, the three projects have ended up confirming each other.

Try it now.

The easiest way to see this text is at STEPBible.org where you can display the THGNT beside the SBLG module, and see the differences with the NA text in the footnotes.
See the THGNT at www.stepbible.org/?q=version=THGNT
Add the SBLGNT: www.stepbible.org/?q=version=SBLG

The printed edition has an apparatus that deals with all the important variants and one surprise is how few there are. The production quality is superb - you might drop a hint that you'd like it as a gift!

This new edition shows us that the scholarly pursuit for the text behind all the scribal differences has been a success. And the Tyndale House edition has reversed all the 'improvements' by later editors who corrected spelling and changed punctuation and paragraph breaks. We can now read the NT in its earliest form.

David Instone-Brewer

More Interlinears at STEPBible.org

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 9 Nov 2016 04:12:00 -0800

Interlinear Bibles put you in touch with the underlying Greek & Hebrew without needing to know the languages. You don't even need to see the foreign text in order to study the Bible using insights from the original. Only a few Bibles have been tagged in this way, so we are now creating new ones.

As a teenager I became fascinated with Hebrew by using an interlinear book of Psalms. The cover is water-damaged because I even took it on holidays - including the night a river rose and flooded my tent. STEPBible interlinear is even better because you can set it up just like you want, though your computer may not survive flooding!

A couple of new interlinear Bibles have just been finished: The WEB Bible and ASV, as tagged by the CrossWordProject (www.crosswordproject.com). These are important versions, and their hand-tagging took many years.
* The American Standard Version (ASV) is the American equivalent of the Revised Version (RV) which applied information from earlier manuscripts and modern lexical discoveries to the KJV, without changing its style. It became the basis for all modern translations.
* The World English Bible (WEB) updated the language of the ASV - e.g. "thou sayest" to "you say". This was done by www.eBible.org who have also done a huge amount of useful work with other versions and translations.

Try it out.

They can be used alongside other English interlinear-tagged Bibles already available:
* Authorised Version (KJV) which was tagged by www.Crosswire.org
* New American Standard Bible (NASB), tagged by Crosswire for www.Lockman.org
* English Standard Version (ESV) which was tagged by volunteers for STEPBible
* Apostolic Bible in Engish, tagged to the Greek OT+NT by www.apostolicbible.com
* Revised Webster Bible - I don't know who tagged this. Probably www.onlineBible.org

Knowing who did the work is important, not only to judge the accuracy but also to acknowledge the huge amount of work that has gone into it.

Understanding interlinear tagging

If you compare different interlinears, you'll find they work in two different ways.

Try it out.

Some link the Hebrew or Greek to the most significant English word (like the first three here) and some link it to the phrase that best represents the orginal word (like the last four). The very last one is special because it is tagged to the Greek Old Testament instead of Hebrew.

Trying to identify the precise English phrase is very difficult, and ultimately disappointing. Greek and especially Hebrew doesn't work the same as English, so exact line-ups are impossible and sometimes misleading, as anyone trying to translate "Good morning" into another language will realise.

Identifying the vocabulary behind a translation is, however, key to understanding the structure of a passage and its meaning by finding other places where the same words are used. Any of these Bibles now provide easy access to the original.

Power behind Interlinear tagging

Tagging translated words with vocabulary is just the start. We can then add grammar, pronunciation, lexicons and searches.

Try it out.

Options in STEPBible show how to pronounce the Greek or Hebrew as it occurs in the text, or show and pronounce the standard vocabulary form of the word. An outline of the Greek grammar is expanded if you click on the word. (Hebrew grammer is coming soon). In the sidebar, a summary of the grammar is put at the top, and at the bottom it is explained in detail. You can even colour-code words with blue/red for male/female and bold for plural.

So, for example, you can see here that Paul wasn't setting himself apart as an Apostle - the verb is Passive Perfect so it was in the past and done by someone else, i.e. by God.

More Bibles coming

In STEPBible these versions are marked with a "I" for Interlinear, and "S" if they are linked to the Septuagint Greek OT instead of the Hebrew

Bibles with interlinear tagging are too rare, so we are working on automating this tagging. You won't be surprised to hear it isn't easy, but early experiments have worked surprisingly well. So we can look forward to seeing more Bibles like these.

David Instone-Brewer

The best Greek Dictionary is at www.STEPBible.org

noreply@blogger.com (Tyndale STEP Project) — Tue, 6 Sep 2016 07:32:00 -0700

The Liddel-Scott-Jones (LSJ) lexicon is the best dictionary for ancient Greek. It covers the whole of ancient Greek literature - not just Bible Greek - so it can show us what the original readers thought when they read the NT or the LXX (the Septuagint translation of the OT into Greek from the 2nd century BC).

STEPBible.org already had a cut-down version of LSJ but now it has the full entries - and more. The STEP version is much easier to use than the paper one. First, of course, you don't need to find the entry - youjust click on a word or typing the English meaning. Looking up an entry in the paper version can be harder than you'd think because spelling varied a great deal. Some sounds such as 'r' and 'l' were often spelled differently because ancient Greeks (like Chinese) couldn't always hear the difference.

The STEP version of LSJ is also much easier to read than the original or other electronic editions. It uses bold for definitions, italics for gramatical terms and hides bibliographic data under the date links. These dates indicate the earliest cited evidence for each meaning, so you can trace the development of the word.

Also, the arcane abbreviations have been unpacked. So, for example:
* "dat. pers. et rei" in the STEP LSJ is "dative of persons and of things",
* "A. Ag." in the STEP LSJ is: "4th-5th c.BC: Aeschylus Tragicus 'Agamemnon'"
* "sc." in the STEP LSJ is replaced by "i.e.".

(Compare this with the photo of the printed page above)

Now we can find answers to quesions like:
Why did Saul change his name to Paul? Surely he wasn't ashamed to be named after a Jewish king? Most Greek dictionaries don't help us, but LSJ can tell us the answer because it covers everyday Greek, and not just religious Greek. The word saulos (the Greek version of Saul) means "a sexual thrust", so you can imagine the sniggers whenever he was introduced. It is possible that 'Saulos' was his cognomen (his Roman nickname or familiar name) while 'Paulos' was his prenomen (a formal forename) because we do know of four families that used this unusual prenomen (my thanks to Irina Levinskya who dug this up for me). He must have been relieved to find another name that was more acceptable in Gentile society.

A great deal of checking has been done at Tyndale House. Greek dictionaries often fall down over the accents, which can be surprisingly important. For example, kalós means 'good' but kálos means 'rope'. To a Greek this is equivalent to the different words in "I resume writing my résumé".

All software has mistakes (as we've found while using them to check STEPBible) so do please tell us if you find any errors. And all editions of LSJ also have errors. For example, the Logos version dates psudonemous authors as if they were the real person they are impersonating. So Pseudo-Plutarch's work on the life of Homer (written by a pretender in the 3rd or 4th C AD) is dated in the 1st C AD - a key period for NT Greek. (I'm only reporting this minor glitch in order to prove that Tyndale House scholars have examined these things in detail).

Actually, the edition of LSJ sold by Logos is the best one I've seen, based on the error-checking we did. Logos even provides a free version of Perseus which works really well with their LSJ. The version at Tufts is also very good because it has lots of corrections and it links to most of the original sources (though you can only view a few of these on the free version). The LSJ at Perseus is great because, although it has fewer links and corrections, the sources are mostly available in English as well as Greek - and because they made their version of electronic LSJ available on a public licence. The fast Chicago LSJ is based on Perseus, like most free software including STEPBible.

The STEP version has benefitted from all of these and it has a unique added feature: dates which help to plot which meanings applied when the LXX and NT were written. We will make it available on a public licence when we have finished tweeking it, so other software will benefit from this. So have a go and spread the news.

NASB Interlinear at STEPBible.org

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 03:12:00 -0700

The NASB (New American Standard Bible) can now be read as a word-by-word interlinear with Hebrew/Greek or along with other interlinear translations at STEPBible.org

The Lockman Foundation have generously allowed the NASB to join the other great Bibles at STEPBible.org along with full footnotes, cross references and their Greek & Hebrew tagging.

The NASB is one of the most accurate word-by-word translations. It attempts to use a standard English word for each Hebrew or Greek original. It also uses italics for words not represented in Hebrew or Greek, using the same strict criteria followed by the King James version. These standards do not always produce most natural English, but they make it ideal for study and getting to grips with what the original says.

All translations try to balance mirroring the language against trying to convey its meaning. The NASB style is perfect for interlinear displays, and this is probably why it has been our most requested Bible. Our grateful thanks to the Lockman Foundation for allowing this, and to Crosswire for the accurate Hebrew and Greek tagging.

Translation principles

Different translations are based on different principles. The word-by-word translation technique exemplified by the NASB is at one end of the spectrum while the idiomatic lively translation of the Message is at the other end.

The King James was remarkably successful at translating word-by-word though it sometimes had to use words invented by William Tyndale such as "scapegoat" and "atonement". Young's Literal Translation tried even harder to translate tenses and vocabulary according to very strict criteria, but most people feel this went too far. The New King James has remained with the textual decisions made by 17th century scholars, but the NASB is up to date with all the manuscripts discovered since then.

All translations have to be flexible to some extent, because languages don't work like algebra. For example you can't decide that Hebrew eretz = "earth" (i.e. the planet) because it is also used for a "land" (i.e. a country, like "eretz Israel"). Even Young's Literal Translation uses "land" (about 1450 times) and "earth" (about 670 times) – about the same as NASB. (see here).

Idioms can also cause problems, as you can imagine if you translate the French "tête–à–tête" into English. Translating it word-by-word as "head to head" makes it sound like a confrontation, so you have to use a more idiomatic translation such as "private conversation". Similarly the Bible has phrases such as "O Lord, why does your nose burn?" (e.g. Exo.32.11 – see also v.10, 11, 19, 22). All Bibles translate this idiomatically, e.g.: "why does your wrath burn hot?" (ESV); "… your anger burn" (NASB & NIV); "…lose your temper" (Message).

Tagging Greek and Hebrew

(The next couple of paragraphs are a bit nerdy, so you might want to skip to the final paragraph or just start playing with NASB. But these details are useful for understanding how translations link with the original language.)

Lining up Hebrew and Greek with the English is difficult even when the word meanings line up nicely. For example, the first word in the Bible (bereshit) has two parts: be = "in" and reshit = "beginning" – but there is nothing equivalent to our English word "the". So should bershit be linked with "In the beginning" (as done by Crosswire for NASB & KJV) or with "beginning" (as done by Tyndale House for ESV etc. - see here). Crosswire's method is more accurate and harder to implement, but it is impossible to be completely accurate. Tyndale House links the original word with the most significant English word – a method which we are now trying to automate to tag many more Bibles.

The NASB tagging is superior to the KJV tagging because it differentiates between identical Hebrew words with different meanings. These words were mixed together in Strong's lexicon. Tyndale House has edited these tags to make them conform with modern Hebrew lexicons by using BDB links (as explained here).

Best of the old and the new

The NASB module has both the best principles of the KJV word-by-word translation without obscuring the English, and also the best of modern scholarship in manuscripts and lexicography. Within STEPBible this forms an excellent basis for studying the Greek and Hebrew originals without being a language expert.

David Instone-Brewer

800 more Hebrew words in STEPBible

noreply@blogger.com (Tyndale STEP Project) — Mon, 6 Jun 2016 07:31:00 -0700

STEP Bible knows Hebrew even if you don't, and it knows more Hebrew than most Bible software. It recognises 800 words not identified in Strong's dictionary and automatically corrects older Bible tagging.

When James Strong produced his Concordance of the Bible in 1890, he was prescient enough to add a number to each Hebrew word. Computers love numbers, so programmers used Stong's definitions as an easy way to tag Bibles with the Hebrew and Greek originals. Strong's achievement was massive, given that card-index files were the best technology of his day. But he never meant his lexicon to be any more than a simple index to his Concordance.

Today's scholarly lexicons have developed a great deal, with the advent of new works in Akkadian and Ugaritic - languages of the nations around Israel, which both help us understand rare Hebrew words. Words which older Bible translators had to guess the meaning of can now be identified with much more confidence.

By the way, James Strong was Mayor of Long Island as well as a Bible scholar, so he was a busy man! Perhaps that's why he was keen to make it easier to study the Bible in depth.

Taking the work further

Most Bible study software has benefitted from Strong's work, but Tyndale scholars were keen to take his work forward. Based on the work of OpenScriptures.org and SIL/UBS, the Strong's tagging has been upgraded to be based on the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon. This scholarly lexicon is the basis of most modern publications in Hebrew studies, because it incorporates all the findings in comparative linguistics except for some very recent ones.

In particular it identifies a large number of homonyms, where exactly the same word is used in two or more different ways. English does the same, for example "bear" which can mean a large mammal or the act of carrying. In Hebrew there are hundreds of instances like this, sometimes exactly identical words and sometimes with slight differences.

The second word in the Hebrew Bible is an example: Bara can mean both "to create" and "to be fat". Of course any Hebrew reader knows that Genesis isn't about God or the earth being fat, but a computer is less intelligent. HERE are all the instances of Bara = "create", and HERE are all the places where Bara = "to be fat".

So STEPBible now has 10% more Hebrew vocabulary which makes it much more accurate.

Auto-correct tagging

STEP software doesn't just correct the information in its own Bibles. It automatically corrects any tagged Bibles that are loaded into it. So the King James module, which has been very carefully prepared by Crosswire as an exact mapping of Strong's lexicon, now benefits from the extra exactness of later lexicons, whenever it is used within STEP.

Also, you may like to know that the Hebrew dictionary in STEP is due for an upgrade. The fine abbreviation of Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) produced by OnlineBible (used with permission) will remain. However, we will soon be augmenting this with a full version of BDB that is much easier to use than the printed edition (more information soon).

David Instone-Brewer

Make your own STEP USB or SD card

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 4 May 2016 08:38:00 -0700

You can copy STEP Bible onto an SD card and post it to a missionary friend. They and their contacts will have the same powerful facilities available on the website, without needing any internet access.

Step Bible has been developed specifically for the disadvantaged world, so it is designed for download and offline use - just click on "Help" > "Download".You can also install it from an SD card or USB stick. To make this easy, there is now a zip file you can download to create a version to give away.

The smallest download (200MB) contains installers for PC and Mac with 20 Bibles. A larger download contain 200 Bibles & commentaries and the largest adds another 250 minority languages. You can also add more Bibles via the internet. In fact (for arcane legal reasons) you can install more Bibles on an offline version of STEP Bible than are available on the web version.

Here's how to make a STEP Bible to give away: * get a blank SD card or USB stick. All the Bibles will fit on less than a gigabyte, so you don't need a large one. * Click on the package at STEP downloads. * Save it somewhere on your computer* Open the ZIP file and copy the contents onto your SD card or USB stick. (If you put the zip file directly onto the card, it won't be so easy to use).

Installing is just a matter of double-clicking on the PC or Mac installer. There's also a file on "How to add more Bibles" but it is very straightforward: just click on "Help" > "Install" and then select the source. To install Bibles from your SD/USB, chose 'Directory' as the source and then click on the SD/USB drive.

It is a good idea to send your SD card in a normal letter, because small packages tend to get stolen in some countries. It is easy and and legal to make several copies and spread the good news.

Even if you have a good web connection, it is worth installing this on your own computer in case you get internet problems. It opens and runs in your normal web browser as if you had a super-fast internet connection. So you too can benefit from what the disadvantaged world is enjoying.

Translate STEP into your own language

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 06:57:00 -0800

STEPBible.org already has interfaces in 59 languages. If your's isn't included, it is easy to add it yourself. Then anyone with your mother tongue can use STEP easily.

Do you have some time to make STEP Bible easier for your friends and fellow nationals who don't know English as well as you? STEP is designed to be available in any language, but we need people like you, who know English as well as another language, to help with that. And it doesn't take long.

STEPBible is made up of Bibles, dictionaries and other tools, and the interface of menus and hints. You won't have time to translate a whole Bible or a dictionary, but you could translate the buttons and hints. It should take a few hours to do a quick job, and then a couple of hours to check it. Or, you might find that the job has already been started and mostly it just needs checking.

Video on how to use STEP Bible in your own language

This video starts by showing that STEP works in different languages, then it shows how to add your own language menus and hints.

Here's a quick summary:

* Click on "Language" at www.stepbible.org, then on "Help translate STEP into your language"
* Click on your national flag
* Click on one of the four sets of messages to translate (the third one is the main one)
* Log in using your Facebook or Google ID, or register (we use this to email about language updates)
* Add or check translations and click "Save" for each addition you make
(if you see strange code like "%1$" just leave it - the computer will turn it into numbers etc.)

When enough has been translated, it is uploaded and becomes a new interface.

Think how many lives can be transformed by using your skills for a few hours.

Thank you!

STEP travelling to 140 countries

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 08:13:00 -0700

STEP is travelling to 140 countries via the ICETE conference in Turkey for global Bible educators. The 415 delegates are each getting two copies. One to keep and one to multiply.

One feature of STEPBible that the disadvantaged world loves is the way that it works in a browser even when there is no internet access. You can install it on any PC or Mac and it runs its own webserver, so all the complex database searches work just like on the website.

The installer, together with 450 Bibles and commentaries fits on a tiny micro SD card, and fills less than 1G. We slot these into USB sticks so they can be used in any computer. And thanks to the generocity of organisations like Crossway and Biblica, these can be legally copied and given away.

Many of these educators struggle with shortages of books, trustworthy software and often no internet. Students in the same class may have a huge range of skills from almost no Bible knowledge to linguistic genius.

STEPBible ticks all their boxes, presenting the contents of many books from reliable sources, working offline, and enabling people to delve into the Bible as deep as they wish, or simply read it using software in their own language.

I've never seen 1000 micro-SDs from a factory, so I decided to video the 'unboxing' - with unexpected consequences:

ICETE (International Council for Evangelical Theological Education), meeting in Nov.6-11 2015, is a truely global conference. It meets each time in different countries - recently in Nairobi, Cape Town, Sopron, Chiang Mai, and this year Antalya in Turkey. This theme this time is the impact of theological education.

Two of us (Simon, our COO and Librarian and myself) will travel there to personally demonstrate the usefulness of STEP. We also want to ask in what further ways Tyndale House could help provide Bible scholarship for the world church.

Each delegate will get two USBs with a microSD of STEPBible installers and Bibles. The idea is that they keep one, and give one to their tech guy to multiply for their students, pastors and anyone who wants to read the Bible seriously.

I'm hoping that some of them will find the interface isn't yet available in their language, and do something about it. Clicking on "Help us translate..." goes to a page where they can type the words and phrases from each menu and popup in their mother tongue. This results in a new version of STEPBible specially for their language community.

If you know someone who can do that for a language we don't have, please point this out. If they need help getting started, put them touch with us.

We are able to present these USBs thanks to small and large donations towards this project, as well as voluntary contributions of time and work. Thank you you so much for generously supporting this mission.

David Instone-Brewer for the STEP team.

Step popups are under your control

noreply@blogger.com (Tyndale STEP Project) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 01:45:00 -0700

Feedback from users suggested that you like the instant lexicons and vocabulary popups, but not all the time. So now you can turn them off and on when you want.

Whenever you hover over a word in the ESV and a handful of other Bibles with 'Interlinear' facilities, you can see the underlying Greek or Hebrew vocabulary in a quick red pop-up lexicon. This help you feel in touch with the text that's translated. You only get the start of the information about the word, but that's usually all you need.

Clicking on a word brings up much more information in the side bar - a quick definition, a longer summary of it's use in the Bible, and a full lexicon entry describing how the original readers would have understood it with illustrations from works they might have read. (The NT lexicon is due for upgrade, and the OT lexicon is due for unveiling - more soon).

The Quick lexicon appears at the bottom of the page - or at the top if you are hovering over a word at the bottom - so that it doesn't obscure the text you are reading. But sometimes it is a nuisance. On small screens like phones and tablets, or when you want to see a large portion of text, it gets in the way. Now you can turn it off.

Click on the Options icon (looks like a cog) and untick "Quick Lexicon". You can always turn it on again later. The full details are still available in the Side Bar when you click, but no big red box pops up when you move the cursor.

The Verse Vocabulary box is a powerful feature that's unique to STEP (as far as I know). Hover over any verse number and you can see immediately the complete vocabulary used in that verse. This works for ALL Bibles, whether or not they have been specially tagged. So you can look up a passage in the NIV, or a Spanish or Arabic Bible and find out what Hebrew or Greek word was used for "man" or "love" or "God".

It also tells you how often that original word is used in that book, and in the complete Bible - and clicking on the number shows you all those verses in the same version you are looking at. And clicking on the word itself brings up the Side Bar dictionary. All this without knowing any Hebrew or Greek. There are also links to "Related verses" - which generates a list of verses that use the same Hebrew or Greek vocabulary as found in this verse. And "Related subjects" which lists verses addressing the same themes found in this verse.

Sometimes it is a nuisance, so now you can turn it off. Click on the "Options" cog and untick it. But soon you'll want to turn it back on, because this popup is a great way to start any serious Bible study.

Feedback is very important to us. We can't react quickly - there's only a couple of people working on the programming- but we recognise that your opinion is more important than ours. So click on that "Feedback" button. It will automatically create a screenshot so create the screen like you want us to see it, before you click.

Do you have programming skills in Java and Javascript? Then you could help change STEP for the better. You can do a lot of useful work in just a couple of hours a week! Contact us.

Learn STEP by step through videos

noreply@blogger.com (Tyndale STEP Project) — Mon, 8 Jun 2015 10:13:00 -0700

STEPBible.org provides an easy path into the Bible. Its power can look daunting till you see how simple it is to use. Watch and be amazed at what you are capable of.

Finding your way round STEP Bible

How to do the simple things: Pick your Bible language and version, find words or phrases, compare versions, look up the original (without knowing Greek or Hebrew) or quickly prepare a Bible study by looking up "Topic".

Using STEP Bible in your own language

How to get help and menus in French, or Arabic or Chinese or 50 other languages. There are Bibles in about 300 languages, and each of them links you to searches for the original vocabulary without needing to know Hebrew or Greek. If your language isn't there, you can add a new skin - this video shows you how.

Using STEP Bible without any internet

How to download the complete STEP Bible tool and select from hundreds of Bibles and commentaries. This works in a browser on a PC or Mac as if you were online. It is free and legal to give away to your friends.

A STEP Bible Study: Grace in John

See how to do an in-depth study by looking at "grace and truth" in John.1.16. This small phrase a key to the gospel, and John expects us to know the Old Testament in enough detail to understand the prophecy he is pointing to. With STEP Bible the solution is easy.

A STEP Bible Study: Days and Generations in Genesis

Finding your way round a large book like Genesis is easy in STEP Bible. Follow the clues and find the structure based on "generations". Investigate the meaning of the "days" in Genesis 1. Find out how to investigate the exact meanings without knowing Hebrew or Greek.

A STEP Bible Study: The women in Matthew 1

Four women are listed in the genealogy of Jesus. Using STEP Bible it is easy to find the significance and story behind them. By turning on colour-coding for grammar, you can even feel the same shock that the original readers experienced when they read about Mary, without knowing any Greek yourself.

A STEP Bible Study: The controversial beginning and end of Mark

Did Jesus feel "compassion" or "indignation" when he met the leper in Mark 1? STEP Bible can help to explain the different translations. Are the last verses of Mark 16 as ancient as the rest of the gospel? Look at the facts and decide for yourself. Find out how to delve into tricky issues using STEP Bible.

Made a good video about STEP Bible yourself? Please link it in a comment, so others can share it.