This book deals with the effect that translation of the Bible has had on the theology of developing churches over the past 200 years, and also examines cultural factors which affect translation, as well as how Bible translation itself affects a people's social and cultural development.

The growth of the Church in the last two centuries has been paralleled by an explosion in the number of languages into which all or part of the Bible has been translated. This book is perhaps the first serious effort to examine a number of issues related to that phenomenon, among them how theology can affect the kind of translation prepared, and how the type of translation itself can affect the theology of a church. It also addresses the topics of why a church generally develops faster and with a deeper faith if it has the Bible; how decisions of text, canon, exegesis, type of language and type of translation are related to the matter of authority; what forces are at play in a culture to which a translator must be sensitive; and how Bible translation affects a society and culture. The authors of these papers are distinguished scholars in the fields of missiology, history, cultural anthropology, theology or church history. Some address theological issues of Bible translation, and others the cultural and political questions. But ultimately they conclude that if the church of tomorrow is to grow, and not be fragmented, then access to the Bible will be crucial.

Many books have been written about the Bible, but few explain its origins. This volume provides a fascinating overview of how the Bible was first inspired, canonized, read as sacred literature, copied in ancient Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, and eventually translated into the languages of the world. No other one-volume work can match this wealth of information about the historical development of the Bible.

For Christians from New Testament times on, the Bible has almost everywhere been a translated Bible. For eighteen centuries it was normally translated into new languages by native speakers, but with the beginning of the nineteenth century and the modern missionary movement came a burst of missionary translation around the world. As missionary churches were established and as societies worldwide were affected by the gospel, people studied the translations, preached from them, and recounted stories to their children. In many societies these translations were the foundation for Christian communities, for theology (including indigenous theologies), and a powerful stimulus to modernization and even secularization reaching beyond the Christian community.Smalley contends that the theological presuppositions of these missionary translators varied widely. He argues that some missionary translators were insightful scholars who probed deeply into the languages and cultures in which they were working; others were unable to transcend the perspective their own culture prescribed for them. Earlier missionaries did not always have a clearly formulated theory of translation or an understanding of what they were doing and why. Eventually, however, a theoretical model was developed, a model that the majority of translators (both missionary and nonmissionary) now use. Smalley maintains that the task of Bible translation is now passing out of the hands of missionaries and back into the hands of native speakers, casting the missionary translator into significantly changed roles in the translation process.

This is a modern-spelling version of the 14th century middle english translation by John Wycliffe and John Purvey, the first complete english vernacular version, with an introduction by Terence P. Noble. Also contains a glossary, endnotes, conclusion and bibliography.

Since the Greeks first translated the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint version), each new translation has been colored by theological assumptions and marked by controversies. Using documents by the translators themselves, early material about Bible translations, and contemporary justifications (and criticisms) of various existing and proposed translations, this book looks at numerous prominent Bible renderings, including Hebrew to Greek, post-Septuagint, European, and English translations. Introductory essays set each extract in historical context.