Contact - Wycliffe Bible Translator (2023)

FAQs

Is Wycliffe Bible Translators a good charity? ›

This charity's score is 73%, earning it a Two-Star rating. This overall score is calculated entirely from a single beacon score: 100% Accountability & Finance. Learn more about our criteria and methodology.

Historically, translating the Bible for an unreached people group has taken between 12-25 years. Some of the factors which dictate the amount of time one spends translating are: Does the language group have a written alphabet?

John Chesnut. John serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Wycliffe Bible Translators USA. John and his wife, Kelly, are passionate about seeing God transform people and communities when they experience his Word in a language and format they truly understand.

The average project cost of a complete written Bible is $937,446. The “annual expenditure aggregate project cost” is $105 million. On average, it takes 15.8 years to complete a Bible translation.

King James Version (55%) New International Version (19%) New Revised Standard Version (7%) New American Bible (6%)

The New American Standard Bible is a literal translation from the original texts, well suited to study because of its accurate rendering of the source texts. It follows the style of the King James Version but uses modern English for words that have fallen out of use or changed their meanings.

History. Some Deaf readers struggle with reading English because sign language is their first language. The World Bible Translation Center (WBTC) decided to do a translation that would make reading the Bible easier for them. The EVD uses simpler vocabulary and shorter sentences to make it more simple to understand.

No single English translation will ever represent the original biblical languages perfectly. Why? In part because the Bible's ancient languages do not function like English. A word in Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic might not have an exact English word to match.

In the spring of 1428 a group of churchmen dug up the bones of Wycliffe and burned them. This grisly enterprise was carried out at the instruction of Pope Martin V. Thirteen years earlier in 1415 Wycliffe had been condemned as a heretic at an ecclesiastical council called the Council of Constance.

Why did Wycliffe fail? ›

He lost some support in 1381 when he denied the doctrine of transubstantiation, that in the Eucharist the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Parliament condemned his teachings the following year, but he was allowed to retire to his parsonage at Lutterworth.

The Worldwide Status of Bible Translation:

At least 1,600 languages have access to the New Testament and some portions of Scripture in their language. More than 700 languages have the complete translated Bible. At least 1,600 languages still need a Bible translation started.

The nuances, as well as the clear meanings of the original words, are lost in translation. This is not just because of the limitations of transferring meanings from one language into another. It is also because translations are also interpretations.

One basic problem inherent in Bible translation is that we do not have the original manuscript of the Bible, but copies of copies of copies... and this causes many problems because translators do not know which of all these copies is correct and which is not, since none of them are identical.

People want to read a Bible that's readable.

Sitting atop the current top-ten list are two translations of Scripture—the New International Version (NIV) and the New Living Translation (NLT)—that focus on readability. Both the NIV and NLT are functional translations based on a thought-for-thought translation paradigm.

According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time with an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed. Sales estimates for other printed religious texts include at least 800 million copies for the Qur'an and 190 million copies for the Book of Mormon.

In May 1536, Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII, was convicted of adultery and beheaded. Five months later, accused heretic and English Bible translator William Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake.

Most religious scholars and historians agree with Pope Francis that the historical Jesus principally spoke a Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Through trade, invasions and conquest, the Aramaic language had spread far afield by the 7th century B.C., and would become the lingua franca in much of the Middle East.

What Bible do the Catholics use? ›

The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE) is a Bible translation approved for use by the Catholic Church, receiving the imprimatur of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1991.

Review of the Billy Graham Training Center Bible: The text is the New King James Version, and is a red letter edition (words of the Lord Jesus in red letters).

Before this discovery, the earliest extant manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Greek, in manuscripts such as the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. Out of the roughly 800 manuscripts found at Qumran, 220 are from the Tanakh.

The New International Reader's Version (NIrV)

It uses easier words than the NIV. It also explains harder words. This makes it a good beginner Bible for adults who find reading hard. You can read the NIrV online at biblegateway.com and on the Youversion Bible app.

NASB, it's the New American Standard Bible, this is a word for word translation and it's often considered to be the most accurate English translation available. Not necessarily the easiest to read, but it's a great direct representation.

A more literal Bible translation is not necessarily more accurate, especially if it's difficult to understand, leading modern readers to misinterpret it. For daily reading and Bible study, we recommend using a Bible translation that emphasizes the importance of being both literal and readable, such as the CSB or NIV.

The Koren Jerusalem Bible

The Koren Bible was the first Bible published in modern Israel, distinguished for its accuracy and beauty, and one of the most widely distributed Hebrew editions ever published.

DeepL Translate: The world's most accurate translator.

With the aid of his assistants, therefore, Wycliffe produced an English Bible [over a period of 13 years from 1382].

Was John Wycliffe the first to translate the Bible into English? ›

Called the "Morning Star of the Reformation," John Wycliffe was responsible for the first significant translation of the Scriptures into English. Born around 1330, Wycliffe spent many of his years arguing against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church which he believed to be contrary to the Bible.

William Tyndale, the father of the English Bible.

1522–1535. Tyndale's Bible is credited with being the first Bible translation in the English language to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, although it relied heavily upon the Latin Vulgate.

About the Wycliffe

The hand-printed "Early Version" of the Wycliffe Bible, which first appeared in 1382, offered a literal translation of the Latin Vulgate. It was the first time the common people had access to Scripture in their language in more than 1,300 years.

Dynamic or formal translation policy

Dynamic equivalence translation. Formal equivalence translation (similar to literal translation)

By the late 20th century the entire Bible had been translated into more than 250 languages, and portions of the Bible had been published in more than 1,300 of the world's languages. New translations of the Bible into English proliferated in the 20th century.

The Dinka tribe speaks a language called Jieng. They have a Bible, but it's not complete. The Bible has never been completely translated into Jieng.

Over 30,000 changes were made, of which more than 5,000 represent differences between the Greek text used for the Revised Version and that used as the basis of the King James Version. Most of the other changes were made in the interest of consistency or modernization.

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum of the Catholic Church included various translations of the Bible. In most cases, the bans on pious lay people possessing or using Bibles were related to vernacular Bible editions. Clerics were never forbidden to possess the Vulgate Bible translation in the Latin language.

The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I.

How much does it cost to translate the Bible? ›

The average project cost of a “text translation” is $59,302 per year. The average project cost of a complete written Bible is $937,446. The “annual expenditure aggregate project cost” is $105 million. On average, it takes 15.8 years to complete a Bible translation.

One of the reasons the Bible is hard to read is because of the historical, language, and cultural gap between when it was written and your life today. On a side note, it's amazing how long ago the Bible was written and it is still changing people's lives all over the world!

Between 385 and 405 CE, the early Christian church translated its canon into Vulgar Latin (the common Latin spoken by ordinary people), a translation known as the Vulgate. Since then, Catholic Christians have held ecumenical councils to standardize their biblical canon.

Wycliffe as a Bible translator

Supporters of the view that Wycliffe did translate the Bible hold that when Wycliffe took on the challenge of translating, he was breaking a long-held belief that no person should translate the Bible on their own initiative, without approval of the Church.

He disapproved of clerical celibacy, pilgrimages, the selling of indulgences and praying to saints. He thought the monasteries were corrupt and the immorality with which many clerics often behaved invalidated the sacraments they conducted.

In a series of political-ecclesiastical treatises, Wycliffe expounded his view that the church of his day should return to evangelical poverty. Later he began a systematic attack on its beliefs and practices, which included condemnation of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

With regard to the use of Bible translations among biblical scholarship, the New Revised Standard Version is used broadly, but the English Standard Version is emerging as a primary text of choice among biblical scholars and theologians inclined toward theological conservatism.

In the spring of 1428 a group of churchmen dug up the bones of Wycliffe and burned them. This grisly enterprise was carried out at the instruction of Pope Martin V. Thirteen years earlier in 1415 Wycliffe had been condemned as a heretic at an ecclesiastical council called the Council of Constance.

John Wycliffe was an Oxford professor who believed that the teachings of the Bible were more important than the earthly clergy and the Pope. Wycliffe translated the Bible into English, as he believed that everyone should be able to understand it directly.

BeDuhn said that the New World Translation was "not bias free", adding that whilst the general public and various biblical scholars might assume that the differences in the New World Translation are the result of religious bias, he considered it to be "the most accurate of the translations compared", and a "remarkably ...