Internet Info 1997 December/Internet_Info_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1997.iso/faqs/alt/answers/books/bible/world-english-faq

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From: Michael Paul Johnson <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: alt.bible,alt.christnet.bible,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: World English Bible Translation FAQ
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Date: 1 Oct 1997 07:07:26 -0600
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Summary: What, why, and where is the World English Bible
Keywords: Holy Bible,Holy,Bible,Gospel,Translation,English
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Archive-name: books/bible/world-english-faq
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Last-modified: 26 May 1997
URL: http://www.ebible.org/bible/webfaq.htm
URL: ftp://ftp.ebible.org/mpj/WEB/webfaq.txt

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The World English Bible (WEB) FAQ

This Frequently Asked Questions document covers the following about the
World English Bible (WEB), previously known as the ASV of 1997 (ASV97):

Why create yet another English translation of the Holy Bible?
Why is the copyright such a big deal?
Isn't it dangerous not to copyright the WEB?
What is the WEB Revision?
Who is behind the WEB Revision work?
What are your qualifications to do translation work?
What is the WEB Translation Philosophy?
What original language texts are you using?
How does the WEB compare to other translations?
What about the King James Only movement?
What makes you think that you can compete with multi-million dollar
publishers?
What kind of editing help do you want?
How do you publish draft portions of the WEB?
How do I join the WEB mailing list?
How do I get off of the WEB mailing list?
How do I change my address on the WEB mailing list?
How does the WEB project compare to the GLW project?
Is anyone else working on a public domain, Modern English translation?
When will the WEB be completed?
Why the name WEB?
Will any major publishers be interested in the WEB?
Why do you use "Yahweh" for God's name in the Old Testament?
Where can I get the WEB?
What formats can I get the WEB in?
Who Maintains this FAQ?

_____________________________________________________________

Why create yet another English translation of the Holy Bible?
_____________________________________________________________

That is a good question. There are more than 40 English translations of the
Holy Bible. Unfortunately, all of them are either (1) archaic (like the KJV
and ASV of 1901), or (2) covered by copyright restrictions that prevent
unrestricted free posting on the internet or other media (like the NIV and
NASB). The Bible in Basic English (BBE) was in the Public Domain in the USA
(but not all countries) for a while, but its copyrighted status was restored
by GATT. (The BBE used a rather restricted subset of English, anyway,
limiting its accuracy and readability.)In other words, there is NO OTHER
complete translation of the Holy Bible in normalModern English that can be
freely copied (except for some limited "fair use") without payment of
royalties. This is the vacuum that the World EnglishBible is trying to fill.

_____________________________________

Why is the copyright such a big deal?
_____________________________________

The copyright laws of most nations and the international treaties that
support them are a mixed blessing. By granting authors and translators a
legal monopoly (for alimited, but very long, time) on the right of copying
and "first sale" of their works, the law makers have made writing and
translating very profitable for some people whose works are in great
demand. This has, no doubt, been a factor in the creation of many of the
good Modern English translations of the Holy Bible that we now enjoy. The
problem with this system, with respect to the Holy Bible, is that it has
had the effect of limiting distribution of God's Word in modern languages.
For example, I cannot legally post copies of the entire New International
Version of the Holy Bible on my web site in a downloadable, searchable, and
readily copyable format without the permission of the International Bible
Society and Zondervan (copyright owner and publisher). Zondervan won't
grant such permission unless they get a significant royalty (they quoted me
$10,000 + $10/copy distributed) and unless I convince them that my Bible
search software is "good enough" for them. Needless to say, the Bible
search software that I am writing with the intention of distributing as
donorware will not come with the NIV.

The problem of copyright protection of Modern English translations of the
Holy Bible is not just significant on the Internet and various electronic
information services. It also affects people who want to quote significant
portions of Scripture in books, audio tapes, and other media. This drives
up the price of preaching the Gospel. Basic economics tells us that this is
not a good thing when our goal is to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew
28:18-20). For example, the "free" Bibles that the Gideons place cost more
if they use a modern version, like Thomas-Nelson's New King James Version,
than if they use the (more difficult to read) King James Version.

Naturally, I'm not suggesting that we abolish the copyright law or that
existing Modern English translations be immediately released to the Public
Domain. I understand the way that the profits from the sales of the NIV,
for example, help fund other language translations at the International
Bible Society (as well as helping to enrich some folks at Zondervan). I
also understand that the business of Bible sales has helped establish a
good supply of Bibles in many parts of the world, in a variety of formats,
sizes, styles, and colors. What we are doing is liberating at least one
Modern English translation of the Holy Bible from all copyright
restrictions -- a translation that is trustworthy, accurate, and useful for
evangelism and discipleship.

Another concern where copyright restrictions come into play is in
translation and creating derivative works. For example, the copyright
notice of the NASB expressly forbids making translations or derivative
works based on the NASB without getting permission from the Lockman
Foundation. I don't know if they would make this easy or hard, expensive or
cheap, but I do know that there will be no need to even ask when using the
WEB.

____________________________________________

Isn't it dangerous not to copyright the WEB?
____________________________________________

No. Copyright protection is intended to protect the income of the copyright
holder's sales of a work, but we are planning to GIVE AWAY the right to
make copies of this version of the Holy Bible to anyone who wants it, so we
have nothing to lose that way. There is some argument for copyrighting a
Bible translation just to retain some legal control against some evil,
cultic revision of a translation. The God's Living Word translations of
John's Gospel and John's letters are copyrighted only for this reason, for
example, even though blanket permission to make unlimited copies of that
translation is published with them. This legal leverage is so much weaker
than God's protection of His own Word that it is of questionable value.
(See Revelation 22:18-19.) The only other major concern is that somebody
might later claim a copyright on the WEB and remove it from the Public
Domain. Because there is a timely and public declaration of the Public
Domain status of the WEB by those who are working on it, that would not
work, and they would not be able to defend such a bogus copyright claim.

_________________________

What is the WEB Revision?
_________________________

The WEB Revision is an update of the American Standard Version of 1901,
which is in the Public Domain. The revision is also in the Public Domain,
which sets it apart from other revisions of the American Standard Version,
like the New American Standard Bible and the Revised Standard Version.The
first phase of the translation, which has already been done, was to convert
about 1,000 archaic words and word forms to modern equivalents using a
custom computer program. The second, third, and fourth phases are now going
on in parallel. The second phase is manual revision to add quote marks (the
ASV1901 had none) and update other punctuation, update usage, and spot
check the translation against the original languages in places where the
meaning is unclear or significant textual variants exist. The second phase
is the review of the results of the second phase by volunteers who read
them, looking for typos, unclear passages, etc., then report back to the
senior editor (Michael Paul Johnson <[e-mail]>). The third phase is
considering all suggestions and editing the master copy of the WEB text
accordingly, then publishing revisions at the WEB ftp site and the WEB web
page. The fourth phases is ongoing consideration of corrections and
revisions.

____________________________________

Who is behind the WEB Revision work?
____________________________________

Rainbow Missions, Inc., a Colorado nonprofit corporation -- and many
volunteers who are born again and seeking to daily follow the leading of
the Holy Spirit.

____________________________________________________

What are your qualifications to do translation work?
____________________________________________________

Standing on the shoulders of giants - those mighty men of God who provided
the critically edited original language texts, translated other English
versions (especially the ASV), wrote the great translation guides available
from the American Bible Society, and the writers of theGreek & Hebrew
study materials I use - is the most obvious. Others include having studied
the Bible for years, studying several languages, and earning a Master's
degree. None of those matter as much as the next reason. God called me to
do this, and I willingly answered His call. God would not call me to do
something without enabling me to do so. Without God's call, I would drop
this project like a hot rock. Although many people contribute suggestions
and typo reports, they are all checked before editing the master copy of
the World English Bible.

_______________________________________

What is the WEB Translation Philosophy?
_______________________________________

The WEB must:

* be done with prayer -- specifically prayer for inspiration by the Holy
Spirit.

* be accurate and reliable (Revelation 22:18-19).

* be understandable to the majority of the world's English-speaking
population (and therefore should avoid locale-specific usage).

* be kept in the Public Domain (and therefore be done by volunteers).

* be made available in a short time, because we don't know the exact time
of our Lord's return.

* preserve the essential character of the original 1901 publication.

* use language that is not faddish, but likely to retain its meaning for
some time.

* render God's proper Name in the Old Testament as "Yahweh."

* resolve unclear passages by referring to the original Hebrew and Greek.

* be done with utmost respect for God and His Word.

* be done by Christians from a variety of denominations and backgrounds.

* retain (at least for now) the ASV 1901's pronoun capitalization rules
(lower case "he" referring to God).

* retain (at least for now) the ASV 1901's use of "he" when that word might
mean ("he and/or she").


Bible translation (as with any natural language translation) is a balancing
act, where the translators seek to preserve the following:

* The meaning of each thought or sentence.

* The meanings of individual words in their context.

* The shades of meaning implied by word forms, tense, etc.

* The impact and tone of each passage.

* The style of the original authors who were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

* Faithfulness to the target language (English, in this case).


Note that some of the above goals are at odds with one another, like
preservation of the original style vs. faithfulness to the target language,
and expressing the last bit of the shades of meaning vs. preserving the
impact. Still, it is possible to retain a good balance. Different balance
points are chosen by different translation committees. Indeed, many
translations can be characterized by the weight the translators gave to
each of the above items. For example, The Amplified Bible excels at getting
the meaning across, but falls down hard on impact, style preservation, and
faithfulness to the target language. The New Living Translation excels at
preserving the meanings of entire thoughts, impact, and faithfulness to the
target language,but loses some of the style and shades of meaning. The New
International Version excels at most of the above, but loses some elements
of style and some of the subtleties of wording.The World English Bible
attempts to balance all of the above with a fairly literal translation.

Some people like to use the terms "formal equivalent" and "dynamic
equivalent." Neither of these exactly describe what we are doing, since we
have borrowed ideas from both, but I suppose that we are closer to formal
equivalence than dynamic equivalence.

___________________________________________

What original language texts are you using?
___________________________________________

Since this is primarily an update of the 1901 edition, the choices made by
the original 50 or so Evangelical scholars that made this translation hold
unless reference is made to the original languages to help with places
where the Elizabethan English is not clear, or where major textual variants
are known to exist. In this case, we are using the Biblia Hebraica
Stuttgartensia, also called The Stuttgart Bible, in the Old Testament, and
the Byzantine Majority Text as published for use with The Online Bible in
the New Testament (M-Text). This choice of Greek text is very close to what
the KJV translators used, but does take advantage of some more recently
discovered manuscripts. Although there are good scholarly arguments both
for and against using the Byzantine Majority Text over the "Alexandrian"
text based on the dating and critical editing work of Nestle and Aland and
published by the United Bible Societies (UBS), we find the following to be
compelling reasons:

* The UBS text has a lot of "dropout" errors relative to the M-Text.
Diligent scribes with a respect for God's Word are more likely to miss
copying something (i.e. by skipping a line, etc.) than to make up a line to
add in.

* Different scribes copying the same passage aren't all likely to make the
same mistakes at the same places, even though some mistakes are likely to
be copied over many times.

* When a scribe had a choice of manuscripts to copy, he would normally copy
the one that he trusted the most, thus causing the most trusted text to be
copied more often.

* The UBS text relies heavily on the dating of the media upon which the
text was written, but those texts that are used more and trusted more would
both be copied more often and worn out from use sooner.

* The UBS text is heavily weighted to a small number of manuscripts
relative to those available to us.

* The UBS text is heavily weighted to a small number of manuscripts relative
to those available to us, and relies heavily on one manuscript that was
pulled from a trash can at a monistery.

* The Holy Spirit takes an active interest in preserving what He has
inspired.

* In those few sections where the M-Text and UBS text differ significantly,
I have taken my question of textual choice directly to God, and God chose
to answer me by confirming in several different ways that reading which the
M-Text rendered. The main passage in question is in Mark 16, but there are
others, too. While I certainly don't claim to be infallible, I do know when
to say, "Yes, Sir" and follow the direction I see the Lord pointing me in.

_______________________________________________

How does the WEB compare to other translations?
_______________________________________________

The WEB is different enough to avoid copyright infringement, but similar
enough to avoid incurring the wrath of God. By "different enough," I mean
that the wording is about as different from any one Modern English
translation as the current translations differ from each other. By "similar
enough," I mean that the meaning is preserved and that the Gospel still
cuts to the very soul. It is most similar to the ASV of 1901, of course,
but I suppose that similarities will be found with other translations.

The WEB doesn't capitalize pronouns pertaining to God. This is similar to
the NRSV and NIV, and the same as the original ASV of 1901. Note that this
is an English style decision, because Hebrew has no such thing as upper and
lower case, and the oldest Greek manuscripts were all upper case. I kind of
prefer the approach of the KJV, NKJV, and NASB of capitalizing these
pronouns, because I write that way most of the time and because it is a way
of offering greater honor to God. I admit that it is kind of a throw-back
to the Olde English practice of capitalizing pronouns referring to the
king. This is archaic, because we don't capitalize pronouns that refer to
our president. It is also true that chosing to capitalize pronouns relating
to God causes some difficulties in translating the coronation psalms, where
the psalm was initially written for the coronation of an earthly king, but
which also can equally well be sung or recited to the praise of the King of
Kings. Capitalizing pronouns relating to God also makes for some strange
reading where people were addressing Jesus with anything but respect.In
any case, in the presence of good arguments both ways, we have decided to
leave these as they were in the ASV 1901 (which also gives us fewer
opportunities to make mistakes).

The WEB, like the ASV of 1901, breaks the KJV tradition by printing God's
proper Name in the Old Testament with a spelling closest to what we think
it was pronounced like, instead of rendering that Name as "LORD" or "GOD"
(with all caps or small caps). The current scholarly consensus has shifted
from spelling this Name as "Jehovah" to spelling it as "Yahweh." There are
a couple of other English translations that use "Yahweh," so this is not
new, per se, but it does set it off a little from other translations.

I guess the best way for you to know better is to compare some passages
side by side.

________________________________________

What about the King James Only movement?
________________________________________

May God open their eyes and give them a sound understanding.

If you prefer the King James Version of the Holy Bible, then, by all means,
read it and do it. I think that the KJV was a wonderful Contemporary
English translation of the Holy Bible when it came out. It has been
mightily used by God and has had (and continues to have) a profoundly good
impact. Unfortunately, the evolution of the English language continually
erodes its value as time goes on. It is now outsold by the excellent New
International Version, for many good reasons.

I guess that there are a few people that seem to believe that the KJV is
more accurate than the original Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Bible, and
that all the other versions are tainted with heresy and conspiracy. I've
read some of their literature. I found it to be some of the most
non-Christian and illogical literature that I have endured, thus further
proving the claim that the KJV is the only valid Bible to be wrong, at
least in my mind. I guess I've now put myself on record as being a heretic
in their eyes, but I must follow God, rather than men.

___________________________________________________________________

What makes you think that you can compete with multi-million dollar
publishers?
___________________________________________________________________

Indeed, throwing another Modern English translation into the "market" to
"compete" with solid translations like the NIV and publishing giants like
Zondervan sounds as silly.It sounds like that, perhaps, until you consider
that the primary target for the WEB is royalty-free distribution of the
Holy Bible in unlimited copies made by many people using many computers,
tape recorders,photocopiers, and presses all over the world. This is a
"market" that the "giants" have excluded themselves from. Indeed, if they
change that policy (don't hold your breath waiting for them to), we win,
anyway. If we win this area, that is enough to justify this effort. If we
do an excellent job, the WEB might possibly start competing in more
conventional areas (like printed Bibles in bookstores), but not because of
any significant effort or marketing on our part. After all, the bookstores
have lots of Bibles in Modern English, already.

Once you look at the whole picture of what is going on, the multi-million
dollar publishers and Bible translators really don't have much of an effect
on us, nor do we have much of an effect on them. The result of the combined
efforts of both is simply more complete availability of the Holy Bible in
Modern English.

Of course, it does take considerable effort to pull off a decent Bible
translation -- even a language update like the WEB. Fortunately, there are
lots of people willing to volunteer some time to help with this cause, and
the Internet helps bring those people together.

The real bottom line, though, is that this is God's project, and He is
fully capable of providing everything that we need to accomplish His goals.

______________________________________

What kind of editing help do you want?
______________________________________

Specifically, we need people who will read phase 2 drafts of WEB chapters
carefully, checking the following things, and email suggestions for
improvements in the following areas:

* Typos & spelling errors.

* Punctuation errors.

* Grammar & usage errors.

* Unclear wording or wording that may be misunderstood.

* Wording that varies in meaning from other good Bible translations
(realizing that some will vary due to "textual variants" in the underlying
original languages).

* Wording that may inadvertently be "too close" to any copyrighted Modern
English translation for too many verses in a row (thus risking charges of
copyright infringement).

* Questions that come up with respect to specific portions of the
translation.

* Inconsistencies in style, usage, or translation.


Note that all suggestions made in line with the above mentioned translation
philosophy will be seriously considered. There is no guarantee, of course,
that any suggestion will result in a change, especially in those areas that
involve judgment calls, because we are likely to get conflicting
suggestions for the same passage. If in doubt, suggest or ask, anyway. We
want to eradicate as many of the above problems that tend to distract from
the meaning and message of the Holy Bible.

_____________________________________________

How do you publish draft portions of the WEB?
_____________________________________________

Draft portions of the WEB are published in the WEB mailing list, at
http://www.ebible.org/bible/WEB, in ftp://ftp.ebible.org/mpj/WEB/, and in
the unmoderated Usenet news groups alt.bible and alt.christnet.bible. Once
the WEB translation is done, the mailing list will continue (if the Good
Lord is willing) as a daily Bible reading list and for use with God's
Living Word translation drafts.

___________________________________

How do I join the WEB mailing list?
___________________________________

Send mail to [e-mail] with the single line in the body of the
message (not the subject) saying:

subscribe bible

Expect somewhere around 4 chapters of the Holy Bible per day, primarily in
WEB drafts, but with some GLW chapters (either "released" or draft form),
along with related material (like this FAQ).

_________________________________________

How do I get off of the WEB mailing list?
_________________________________________

Send mail to [e-mail] with the single line in the body of the
message (not the subject) saying:

unsubscribe bible

If you don't have access to the account you are unsubscribing from, then
add your old email address to the line, like

unsubscribe bible [e-mail]

but substitute your own email address for [e-mail]. If that doesn't
work, email [e-mail] for help from a real person.

___________________________________________________

How do I change my address on the WEB mailing list?
___________________________________________________

Just unsubscribe from the old address and subscribe from the new address,
using the instructions, above.

____________________________________________________

How does the WEB project compare to the GLW project?
____________________________________________________

The WEB project is designed to get a whole Bible in Modern English out in a
relative hurry (for a volunteer effort) with a relatively straight forward
revision of the ASV of 1901. The God's Living Word (GLW) project is a
slower, more methodical project that isn't based on any one existing
English Translation, but on the original languages with the other
translations diligently revised and compared. It has a slightly different
translation philosophy. It may or may not be done before the translators
die or Jesus returns, but four books of the Bible are available in this
translation: John, 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John.

______________________________________________________________________

Is anyone else working on a public domain, Modern English translation?
______________________________________________________________________

Yes. Dr. Maurice Robinson is overseeing another project to revise the ASV
into what he is calling the Modern American Standard Version (MASV). That
project is not on quite as ambitious schedule, but it should be worth
looking at when it is done.

_______________________________

When will the WEB be completed?
_______________________________

Only God knows for sure when and if it will be completed. We were hoping to
complete the first manual editing pass of the whole Bible by December 1997.
That target may be a bit overly ambitious. Because we are still getting a
significant number of typo reports and suggestions for clearer, more accurate
wording, it is obvious to me that the WEB wording will be subject to change
for many years at the current pace, although the number and magnitude of
those changes should drop off after about 2 years.

_________________

Why the name WEB?
_________________

World: because God's Word is to the whole world, and this translation is to
be read by English-speaking people all over the world.

English: a language spoken by about 10% of the people in the world.

Bible: God's Holy Book.

WEB: This translation of the Holy Bible travels by way of the World-Wide
Web, aided by its copyright-free status.

___________________________________________________

Will any major publishers be interested in the WEB?
___________________________________________________

I haven't asked any, yet, but I imagine that this depends on the quality of
the work that we do. Publishers that don't already own rights to another
Modern English translation of the Holy Bible may see the lack of royalty
payments to be an advantage. As is mentioned above, the primary target for
the WEB Revision is a "market" where major publishers don't go, anyway.

____________________________________________________________

Why do you use "Yahweh" for God's name in the Old Testament?
____________________________________________________________

"Yahweh" is the most probable best transliteration of this most holy proper
name from the Hebrew consonants YOD HE WAW HE, or YHWH. This holy name is
sometimes rendered "Jehovah" based on the mixture of the vowels for "Adonai"
(Lord) with the consonants "YHWH" as it is written in some later Hebrew
manuscripts. The original manuscripts had no consonants, and we believe that
the vowels for "adonai" were added to reflect the tradition of avoiding
pronouncing God's name, and saying "Lord" instead, and was not an indication
of how the name should be pronounced by those so bold as to actually utter
God's name. This is a break from the tradition of the KJV and others that use
"LORD" or "GOD" with all caps or small caps to translate "YHWH", and use
"Lord" (normal mixed case) to translate "Adonai" and "God" (normal mixed
case) to translate "Elohim." That tradition gets really confusing in some
places, especially since "Yahweh" is used in conjunction with "Lord" and
"God" in many places in the Old Testament.  Since God's proper name really is
separate from the titles "Lord" and "God" in the original Hebrew, we wanted
the English translation to reflect that fact, even when read aloud.

________________________

Where can I get the WEB?
________________________

At http://www.ebible.org/bible/WEB (HTML) and ftp://ftp.ebible.org/mpj/WEB/
(plain ASCII).

__________________________________

What formats can I get the WEB in?
__________________________________

The World English Bible is being edited in General Bible Format (GBF) - a
format that is designed to facilitate easy automated conversion to other
formats, such as HTML, plain ASCII, RTF, indexed formats for Bible study
programs, etc. You can get the current GBF file for the WEB at
ftp://ftp.ebible.org/mpj/WEB/webgbf.zip. This file is updated regularly as
the editing of the World English Bible progresses. The WEB in HTML and in
plain ASCII versions mentioned above are produced automatically from the GBF
file.

_______________________

Who Maintains this FAQ?
_______________________

This FAQ is maintained by Michael Paul Johnson. Please mail comments or
suggestions to [e-mail]. This page is kept at
http://www.ebible.org/bible/webfaq.htm.


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