One of the great wonders of the ancient world was the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. Jewish tradition tells us that around 250 B.C. Ptolemy Philadelphus, the king of Egypt, ordered that a translation be made of the Hebrew Scriptures into the common language of that day - Greek.

Greek had become the common language ever since Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world.

Ptolemy 2nd himself was the descendant of one of Alexander's generals who had taken control of Egypt.

According to tradition, this translation was the work of 72 Jewish scholars and so became known as the Septuagint (from SEPTUAGINTA, meaning "Seventy").

This translation became the standard version accepted by all non-Hebrew speaking people of the ancient world. It is interesting to note that many of the quotations of the New Testament appear to have been taken from the Septuagint.

An Old Latin Translation appeared prior to 200 A.D. and became widely used. Then in 382 Pope Damascus commissioned Jerome to revise some of these already existing Latin translations which had been made of the Scriptures.

Jerome had studied Greek and Latin in Rome and he also studied Hebrew in Palestine.

His translation of the Bible into Latin became known as the Vulgate (Latin for "common") because it was in the common language.

Alfred became the King of England at a time when the Danes were on the verge of overrunning England. During his reign, he repulsed the Danes and then went on to built up a military system of fortifications that would keep out invaders for the next 150 years.

Alfred was a Christian and he mandated that all of the people of England follow him in worshiping Christ. There followed a great revival of Christianity in England.

Alfred also began a tremendous program to educate his people. He was a scholar himself and under his reign, both nobles and commoners were taught to read and to write. The primer that was used was an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Bible.

In 1066 the Normans invaded England. From this time on, England was ruled by a Norman king and most of the feudal states were under Norman barons.

This brought about a tremendous change in the English language so that, after a hundred years, the old translations of the Bible could no longer be understood.

Also, with the Normans came a rise in Romanism so that Jerome's Latin Vulgate once again became the official Bible of the English church.

"These thingis Jesus spak; and whanne he hadde cast up hise eyen into hevene, he seide: `Fadir, the our cometh; clairfie thi sone, that thi sone clarifie thee; as thou hast yovun to hym power on ech fleische, that al thing that thou hast yovun to hym, he yyve to hem everlastynge liif.'" (John 17:1-2).

On January 14, 1603 a delegation of Puritan Reformers came before King James of England to petition for a change in the established church services and in the various Roman Catholic rituals such as the sign of the cross.

Their petition had been signed by about 1000 Puritan leaders (hence the name, "Millenary Petition."

During the debates that followed, it was suggested that there be made a new translation of the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew text. King James agreed.

Within six months, 54 men had been chosen to do the work of translation. Each was an expert in either Greek or Hebrew. The list included both Anglicans and Puritans.

This explains why a word like hagiou pneumatos has been translated "Holy Ghost" in some portions of the Bible and "Holy Spirit" in other portions.

The teams translating the Old Testament used the Masoretic Text while the teams translating the New Testament used a Beza's Greek Text - commonly known as the Textus Receptus ("the Received Text") and based upon the third edition of Erasmus which had been published by Stephanus in 1550.

Desiderius Erasmus had been the great enemy of Luther. In 1515 he had been commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church to put together a Greek New Testament. He was able to find five Greek manuscripts, none of which contained the entire New Testament and none of which dated earlier than the 12th century.

Unfortunately, there were several chapters from the book of Revelation for which he had no manuscripts at all. This did not stop Erasmus, for he simply took the Latin Vulgate and translated it from Latin back into Greek.

To make matters worse, when he was editing his third edition, he was urged by the Roman Catholic Church to place the Vulgate's version of 1 John 5:7 into his Greek Bible. Erasmus complained that there was no Greek manuscript that contained the verse. The Catholic Church quickly complied by drafting up a Greek manuscript that contained the verse and presenting it to him. Erasmus reluctantly entered this revised verse into his 3rd edition (although he took it back out for his 4th and 5th editions). It was this same 3rd edition of Erasmus that was used by the translators of the King James Version.

The translation was completed in 1611. It turned out to be somewhat unpopular. The Catholics claimed that it favored the Protestants. The Arminians thought it leaned toward Calvinism while the Calvinists felt that it favored Arminianism. The Puritans objected to certain ecclesiological terms.

There was only one person in all of England who DID like the new translation - King James. And so, it was ratified and became the official translation for England.

To be perfectly honest, it has been one of the finest English translations ever produced, in spite of the poor manuscripts upon which it was based.

A British revision committee was set up in 1870 to revise the King James Version in light of the growing manuscript evidence. They translated the Old and New Testament, completing their work in 1885. They went on to translate the Apocrypha in 1895.

They made it a point to utilize Elizabethan English in this translation, changing only that language which could no longer be understood.

Working in cooperation with the British revisers, a United States committee brought out this translation in 1901. It is one of the few translations to utilize the word "Jehovah" as a translation for the Hebrew tetragrameton.

This translation was completed in 1952 and was a revision of the Revised Version of 1885.

Because it has a tendency to depart from the traditional readings of the King James Version, this translation has come under significant attack by Protestant Evangelicals.

This was the nine year effort of 58 scholars brought together by the Lockman Foundation. They worked to update the American Standard Version. Its critics argue that it is too literal.

Personally, I have found that the attention to literalness of translation to be a great aid in Bible study. Admittedly, there are times when the New American Standard does not flow readily and does not show the best of English grammar, but this is only a reflection of the fact that the writers of the Bible spoke in the common language. As such, they did not worry about run-on sentences or other forms which we might take to be poor grammar. In recording this, the NAS has been most helpful.

This translation was the combined work of more than 100 translators and editors.

This translation has some excellent qualities. It is in modern English without resorting to slang. It is divided into paragraphs and is written in a flowing style for easy reading.

This translation was published in 1971 by Jay P. Green. It claims to be primarily a translation of the Textus Receptus family of texts.

For the Old Testament, the Stuttgart edition of Biblia Hebraica was used, although both the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Dead Sea Scrolls were consulted.

The Textus Receptus was used for the New Testament, although marginal notes indicate where there is a deviation from either the Critical Text or from their Byzantine Family (referred to as the Majority Text).

It has become very popular to read a paraphrased edition of the Bible such as the Living Bible. It should be understood that this is not a translation from the original languages, but rather a paraphrase of the King James Version.

Other works such as the Amplified Bible or Wuest's Expanded Translation might be closer to the original language, but they still do not fit the requirement for a translation.

Every translation involves a certain amount of interpretation. You cannot interpret from one language into another without allowing some of your personal prejudices to influence your work.

What is the perspective of the translators? Are they evangelical in their outlook? Are they trying to read into the text some particular theological viewpoint?

There have been some translations that have either cluttered themselves with slang or are full of variant meanings to the point where they are difficult to use.