At the end of the 19th century, the british pastor and theologian Joseph Bryant Rotherham published his Emphasized Bible. It incorporated cutting edge biblical scholarship and used an ingenious system for revealing the emphasis obvious to readers of Hebrew and Greek but frequently obscured by translation.
Today, over a hundred years later, it is still in print and still extremely useful. Some of the scholarship Rotherham employed, particularly in the Old Testament, anticipated modern translators by decades.
But more than that, while his skillful rendering faithfully brought out the emphasis and meaning of the original, his considerable literary ability resulted a beautiful and eloquent version.
The Revised Emphasized Bible
The Emphasized Bible is now in the public domain. Our goal is to make the many values of this version available to a new generation. As much as possible, we plan to let Dr. Rotherham's massive accomplishment stand unchanged. But there are 3 changes we do plan to make.
The first and most major is to remove the various diacritical marks Rotherham used to show emphasis. This may seem to be working against our purpose, but in fact, as Rotherham pointed out, the emphases were mainly brought out in his English by skillful use of word order -- "emphatic idiom," as he called it.
I have felt for years that the additional marks Rotherham used to reveal emphasis, although they accomplished that goal, actually obscured the beauty of his translation. By removing these, this version can be more easily and fluently read, and the substantial emphasis he brought to light more readily appreciated.
The second change is an updating of the language. When Rotherham translated, it was virtually unthinkable to render the scriptures in non-elizabethan language. Now, it is commonly understood that "thee," "thou," and words ending in "-eth" are merely artifacts from the history of english Bible translation, not intrinsic parts of Hebrew and Greek. The English in this version, then, has been brought up to date.
Thirdly, we will update several translation errors and update the underlying scholarship. Dr. Rotherham would heartily approve of this: He is the man that threw aside his completed New Testament and started from scratch when the Westcott and Hort Greek text came available. He avidly struggled to keep his scholarship current so his translation would be as accurate as possible.
Conclusion
This project will, no doubt take years, since it is being done by one man in his spare time. I plan to begin with Genesis and Matthew. But it is a labor of love, and I look forward to progressively presenting to the world The Revised Emphasized Bible.
And to God be the glory!
