Unlocked Literal Bible - English

an unrestricted Bible intended for translation into any language

Overview

The ULB is an open-licensed update of The American Standard Version, intended to provide a ‘form-centric’ understanding of the Bible. It increases the translator’s understanding of the lexical and grammatical composition of the underlying text by adhering closely to the word order and structure of the originals.

Viewing

To read or print the ULB, see the ULB project on Door43.

Contributors

If you are a contributor to this project please add your name to the contributor field in the manifest.yaml file.

Editing

Introduction to the ULB

The ULB (Unlocked Literal Bible) is a form-centric, and thus "literal," version of the Bible in English that is intended to be used alongside the UDB (Unlocked Dynamic Bible) and other translation resources to give English-speaking mother-tongue translators (MTTs) the most complete understanding possible of the messages communicated in the Bible. For MTTs who do not have reading knowledge of the original biblical languages, the ULB provides a sense of how these messages were communicated in those original languages. It is anticipated that the ULB and other resource will be translated from English into the world's Gateway Languages so that MTTs worldwide can use them as a set of resources for making accurate translations of God's Word into their own languages.

Editing the ULB

The Unlocked Literal Bible (ULB) is designed to be used in conjunction with the translationNotes (tN) and the Unlocked Dynamic Bible (UDB) as a tool for Bible translation. It is not an end-user Bible, which seeks to transform all of the structures of the original biblical languages into those that are natural and idiomatic in the target language. Instead, unlike the UDB and unlike an end-user Bible, the ULB is designed to reflect the forms of the source languages, so that the MTT can see what they are. By using the ULB, the MTT can "look through" it to see how the original Bible expressed the biblical ideas. As you edit or translate the ULB, therefore, you must try to retain the grammatical and syntactic structures of the original as far as the target language (English or other Gateway Language) will allow. If the original structure does not make sense in the target language, then you will need to change it into a structure that does make sense. It does no good to make a translation that the MTT using this tool will not be able to understand. But as far as the target language will allow, retain the structures of the original in your editing or translation of the ULB. For English, it is often possible to retain nouns as nouns, verbs as verbs, etc., but their order in the original sentence must be changed.

Retaining Original Structures

The ULB needs to retain the original grammatical forms (as far as is possible), the idioms, and the figures of speech of the original so that the MTT can consider them and use them if they communicate the right thing in the target language (minority or Other Language (OL), not Gateway Language). If those forms are removed in the English or get changed in a Gateway Language (GL) translation of the ULB, then the OL translator will never see them and the translationNotes about them will not make sense. Keep in mind that the ULB and the UDB are complementary translation tools for the use of the OL translator. We want these tools to be as useful as possible. For the ULB, this means that it should retain structures that we would not always retain in an end-user Bible. The English editor and the GL translator must understand that this means that the ULB will often lack naturalness and sometimes also lack clarity because it is aiming at reproducing these original language structures and figures of speech that the GL may not normally use. Wherever the ULB translation lacks clarity, however, there will also be a translationNote to explain the meaning of the structure for the OL translator, as well as a clear rendering of the original in the UDB. The translationNotes and the UDB will provide the meaning wherever that meaning is in doubt in the ULB. In this way, the tools will work together to provide the OL translator with a full set of information about both the form and the meaning of the original Bible.

Examples

Grammatical Forms

The ULB of Luke 2:47 reproduces a grammatical form from the Greek source language that is also natural in English, but that might not be natural in other languages. When talking about the boy Jesus at the temple, it says, "All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers." The nouns "understanding" and "answers" refer to events, not things, and so must be translated as verbs in many languages. The UDB of the same verse gives an example of how these nouns can be translated as verbs. It says, "All the people who heard what he said were amazed at how much he understood and how well he answered the questions that the teachers asked." When editing or translating the ULB, however, nouns should be retained as nouns if that will make sense in the target language.

Idioms

The ULB of Matthew 2:20 reproduces an idiom from the Greek source language. It refers to Herod and his soldiers who were trying to kill the child Jesus as, "those who sought the child's life." In some languages this is clear, and in others it is not. The UDB of the same verse tries to make the meaning clear by translating this idiom as, "the people who were trying to kill the child." When editing or translating the ULB, however, this idiom should be retained as it is, so that the Other Language translator can consider it and use it if it makes sense. The UDB and the translationNotes will always provide the meaning.

Figures of Speech

The ULB of John 1:17 reproduces a figure of speech from the Greek source language. It says, "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." (This figure of speech is called "personification.") This figure of speech talks as if grace and truth were like people who can come and go, and it talks as if Jesus Christ were like a doorway that they can come through. In some languages this makes sense, but in other languages it does not. The plain meaning is that Jesus Christ acted toward us with grace and taught us true things about God. The UDB of the same verse tries to make this plain meaning clear by translating it as, "Jesus Christ was kind to us far beyond what we deserved and taught us true things about God." When translating the ULB, however, this figure of speech should be retained as it is, so that the Other Language translator can consider it and use it if it makes sense. If it does not, the UDB provides an alternative way to translate it.

Specific Editing Guidelines

• Only use quotation marks at the beginning and ending of direct speech. Do not put quotation marks at the beginning of each verse, even though the speech may span several verses.
• Do not use contractions.
• Punctuation marks go inside the quote marks.
• Capitalization issues: in general, we are following the practice of the 2011 NIV.
• All pronouns are lower case (except when beginning sentences and except for the first singular "I").
• Capitalize titles (Son of Man, King David, the Messiah).
• Retain the literal nature of the text–it should complement the "dynamic" UDB rather than be similar to it.
• Use vocabulary and phrases that differ from the UDB. The two translations fail to help the MTT when they are the same.
• Where possible, use common vocabulary that is easy to translate into another language.

Translation Glossary

A list of decisions as to how to translate some senses of the SD's words and phrases into another language is called a Translation Glossary (TG). Such a device is especially useful when more than one person works on the same project, because it helps keep everyone using the same English terms.

However, a TG cannot be foolproof, because the SD will often use some words to signal more than one sense, depending on context. A TG is therefore a glossary of word senses, not a glossary of words. Check back often to this page, because this TG is likely to develop for the entire life of the Unfolding Word project.

Note that occasionally, the TG's specified translation will not be suitable. As always, the text editors must remain in control of the decision-making process. The TG is to guide you as much as is possible. If you must depart from the TG guidelines, do so and insert a note to that effect.

Translation Glossary for the Old Testament ULB

Preferred English renderings appear in bold type.

• wayehi "It came about," "It happened that..."
• hinneh "Behold" (when used in normal narrative passages or in narrative embedded in direct speech, such as when Joseph tells his brothers what happened in his dreams). In conversational passages, translate *hinneh * as, "look," "see," "see here," or something else suitable for signaling that what immediately follows in the text is prominent. Some conversational contexts may make it almost impossible to give any translation at all of hinneh. – However, in direct reported speech of God or his angel, you may use "behold," especially if it lends more dignity in English to the divine words than "look" or "see," etc., would do.
• brethren should be updated to brothers. When both genders are indicated by the context, a note from the Notes Team should be expected to appear to that effect. Do not replace the ULB text with "brothers and sisters." That change will appear in the UDB.
• adam (ASV: man, men) When referring to humanity in general, use "mankind."
• Call in the ASV usage "call his name": update to "**call him ** [+ name]" or "**name him ** [+ name]."
• Call in the formula of the type, "he shall be called the Son of the Most High" (Luke 1:32): keep this formula in the ULB, but be aware of the metaphor that is operative here: in this verse, Jesus will not only be called the Son of the Most High, but he will be the Son of the Most High.
• Hand indicating power or possession: keep this metaphor in the ULB.
• YHWH ** Yahweh ** " (The ASV uses "Jehovah," but we will not.)
• Meshiach "*Messiah" (almost always, "the Messiah," since "Messiah" is a title)
• Sentence-initial or preverbal and of the type, "and Joseph said," "and it came about," etc.: translate these without supplying "and." These occurrences of "and" in the ASV and its derivatives usually occur where the ASV translates the preverbal Greek particle kai or the Hebrew *vav * in the *wayyiqtol * verb form. The Greek particle kai was usually a Hebraism on the part of the New Testament writers that reflected their understanding that the Hebrew *wayyiqtol * form contained the conjunctive vav 'and.' This, however, was a misunderstanding, for modern scholarship has shown that the wayyiqtol form was a frozen form with parallels in cognate Semitic languages; it was the preferred Hebrew verb form for signaling event verbs in Hebrew narration. Good English style does not normally allow sentences to begin with "and." Only rarely is it allowable in the ULB, for dramatic effect. Otherwise, when you are tempted to start a sentence with "and," change the preceding period to a comma.
• Expressions of the type, "he knew his wife" or "he went into his wife" should be reproduced as is. The context makes their meaning clear.
• ** Shall ** vs. ** will ** : in English future expressions in general, use " ** will ** " instead of "shall," e.g., "he is a prophet, and he shall ** will ** pray for you" (Gen 20:7). Note that some ASV future expressions are better updated into today's English by using the present tense, e.g., "I shall not drink from...the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come" (Luke 22:18) can be updated to "I ** will ** not drink...until the kingdom of God ** comes**." Cases in which "shall" expresses obligation can usually be restructured, e.g., "You shall not steal" becomes " ** Do ** not steal," and "Shall I go and smite these Philistines?" (1 Sam. 23:2) becomes "**Should ** I go and attack these Philistines?" This general preference for "will" probably conforms to the instincts of most English native speakers. However, in genres such as prophecies, blessings, curses, and in other passages focusing on the expression of the speaker's intentionality, retain the use of "shall" in the ULB, e.g., "Yahweh said, **'Shall ** I hide from Abraham what I am about to do...?'" (Gen 18:17), " A deliverer **shall ** come to Zion," "every mountain and hill **shall ** be made low."
• In speech introductions that use two verbs instead of one such as, "he answered and said," please retain this formula in the ULB. This will provide a model for languages which also separate the mode of speech from the act of speech, as does Biblical Hebrew. In the UDB for the same issue, only one verb will be used.

Translation Glossary for the New Testament ULB

Preferred English renderings appear in bold type.

• nomikos "expert in the Jewish law"
• brethren should be updated to brothers. When both genders are indicated by the context, a note from the Notes Team should be expected to appear to that effect. Do not replace the ULB text with "brothers and sisters." That change will appear in the UDB.
• Call in the ASV usage "call his name": update to "call him [+ name]" or "name him [+ name]."
• Call in the formula of the type, "he shall be called the Son of the Most High" (Luke 1:32): keep this formula in the ULB, but be aware of the metaphor that is operative here: in this verse, Jesus will not only be called the Son of the Most High, but he will be the Son of the Most High.
• grammateus "scribe"
• Hand indicating power or possession: keep this metaphor in the ULB.
• egeneto de, kai egeneto * "It came about" (See: "Sentence-initial or preverbal and*"below)**.
• idou" ** Behold ** " (when used in normal narrative passages or in narrative embedded in direct speech. In conversational passages, translate *idou preferably * as, " ** look ** ," " ** see ** ," " ** see here ** ," or at need as something else suitable for signaling that what immediately follows in the text is prominent. Some conversational contexts may make it almost impossible to give any translation at all of idou. – However, in direct reported speech of God or his angel, you may use "behold," especially if it lends more dignity in English to the divine words than "look" or "see," etc., would do.
• Messiah This term sometimes appears in the NT in transliterated Greek. In this case, this term should be translated, " ** Messiah ** ."
• Xristos "Christ" or "the Christ" (the definite article is appropriate if the term is being clearly used as a title; Paul often seems to use *Xristos * as a second name for Jesus, but at times he clearly uses it as a title).
• Sentence-initial or preverbal and of the type, "and Joseph said," "and it came about," etc.: translate these without supplying "and." – These occurrences of "and" in the ASV and its derivatives usually occur where the ASV translates the preverbal Greek particle kai or the Hebrew *vav * in the *wayyiqtol * verb form. The Greek particle kai was usually a Hebraism on the part of the New Testament writers that reflected their understanding that the Hebrew *wayyiqtol * form contained the conjunctive vav 'and'. This, however, was a misunderstanding, for modern scholarship has shown that the wayyiqtol form was a frozen form with parallels in cognate Semitic languages; it was the preferred Hebrew verb form for signaling event verbs in Hebrew narration. Good English style does not normally allow sentences to begin with "and." Only rarely is it allowable in the ULB, for dramatic effect. Otherwise, when you are tempted to start a sentence with "and," change the preceding period to a comma.
• Expressions of the type, "he knew his wife" or "he went into his wife" should be reproduced as is. The context makes their meaning clear.
• ** Shall ** vs. ** will ** : in English future expressions in general, use " ** will ** " instead of "shall," e.g., "he is a prophet, and he will ** pray for you" (Gen 20:7). Note that some ASV future expressions are better updated into today's English by using the present tense, e.g., "I shall not drink from...the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come" (Luke 22:18) can be updated to "I ** will ** not drink...until the kingdom of God ** comes." Cases in which "shall" expresses obligation can usually be restructured, e.g., "You shall not steal" becomes "**Do ** not steal," and "Shall I go and smite these Philistines?" (1 Sam. 23:2) becomes "**Should ** I go and attack these Philistines?" This general preference for "will" probably conforms to the instincts of most English native speakers. However, in genres such as prophecies, blessings, curses, and in other passages focusing on the expression of the speaker's intentionality, retain the use of "shall," e.g., "Yahweh said, **'Shall ** I hide from Abraham what I am about to do...?'" (Gen 18:17), "A deliverer **shall ** come to Zion," "every mountain and hill **shall ** be made low."

Notes About Making a "Literal" Translation

1. It is not possible to maintain a one-for-one correspondence between words in translation. One word from the source language may require a phrase for its translation in the target language, and vice-versa.
2. Even though the ULB is a "literal" text, that does not mean that every word from the original language will be translated in the same way each time it occurs. We will always seek to use the meaning that the word has in its context, using whatever English word or phrase is closest to that meaning.
3. Both Greek and Hebrew can make a sentence without using a verb, while English cannot. For the ULB to make sense, the verb will always be supplied (usually "is").
4. Greek makes abundant use of participial clauses. For the English of the ULB to make sense, often this must be changed to a relative or adverbial clause.
5. The general rule is, retain the structures of the original unless English sense does not allow it. If not, make the adjustments necessary.

The ULB Contrasted with the UDB

The ULB stays closer to language forms in the source documents (SD) than does the UDB (Unlocked Dynamic Bible) text. This means that:

• the ULB reflects better than the UDB the SD's use of grammatical structures belonging to the biblical languages.
• the ULB reflects better than the UDB the SD's use of parts of speech that belong to the biblical languages. The ULB, for example, is likely to use nouns where the SD uses nouns, adjectives where the SD uses adjectives, and so forth. This is often true right down to the level of the use of many Hebrew and Greek grammatical particles. Thus, for example, the ULB is likely to read, the kingdom of light instead of giving some more dynamic rendering such as, the kingdom where all is light, etc.
• the ULB is likely to reproduce the form of the SD logical connections more closely than does the UDB. Thus, for example, the ULB will read, the righteousness of faith, even though the logical relationship between righteousness and faith is not further specified (is it the righteousness that comes by faith? is it the righteousness that vindicates faith?) All that the righteousness of faith explicitly signals is that there is some close association in the text between righteousness and faith, and that we can probably rule out **a number of ** conceivable logical relationships between the two concepts, but not **all ** possible relationships, as the foregoing example illustrates. In contrast, the UDB may choose the one logical relationship that seems most likely.
• the ULB is likely to reproduce the linear succession of ideas found in the SD, even when English prefers a different arrangement of the same ideas.
• the ULB presents far less information that is only **implied ** in the SD than does the UDB. For example, in Matt. 26:5 For they were saying, "Not during the feast, so that a riot does not arise among the people." the implied information is, "Let us not arrest Jesus [during the feast]." The ULB will not overtly represent this implied information.
• the ULB reflects as much as reasonably possible the SD's written style: it reads, for example, "Paul...to Timothy..." instead of English's preferred, "Dear Timothy, [new paragraph] this is Paul."
• However, the ULB departs from closely representing the SD's structures when it must do so for the sake of clarity in English.
• the ULB is not meant to be a refined, polished English version. It is meant to present the meaning and structure of the original in so far as that can be done clearly and simply, so that it can, in turn, be translated into other languages.

There remains one over-arching principle for the ULB: even if it sometimes conveys **less ** than the complete sense of the SD (because it seeks to represent SD structures which can be ambiguous in English), the ULB must never promote to the MTT the wrong sense.