Young's Literal Translation

Bible translation infobox


translation_title=Young's Literal Translation
full_name=Young's Literal Translation of the Holy Bible
abbreviation=YLT
complete_bible_published=1862
textual_basis=
translation_type=extremely literal
copyright=Public domain
genesis_1:1-3=In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth — the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters, and God saith, "Let light be;" and light is.
john_3:16=For God did so love the world, that His Son — the only begotten — He gave, that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during.|

"Young's Literal Translation" is a translation of the Bible into English, published in 1862. The translation was made by Robert Young, compiler of "Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible" and "Concise Critical Comments on the New Testament". Young produced a "Revised Version" of the translation in 1887. After he died on October 14, 1888, the publisher in 1898 released a new Revised Edition.

Translation philosophy

The Literal Translation is unusual in that, as the name implies, it is a strictly literal translation of the original Hebrew and Greek texts. The Preface to the Second Edition states,

:If a translation gives a "present tense" when the original gives a "past", or a "past" when it has a "present"; a "perfect" for a "future", or a "future" for a "perfect"; an "a" for a "the", or a "the" for an "a"; an "imperative" for a "subjunctive", or a "subjunctive" for an "imperative"; a "verb" for a "noun", or a "noun" for a "verb", it is clear that verbal inspiration is as much overlooked as if it had no existence. THE WORD OF GOD IS MADE VOID BY THE TRADITIONS OF MEN. [Emphases in original.]

Therefore, Young used the present tense in many places in which other translations use the past tense, particularly in narratives. For example, the YLT version of Genesis begins as follows:

:

Assessment

Young's translation is closer to the Hebrew than the better-known versions of this passage in English. The Revised Standard Version (RSV), for example, treats Genesis 1:1–3 in this way::

Young better reflects the meaning of the original Hebrew than does the RSV. "Bereshith bara elokim", the RSV's "In the beginning God created...", is in the construct state ("bereshith"), not the absolute ("barishona") , meaning it refers to an action in progress, not to a completed act. Similarly, there is no license in the Hebrew for the RSV's division of these verses into three sentences (ancient Hebrew lacked punctuation, and sentence divisions have to be inferred), as the order of the words "wa ha-aretz hayetha" (subject-verb) points to the rendering "the earth being" (Young's "the earth hath existed"), while the RSV's "and the earth was" requires words in the order "wa tehi ha-aretz" (verb-subject). [ [http://voiceofiyov.blogspot.com/2007/07/orlinsky-notes-genesis-1.html H. M. Orlinsky, Genesis 1, from Notes on the New JPS Translation of the Torah (1969), Jewish Publication Society] ] Young's usage of English present tense rather than past tense has been supported by scholars ranging from the medieval Jewish rabbi Rashi (who advised, " [I] f you are going to interpret [this passage] in its plain sense, interpret it thus: At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth, when the earth was (or the earth being) unformed and void . . . God said, ‘Let there be light.’") to Richard Elliott Friedman in his translation of the Five Books in "The Bible with Sources Revealed" (2002). [Richard Elliott Friedman, "The Bible with Sources revealed", Harpers, 2002.]

It should be noted that the translation has been criticized by some as falling short in some respects. It renders Luke 24:1 as “And on the first of the sabbaths” while it translates Acts 20:7 as “And on the first of the week” even though the two phrases are identical in the Greek texts. To quote the preface "Every effort has been made to secure a comparative degree of uniformity in rendering the original words and phrases. Thus, for example, the Hebrew verb "nathan", which is rendered by the King James' translators in "sixty-seven" different ways... has been restricted and reduced to "ten", and so with many others. It is the Translator's ever-growing conviction, that even this smaller number may be reduced still further." [Preface to the first edtion, 7th paragraph] The word translated as "weeks" in one passage has at least two meanings, depending on the context. The two passages mentioned above are precisely such a case.

"Eternity" or "age"

Another important feature of YLT is its treatment of the Hebrew word olam and the Greek word aion. These two words have basically the same meaning, and YLT translates them and their derivatives as “age” or “age-during”. Other English versions most often translate them to indicate eternality (eternal, everlasting, forever, etc). However, there are notable exceptions to this in all major translations, such as Matthew 28:20: “…I am with you always, to the end of the age” (NRSV), the word “age” being a translation of aion. Rendering aion to indicate eternality in this verse would result in the contradictory phrase “end of eternity”, so the question arises whether it should ever be so. [Canon F.W. Farrar “Mercy and Judgment” 1904 pages 378-382 http://www.tentmaker.org/books/mercyandjudgment/mercy_and_judgment_ch1.html ] Proponents of Universal Reconciliation point out that this has significant implications for the problem of hell [ Thomas Talbott "Three Pictures of God in Western Theology" 1995 pages 13-15 http://www.willamette.edu/~ttalbott/PICTURES.pdf ] . Contrast bibleref2|Matthew|25:46 in well-known English translations with its rendering in YLT:

And these shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during. (YLT) [Matthew 25:46 Young's Literal Translation ]

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (NIV) [Matthew 25:46 New International Version ]

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (NASB) [Matthew 25:46 New American Standard Bible ]

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. (KJV) [Matthew 25:46 King James Version ]

Notes and references

External links

* [http://www.ccel.org/bible/ylt/ylt.htm "Young's Literal Translation"] , complete text online
* [http://www.believersresource.com/content.aspx?id=9 Downloadable PDF of Young's Literal Translation]
* [http://www.thedcl.org/bible/ylt3/index.html Youngs's Literal Translation, Baker Book House 1955 Reprint.] at The DCL.
* [http://www.biblesway.com/versions/youngs_literal_translation/ Complete book list of the Youngs's Literal Translation]
* [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc12/Page_490.html New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. XII: Trench - Zwingli]