The Simple English Bible, The New Testament
Introduction by Sam Sloan
The Simple English Bible is a new translation of the Holy Bible. It is
the result of an effort by several teams, not just one team, over a
period of many years. The purpose was to reduce the Holy Bible to
simple words not more than about six letters long. Any person with a
Fifth Grade Reading level and any foreign person who knows some
English but is not fluent should be able to read and understand this
Bible.
A basic vocabulary of three thousand words was created for this Bible
and this Bible only uses those words.
Not only is this a reduction of the text to simpler words but it is
also a completely new and original translation. Most other new
editions of the Bible are simply rewrites of the well known King James Version of the Bible. By contrast, The Simple English Bible is an
entirely new and original translation.
This can be demonstrated by comparing almost any verse of the Bible.
Take for example John 3:16:
John 3:16
King James Version (KJV)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.
As can be seen, several words in this famous passage are never used in everyday English. We do not speak of a “begotten Son” nor do we talk about anyone who “believeth”.
If you check other Bible translations, you will see almost exactly
these same words. For example:
John 3:16
New International Version (NIV)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)
Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him would not be lost but have eternal life.
John 3:16
Common English Bible (CEB)
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.
There are at least 30 different editions or translations of the Holy
Bible and all of them say almost exactly the same thing.
Yet, anybody who has ever done translation work knows that no two translators, working independently of each other, will produce exactly
the same result. The similarities of all of the above translations
shows that they are all just re-writes, not original new translations.
Now, compare them to The Simple English Bible. Here we have:
God loved the people of the world so much that He gave up His one and
only Son. Every person who commits himself to Jesus will not be
destroyed. Instead, that person will have eternal life.
As can be seen, this is something different. Instead of one sentence
we have three. The three different concepts have each been given a
sentence of their own.
Which is correct – the 30 or the one that is different?
Is it correct to say “God so loved the World” or rather is the correct translation “God loved the people of the world”.
It should be obvious that “God loved the People of the world” is correct. Otherwise, it would be that God loved the rocks, the oceans,
the volcanoes, the trees, the insects, the germs, the microbes and so
on and expected them to believe in him. Surely, it does not mean that.
So, it must mean that God loved the humans, alone. To answer a child's question, Sorry, your dog or your cat will not make it into Heaven.
Almost every verse of the Bible follows this example. Long, complex sentences are broken down into short simple sentences.
Let us take one of the most controversial verses of the Bible:
Revelation 13:18
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of
the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six
hundred threescore and six.
The Simple English Bible
This is true wisdom. The person who has understanding should figure
out the number of the wild animal.(It is the same way that men count.)
Its number is 666.
As can be seen, there are important differences between the two. The
King James version says that it is the number of the man, such as a Social-Security-Number or a Drivers License number is a number
assigned to one person which he will carry for the remainder of his
life.
The Simple English Bible instead says that it is a number in the
counting system that men use, but not the number actually assigned to
any specific man.
Again, it seems obvious that the translation in The Simple English
Bible is correct. Surely, there is no living, breathing man walking
around numbered 666.
My involvement with the Simple English Bible dates back to April and
May 1981 when I spent about two weeks at the Summer Institute of
Linguistics in Dallas Texas. This is an organization that tries to
develop a writing system for every one of the six thousand known
languages of the world, with the eventual goal of translating the Holy
Bible into each of those languages.
This goal is unrealizable because it takes about 20 years to do this
for one language and there are not enough people willing to undertake
such a task, but anyway they try.
The two most memorable people I met there were Joyce Overholt and Max Cobbey. The most memorable event while I was there was the
announcement while I was eating in the cafeteria that two SIL
researchers had been killed and their dead bodies had been found in
the jungles of Columbia. They had been there trying to reduce one of
the Native American Indian Languages to writing. Unfortunately, a
Marxist group had thought they were American CIA agents and not there
to do God's Holy Work and for that reason had abducted and killed
them. This illustrated the dangers in this kind of work.
A man I met when I spent about two weeks in the offices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Dallas was working on the Simple English
Bible. As I was driving to New York, he asked me for a ride and I gave
him a ride in my rental car with my Chitrali wife, Honzagool. He spent
the night in my family home in Lynchburg, Virginia. Although I lived
in Manhattan, he was going to Hartford Connecticut where he was
working on The Simple English Bible. This was a distance of 125 miles
out of my way but as I was interested in the Simple English Bible I
drove him there in my rental car and the man whom he had come to see
he gave me a copy of the Simple English Bible as a reward, although
with some reluctance as he said that only a few copies of this bible
were in existence, as he had not been able to afford to print more.
He asked me if I could reprint his Bible and I said I would.
Unfortunately, he had in mind a big press run and there was no way
that either I or Ishi Press had the money at the time to do this.
Now with the new technologies available I can afford to do it and as I
still have the Bible he gave me back in May 1981, I have decided to
contact them about this but unfortunately both of the men involved are
dead. Max Cobbey is dead too. He died in 2008. The only one that might
still be alive is Joyce Overholt. However, that is a fairly common
name. I found one person on the Internet by that name and I have
written her but she has not responded. Yet another person who was
associated with SIL at that time and with whom I have corresponded was Kendall D. Decker, so I decided to look him up and was shocked to
discover that he died recently too at the age of only 50.
I am not getting any younger either so I have decided that I had
better get this Simple English Bible reprinted now or else the True
Word of God will be forever lost.
Sam Sloan
Friday, January 13, 2012
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871872211 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871872211
The Old Testament of the Bible in Chinese, Part I, from Genesis
through Chronicles
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871872009 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871872009
The Old Testament of the Bible in Chinese, Part 2, from Ezra to
Malachi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871872106 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871872106
The New Testament of the Bible in Chinese
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871872203 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871872203
There are at least 30 different editions or translations of the Holy
Bible and all of them say almost exactly the same thing.
You are wasting your time on they Bible. The holy Qur'an is the real uncorrupted WORD of GOD.
On Monday, January 16, 2012 at 1:45:59 PM UTC-7, samsloan wrote:
There are at least 30 different editions or translations of the HolyIt seemed to me that all of them omitted one important concept
Bible and all of them say almost exactly the same thing.
that was in the King James Version.
The New Testament elsewhere refers to believing Christians as
"Sons of God". So it's important that John 3:16 notes that Jesus
is the only Son that God actually fathered; the only Son that is of
God's "flesh", distinct from all the other sons of God.
Or, at least, it _would_ be important, if that concept is actually
present in the original Greek.
Any person with a
Fifth Grade Reading level and any foreign person who knows some
English but is not fluent should be able to read and understand this
Bible.
Most other new
editions of the Bible are simply rewrites of the well known King James Version of the Bible.
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