Editing Thomson's Translation

{{Short description|English translation of the Septuagint}}
[[File:Thompson Holy Bible.jpg|thumb|Thomson translation of the Bible]] 
{{BibleHistory}}
'''Thomson's Translation''' of the [[Bible]] is a direct [[Bible translations into English|translation]] of the Greek [[Septuagint]] version of the [[Old Testament]] into English, rare for its time. It took [[Charles Thomson]], the secretary of the [[Continental Congress]] from 1774 to 1789 and a [[Founding Father of the United States]], 19 years to complete, and was originally published in 1808.

==History==
Thomson is credited with having created the work with little to no help from other scholars. Thomson was a Greek scholar, and before the [[American Revolution]], he had been a teacher at several prominent schools. Thomson's translation of the entire [[Koine Greek|Greek]] Bible, excluding the [[Apocrypha]], was published in one thousand sets of four volumes each, the fourth volume being Thomson's translation of the [[New Testament]] in that same year. The printer was [[Jane Aitken]] of [[Philadelphia]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Read|first1=Phyllis J. |last2= Witlieb|first2=Bernard L.|title=The Book of Women's Firsts: Breakthrough Achievements of Almost 1,000 American Women|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9ZQUAQAAIAAJ|year=1992|publisher=Random House Information Group|isbn=978-0-679-40975-5 |page=13 |quote=During the next ten years Jane Aitken published over sixty books, including the four-volume Thomson Bible. Translated by Charles Thomson, it was the first English translation of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clark |first=Paul Odell |date=1955 |title=Letters of Charles Thomson on the Translation of the Bible |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23325164 |journal=Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society (1943-1961) |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=239–256 |jstor=23325164 |issn=0147-3735}}</ref> 

Thomson's was the first English translation of the Septuagint published and was considered by British biblical scholars to represent the best in American scholarship. [[David Daniell (author)|David Daniell]], in his compendious work ''The Bible in English'' (2003), states that the scholars who worked on the 1881 [[Revised Version]] consulted Thomson's translations (among others, of course) during their work. Thomson's translation of the New Testament is the first translation into English that was accomplished in America.

Thomson's personal copy, containing final corrections to the manuscript, is in the Philadelphia library. Thomson also published a ''Synopsis of the [[Four Evangelists]]'' in 1815, a book which came out of the notes for this work. 

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==

* ''Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Covenant, commonly called the Old and New Testament. Translated from the Greek by Charles Thomson''. Philadelphia, 1908. 4 vols. [https://books.google.com/books?id=HBwWAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Holy+Bible%22+Charles+Thomson]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050131094809/http://www.septuagint.com/history.htm The Septuagint Bible: History]
* [http://thetencommandmentsministry.us/ministry/charles_thomson/ PDFs of Charles Thomson's Septuagint Translation]
* [https://www.jstor.org/pss/1458628 JSTOR article called "Charles Thomson, First American N. T. Translator--An Appraisal"]
* [[iarchive:synopsisoffourev1815thom|A Synopsis of the Four Evangelists - By Charles Thomson]]
*{{cite book | last = Daniell | first = David | title = The Bible in English: Its History and Influence | url = https://archive.org/details/bibleinenglishit0000dani | url-access = registration | publisher = Yale University Press | year =  2003 }}

{{Charles Thomson}}

[[Category:1808 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Bible translations into English]]
[[Category:Editions of the Septuagint]]