Read about the program that searches the Bible and displays passages.

About the World English Bible

What is the World English Bible (WEB)?

The WEB is primarily an update of the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901. The choices made in that translation hold unless reference is made to the original languages. In this case, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (The Stuttgart Bible) was used in the Old Testament, and the Byzantine Majority Text (M-Text) was used in the New Testament. This choice of Greek text is very close to what the KJV translators used but takes advantage of some more recently discovered manuscripts.

Why use the WEB for this application?

There is NO OTHER complete translation of the Holy Bible in normal Modern English that can be freely copied. Many of the English translations of the Holy Bible are either (1) archaic (like the KJV and ASV of 1901), or (2) covered by copyright restrictions that prevent unrestricted free posting on the internet or other media (like the NIV and NASB). The Bible in Basic English (BBE) was in the Public Domain in the USA (but not all countries) for a while, but its copyrighted status was restored by GATT.

How does the WEB compare to other translations?

The WEB is different enough to avoid copyright infringement, but similar enough to avoid incurring the wrath of God. It is most similar to the ASV of 1901, of course, but similarities will be found with other translations.

The WEB doesn't capitalize pronouns pertaining to God. This is similar to the NRSV and NIV, and the same as the original ASV of 1901. This is an English style decision because Hebrew has no such thing as upper and lower case; the oldest Greek manuscripts were all upper case. The practice is reminiscent of the Olde English practice of capitalizing pronouns referring to the king. It is also true that choosing to capitalize pronouns relating to God causes some difficulties in translating the coronation psalms, where the psalm was initially written for the coronation of an earthly king, but which also can equally well be sung or recited to the praise of the King of Kings.

The WEB refers to God as Yahweh. The WEB, like the ASV of 1901, breaks the KJV tradition by printing God's proper Name in the Old Testament with a spelling closest to what we think it was pronounced like, instead of rendering that Name as "LORD" or "GOD". The current scholarly consensus has shifted from spelling this Name as "Jehovah" to spelling it as "Yahweh." There are a couple of other English translations that use "Yahweh," so this is not new.

Differences exist when comparing the WEB to other translations. Because World English Bible (WEB) uses the Majority Text as the basis for the New Testament, you may notice the following:

• The order of Matthew 23:13 and 14 is reversed in some translations.
• Luke 17:36 and Acts 15:34, which are not found in the majority of the Greek Manuscripts may be included in some other translations. Romans 14:24-26 in the WEB may appear as Romans 16:25-27 in other translations.
• 1 John 5:7-8 may read differently in some translations.

For more information, please visit www.ebible.org.

These comments were excerpted from the FAQ at ebible.org.

About this program:

The program that searches and displays passages from the World English Bible was conceived and written entirely by Janice M. Heinold, the site administrator for TrinityVictoria.net. She holds a BFA and is a multimedia designer currently residing in Corpus Christi, Texas.