Thomson's Translation

The Bible in English

Old English (pre-1066)

Middle English (1066–1500)

Early Modern English (1500–1800)

Modern Christian (1800–)

Modern Jewish (1853–)

Miscellaneous

Charles Thomson's Translation of the Old Covenant is a very rare direct translation of the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament into English. The work took 19 years to complete and was originally published in 1808. Thomson is credited with having created the work with little to no help from other scholars. Thompson's translation of the entire 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.

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, in his compendious work The Bible in English (2003), states that the scholars who worked on the Revised Version in England (1881) consulted Thomson's translations (among others, of course) during their work. Thomson's translation of the New Covenant/Testament is the first American translation of the New Covenant.

Thomson's personal copy, containing final corrections to the manuscript, is in the Philadelphia library.

Charles Thomson (1729–1824) was secretary of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1789.

Resources

• 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. [1]
• The Septuagint Bible: History
• History of English Translations (of the Bible)
• PDF's of Charles Thomson's Septuagint Translation
• JSTOR article called "Charles Thomson, First American N. T. Translator--An Appraisal"

References

Daniell, David (2003). The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. Yale University Press.