| About | The Revised Literal Translation (RLT) by Michael W. Jones, Sr. is based upon the King James Version (1769), Textus Receptus, of the Holy Bible. The concept for this translation is II Peter 1:20, that no prophesy of scripture is of private interpretation. With that in mind, the effort is to make minimal changes to improve readability by modifying certain archaic words and phrases to improve accuracy while keeping the language and feel of the King James Bible. The two main motivations were to change "LORD" to "YHWH" and "church" to "Assembly," both of which are truer to the original text. Other changes were made where deemed necessary for accuracy and/or readability. Overall, a minimalist approach was taken to stay true to the King James language yet improve accuracy, readability, and consistency. The main references, besides Strongs, were other literal translations based upon the Textus Receptus: ACV, ASV, BSB, Darby, GNV, RV, WEB, YLT, etc.. This is not a great scholarly effort delving into the depths of esoterics, but rather a simple approach to a literal, more accurate, yet readable, version of the King James Bible.
The second overarching motivation, in staying true to the original text, is based upon Revelations 22:18-20 which warns against adding to or taking away from God's Word. Lest one think that this applies only to the book of Revelations or the New Testament, a similar warning is given in Deuteronomy 12:32 - "thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from" the commands given in the Word of God. Again, using the Textus Receptus as the standard, changing the meaning, adding to or diminishing is not acceptable. When we look at Jesus as the Incarnate Word, any change must be prayerfully considered and not based upon a whim or personal predilection. God's Word is Holy and must be handled with respect, reverence and fear. Changing the text of the King James Version, which has stood the test of time for 250 years, is not trivial and must be done with the utmost sobriety, circumspection and trepidation in order to not mar the original intent of the Holy Scripture.
The embedded Strong's Numbers is from the KJV2003 Project (KJV2013010915). The rights to the base text are held by the Crown of England. The Strong's numbers in the Old Testament were obtained from The Bible Foundation: http://www.bf.org. The New Testament Strong's data was obtained from The KJV2003 Project at CrossWire: http://www.crosswire.org. These mechanisms provide a useful means for looking up the exact original language word in a lexicon that is keyed to Strong's numbers.
Special thanks to the volunteers at Bible Foundation for keying the Hebrew/English data and of Project KJV2003 for working toward the completion of synchronizing the English phrases to the Stephanas Textus Receptus, and to Dr. Maurice Robinson for providing the base Greek text with Strong's and Morphology. We are also appreciative of formatting markup that was provided by Michael Paul Johnson at http://www.ebible.org. Their time and generosity to contribute such for the free use of the Body of Christ is a great blessing and this derivitive work could not have been possible without these efforts of so many individuals. It is in this spirit that we in turn offer the Revised Literal Translation (RLT) text freely for any purpose. Any copyright that might be obtained for this effort is held by Michael W. Jones, Sr. who hereby grants a general public license to use this text for any purpose.
* Inquiries and comments may be directed to:
Michael W. Jones, Sr.
mike-tex@swbell.net |
