Summary of OET versions

Well now that all of the different versions of the Open English Translation of the Bible (OET) have been announced, it's time for a brief summary of them:

1. The Literal Version
   Closely follows the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, so the sentences are English, but still using the original vocabulary and idiom as much as possible. Extensive notes about variants in the originals.
2. The Readers' Version
   An up-to-date free translation that's easy to read. As few distracting notes as possible. Designed for reading Bible stories easily and in full context.
3. The Study Version
   A less free translation but with many helpful notes and cross-references. This is the one to preach from and to memorise segments from.
4. The Extended Version
   An extended text of the Study Version, with many more notes and details also added in. Designed for lecturers and Bible translators.

These different versions are designed to be used to complement each other, especially in linked media like the Internet where two or more of them could scroll together.

The links above focus on the differences between the different versions of the OET. The following list (from here) focuses on the common features:

• The misleading terminology Old Testament and New Testament will NOT be used
• The terminology Major Prophets and Minor Prophets is also misleading to many readers and will NOT be used
• Traditional chapter and verse numbers will be there, but will be downplayed to discourage their use
• Segments which are not included in the most ancient manuscripts will be removed from the inline text
• Wherever section headings are used (all but the Literal Version), they will be typeset/displayed in such a way so as not to interrupt the flow of the actual Scripture text
• The so-called apocryphal books will be included in the OET (with a section name yet to be determined)
• Eventually, the order that the books will be presented will be changed from the traditional English Protestant order
• Each book will have an individual version number, and each major release will also have an overall version number
• Each version will be available in multiple formats for download, including text, OpenOffice (ODF), and PDF files (both of individual books and of entire versions), USFM files, and OSIS files, and Epub electronic book files
• It will be released under a licence that both enables and encourages others to use and build upon this work. (Most likely this will be a Creative Commons BY-SA or BY licence, but other content licences are also being considered, even Public Domain.)

 I've never seen a Bible translation project that's attempted to do things this way. Apart from wanting to make a good English Bible translation that's both open and free, it's largely an attempt to design an English translation that connects the reader with the original texts; helping them to understand where our Bible come from and some of the decisions that are made for them by the translators.

And yes, it is a very ambitious goal -- totally impossible without God's blessing! So come on volunteers...

OET Literal Version

Most Bible translations consist of only one version, but a number of editions, perhaps with British vs. American spellings, with or without cross-references or study notes, mini-concordance, etc. However, the Open English Translation (OET) of the Bible comes from the beginning with more than one version with different aims, but expected to be used together just like a modern builder might use a nail-gun for many tasks, but pick up his hammer for others.

The first OET version I want to introduce is the Literal Version (OET-LV). Here's an initial list of some of the Literal Version features:

• It will attempt to follow the original (Hebrew and Greek) Scriptures as closely as possible (at the expense of sounding "wooden" in English)
• This means being as literal as possible -- trying to match pretty much word-for-word (thus idioms won't be adjusted)
• Any non-trivial words that must be added to the English for understanding will be clearly marked as additions
• Every attempt will be made to make the English glosses consistent (at least for the primary meanings of words)
• Primary and extended meanings of words will be marked using slashes, e.g., (מַלְאָךְ) messenger/angel
• Slashes may also be used to denote an English range of meaning that's perhaps different from the word in the original languages, e.g., sorrow/mourning
• Underscores may be used to join English words coming from a single source language word, e.g., cause_to_stumble, except that small grammatical features like articles, prepositions, and conjunctions maybe be exempted from this
• Where it seems to critically affect the meaning, grammatical features that are not normally in English (such as marking gender or distinguishing between you singular and plural) will be marked
• The divine name will simply be rendered as YHWH
• People and place names will be transliterated more accurately, e.g., Yonah instead of Jonah, Yesous instead of Jesus (but not going to the trouble of using additional markings to distinguish the long and short vowels, etc.)
• Only proper nouns (and sentence beginnings) will be capitalised in the text, thus there will be no God only god
• The translation will be rendered into English sentence by sentence (with ambiguities marked in footnotes), i.e., the 19th sentence of the English New Testament should match the 19th sentence of the Greek.
• There will be no section headers or paragraph markings -- it will generally be displayed by sentence (as traditional chapter and verse numbers will be downplayed in all OET versions)
• Only original measurements will be used, e.g., cubits not metres.
• There will be extensive footnotes about variants (and missing or unclear sections) in the early manuscripts
• The  OET-LV is aimed at readers and students who don't read the original languages themselves, but want to get a good idea of what they actually say
• It is hoped that the web-based publication can also provide live links to facsimiles of the original documents.

A very rough sample of a small book can be seen here: Jonah

Please note your suggested improvements in the comments -- I want to hear your ideas for improvements.

So hopefully you can see that the OET-LV is aimed to give pastors and all those studying the English Bible relatively good access to the original texts, even if they are impeded by not being able to read the original languages.