The Revised Geneva Translation (based on Shakespeare's favorite Bible translation) is a 21st Century update of the very first widely-distributed version of the Holy Bible in English, The Geneva Bible. It is specifically designed to be SPOKEN and HEARD, repeatedly, and is built on the premise that a crucial key to revival in the present can be found in one simple practice from the past—speaking God’s Word back to each other in community.

To that end, the RGT strives to preserve the textual cadence and poetry that is so essential to Elizabethan literature, while at the same time carefully eliminating archaic and potentially distracting 16th Century words, phrases, and punctuation (such as employing the proper use of parentheses and quotation marks). It preserves the Geneva Bible’s pioneering poetic style (i.e. beginning every verse on a new line - which aids tremendously in memorization). However, unlike the Geneva Bibles of the 1500’s, there is no commentary or other human adornment. The RGT intentionally omits these things and makes single interpretive choices, based primarily on the translations of William Tyndale. The study of textual variants is left to other Bibles more properly suited for that purpose.

In scholarly terms, the RGT is a formal or complete equivalency, based on the Byzantine text-type family of manuscripts. It is our hope that this project will be a living and active Bible for this generation, built for hearing and doing (Matthew 7:24), and that it will be profitable for teaching, convicting, correcting, and instructing in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16)…

“…that your faith might not be in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.” -1 Corinthians 2:5

Read the full Introduction to the Revised Geneva Translation.

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