Who do you think the greatest Bible translator in history was? My nominee is William Carey (1761-1834), who translated the Bible or parts of it into about 44 languages and dialects (Elgin Moyer, Who Was Who in Church History, 2nd ed., p. 74). His Bengali translation is still in print after all of these years. I was shown a copy when I was in Bangladesh some years ago.
Furthermore, Carey trained other translators. Nathan Brown worked with him for awhile, then had to return to the States. However, in his '60's, Brown went to Japan and translated the very first Japanese NT.
WILLIAM TYNDALE!... Don't even have to think about it... Brother Glen:)
Btw... I forgot to add this!
In 1611, the 47 scholars who produced the King James Bible drew significantly from Tyndale's original work and the other translations that descended from his. One estimate suggests that the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale's words and the Old Testament 76%.
Thanks for chiming in. Welcome to the Baptist Board!
Of the translators into Japanese, my favorite is Nathan Brown, who translated the very first Japanese NT. He worked with Carey as a young man, then went back to the US because of his poor health. Then when he reached his 60s he went to Japan as a missionary, and learned that incredibly difficult language.
Edited in: Strange. That Wikipedia article did not even mention Nathan Brown, but he was a key figure in Bible translation in Japan.
This article only refers to him as issuing the first version of the Japanese NT.
"It is only 33 years since the first version of the Japanese New Testament was issued by Rev. Nathan Brown, D. D., of the American Baptist Missionary Union."
"It is presumed that Japanese intellectual assistants helped translate Bridgman and Culbertson's Chinese Bible (1861) into Japanese, and Hepburn and Brown adjusted the phrases."
—cited Wikipedia article
You might consider adding a short bit with a footnote and bibliographical entry.
No, that's a different "Brown." Samuel Brown was Reformed, but Nathan Brown was a Baptist. They both helped on the Motoyaku ("Original Translation," the first complete Bible in Japanese; also called the Meijiyaku), but Nathan left that effort because they would not translate baptizo (baptize) as "immerse." Nathan Brown then did his own translation of the NT, which was the first complete NT translation in Japanese. (Gutzlaff, Bettelheim, and fellow Baptist Goble had each done individual books).
I have a facsimile of Nathan Brown's NT. The complete title is: The New Testament in Vernacular Japanese from the Oldest Existing Greek Manuscripts, With Interlinear Notices of Various Readings. So even before Westcott and Hort, Brown's textual criticism veered towards a critical text. So, there is no "Japanese KJV."