International Children's Bible

The International Children's Bible is an early example of a complete English Bible prepared specifically for children and developing readers. Its scope is the whole Bible, drawn from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, with the original-language texts serving as its base rather than an existing English version; it is accordingly categorized as a fresh translation rather than a simplified revision. Its translation philosophy is functional, aiming to convey meaning in natural English pitched at a low reading level, and its most distinctive features are short sentences and a restricted vocabulary. That it was translated from the original languages, despite this simplified idiom, distinguishes it from the paraphrases and abridgements that had more commonly served young audiences. It belongs to the broader twentieth-century movement toward readable, audience-specific English translations, and it helped establish the market for children's Bibles produced by translation committees working from the source texts.