Julia Smith Parker Bible

The Julia E. Smith Parker Bible holds the distinction of being the first complete English Bible translated by a woman working independently from the original languages. Covering the whole of scripture, it was prepared directly from the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament rather than revised from an existing English version, in an era when most English-speaking readers relied on the King James Version. Smith's translation philosophy was extremely literal, at times idiosyncratic, rendering the source wording closely enough that the resulting syntax can read awkwardly in English. The work is also connected to Smith's suffrage activism, and it has been remembered as much for the circumstances of its making and its place in nineteenth-century American religious and reform history as for its use as a reading text. It remains a notable example of independent, non-committee Bible translation.