Centenary Translation of the New Testament

The Montgomery Centenary Translation, the work of the Baptist writer and scholar Helen Barrett Montgomery, was the first New Testament translation by a woman scholar to receive broad denominational publication in the United States, appearing under the auspices of the American Baptist Publication Society to mark its centenary. It is a fresh rendering of the New Testament from the Greek, resting on the critical Greek New Testament rather than on the later textual tradition behind older English versions, and it follows a translation philosophy that is at once modern, readable, and scholarly. Its distinctive features include clear contemporary prose and extensive notes intended to guide ordinary readers. The version belongs to the early twentieth-century movement of modern-speech English New Testaments, produced by individual translators working alongside and after the great committee revisions, and it is chiefly remembered today for that pioneering place in the history of English Bible translation.