The story
A Bible of firsts
In 1808 a Philadelphia printer issued a Bible unlike any before it in English. This is that Bible.
- 1
The first English Bible translation by an American, Charles Thomson.
- 2
The first published English translation of the Septuagint.
- 3
The first time the Greek Old Testament was translated into a modern language.
- 4
The first American translation of the Greek New Testament.
- 5
The first English New Testament translation published in America.
- 6
The first Bible printed in America by a woman: Jane Aitken, in Philadelphia, in 1808.
- 7
The first complete English Bible since William Tyndale to be freshly translated from the original text, rather than produced as a revision of existing English Bibles.
The man behind it
Charles Thomson was the first and only Secretary of the Continental Congress. When he left public life, he turned to the Scriptures.
- 1750
Classically educated under the respected scholar Francis Alison, where he learned Greek extensively, he became, with Benjamin Franklin’s influence, a tutor in languages at Franklin’s Academy of Philadelphia, the school that became the University of Pennsylvania.
- 1774–1789
Secretary of the Continental Congress, serving continuously through the entire Revolutionary era.
- 1776
His name appeared on the first printed Declaration of Independence.
- 1789
At sixty, he walked away from political life, surrendering the records, papers and Great Seal entrusted to him.
- ~20 years
He devoted himself to the Bible in Greek, making at least four drafts of his translation and revising it again and again.
- 1808
The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Covenant, commonly called the Old and New Testament. Translated from the Greek.
Thomson wrote that he was attached to no sectarian system, but sought truth, and tried to represent faithfully the meaning of Scripture, carrying the spirit and manner of its authors into English.
