On the surface, just one out of numerous early English translations of the Bible: hardcover book, written in small font and columns, but indeed, a very significant piece of history. Published in 1876, not only was Julia Evelina Smith’s translation of the Bible the first one ever translated by a woman, it was also the only contemporary English translation out of the original languages available to readers for almost twenty years until the publication of the last part of the British revised version in 1894. Besides making a gospel accessible to Julia’s American contemporaries, the background of the Bible tells a meaningful story about a fearless and purposeful fight for the women’s civil rights and equality, which are easily taken for granted nowadays. Born into a family with highly educated father, …show more content…
Intrigued by William Miller’s preach that Jesus would return in 1844, Julia taught herself Hebrew and used childhood acquired skills in Greek and Latin to study the Bible. After the prediction proved to be wrong, Julia continued to study the Bible and decided to translate the complete Bible word by word (Julia Smith). It took her about seven years of determined work and tens of thousands handwritten pages to translate both the Old and the New Testament by hand (Shaw). The translation was finally finished in 1854. That truly was a huge accomplishment as it was the first complete translation of the Bible to be done by a woman; however, it remained unpublished for quite a long time or, to be exact, for 21 years.
What finally made Julia revise and publish the translation was an incident with the local taxation office. As the only surviving members of the family, Julia and her sister Abby, lived together on their