Will Shetterly, following in a long and distinguished tradition, has started a new project, the Full American Translation Bible. It’s a new translation based on the American Standard Version (a 1901 translation, descended from the King James, and respected for its relative literality), informed by Will’s quirky humanist sensibility and stripped of later accretions of Christian theology and ideology.

Every translation is made by people whose purposes affect their translation. The King James Version was commissioned by a king, so it translates basileia ouranos as “kingdom of heaven.” This translation is more likely to use a phrase like “dominion of God” or “universal rule.” The King James Version translates YHWH, the name of God, as “the LORD.” The difference between a name and a title is profound; this translation will use “Yahu.”

You can get a sense of the flavor from the very beginning: The first creation story: the gods make the earth:

¹In the beginning the gods made the sky and the earth. ²The earth was waste and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of the gods moved on the face of the waters.

He’s only a couple of chapters in, but I’m looking forward to seeing the whole thing completed.

And then I’m looking forward to writing an epic ten-volume Unitarian Universalist apocalyptic epic based on the FAT’s theology. I’m think I’m going to call it No One Gets Left Behind.