Works with Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.com), Safari, and Google Chromea. Does not work with Internet Explorerc; may or may not work with other browsers. Don't forget to install the two public Society of Biblical Literature font files, SBL Hebrew, and SBL Greeke. Then click on a book link at the left. This page will then change to that book and the right pane will change to a chapter list. The header will change automatically to a verse list for the chapter. You can navigate by clicking on the links, or you can just scroll down through the book.
0.1. Test the notes by mouse hovering over underlined text. You should see the divine name in Hebrew and with two pronunciations. You should see Elohim in Hebrew. Can't see anything? You need Mozilla Firefox. The divine name has link hiding under it. Try it. When the mouse cursor changes to a hand, then you know there is a hidden link.g
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that Yãhweh Almĩghty made earth and heaven.
0.2 Test by hovering over the superscript note number. This is just so you know what to expect of notesf.
12:1 And a great sign¹ appeared in heaven: a woman² clothed with the sun³, and the moonª under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelveⁿ stars; 2 and she¹ was with child²; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.
1. Mouse hovering over a footnote number or letter causes the note to pop up in a nice javascriptd generated box. It disappears again as soon as you move the mouse off the note.
2. Clicking on a verse number causes the chapter list to vanish and the verse list to vanish leaving only the textb. Try it on "12:1" above, and then hit the back button to return here. This is good to do if you need more space or want to print the text. Clicking on any chapter header will restore the chapter list sidebar and verselist header:
3. The frame bars can be dragged to the side or to the top if you need more space to read a note that is too big or the edge of it disappears off screen.
4. Pressing F11 causes FireFox to go full screen with the translation. This is also good if you need more space to see a rather large note.
5. If you see little square boxes in Hebrew script or Greek script, then that is because your fonts don't have the accent marks and the browser is defaulting to Times New Roman, which has only the alphabetic letters. Installing the two fonts, SBL Hebrew, and SBL Greek below will solve this problem.
6. You can copy and paste MISB (control-c, then control-v).
7. You can hover the mouse over a verse number, right click, and then copy the link to supply a permenant link back to the text.
About the MISB:
The Online Messianic Israel Standard Bible is a work in progress of editing the New American Standard Bible (1977), a modernized revision of the public domain ASV to meet the expectations and needs of the Torah-Observant Messianic Jews and Christians. The translation is regularly updated and checked from the Greek Byzantine Text, Western Text, and Alexandrian Text types, and using Early Papyri. The Hebrew is supplied from the Masoretic Text, Franz Delitzsch's Hebrew New Testament, Bible Society Israel's Translation, Ezekiel Margoliouth, and Salkinson-Ginsgurg translations of the New Testament, as well as fresh translation from the Greek based on linguistic principles in Bruce Waltke Biblical Hebrew Syntax, and Daniel B. Wallace's Exegetical Syntax.
I work on the theory that the Greek New Testament represents a Hebrew source with some words borrowed from Aramaic and Greek. The Fabled Hebrew Matthew is long lost, and sorrowfully must say that the Shem Tov Hebrew Matthew is not it. That does not mean we are stuck though. I trust that the Greek text was produced as an accurate translation right off of a Hebrew source, with Apostolic approval, and that being such good Greek, the best we can do is to translate the Greek back to Hebrew. Further, that in the case of Paul's letters, that the original was Greek, but that except for loan words, that too can be put into Hebrew. Futhermore, Biblical Hebrew needs to be supplemented with Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic to a small extent to regain the whole sense.
While there is much that can be said in favor of an Aramaic Version (also called Syriac), it is certain that none dates earlier than the Greek or is more original than the Greek (aside from its limited use in the post exilic books), due to the fact that the Syriac immitates Greek syntax too closely to be the parent. I have to say that the Messianic Community has been sold a bill of goods by Aramaic Primacists, for sure in the department of putting down the accuracy of the Greek, and partly by diverting us to a language of exile. Israel will speak Hebrew in the future, and not Aramaic. Therefore, we must aim at Hebrew. The study of Aramaic will remain valuable, and while it can be debated whether certain NT sources were spoken in Aramaic or Hebrew, I am convinced that everything needs to be explained in Hebrew and not Aramaic. To teach Aramaic nowdays as a spiritual goal, or pious exercise, to anyone but interested Scholars is a disservice to the Messianic Community. It should say something that even the proposed Shem Tov Text is Hebrew and not Aramaic, and it seems rather a contradiction to promote Shem Tov as original and the Syriac Matthew as original.
The goal of this translation is not to Jewishize the text like many others. Such has it's place, of course, but pronouncing Hebrew names other than the nomina sacra properly is not terribly important. The goal is to repair the theological mistranslation first. All the proper nouns will remain Standard English. However, a future goal is to provide the exact Hebrew spelling and vowling in Hebrew in a simple popup box over each name with the meaning also given.
Some may ask why we need this translation. That is a good question seeing there are many English versions and several Hebrew versions of the New Testament. The answer is very simple. The differences in all these versions correct only superficial problems, or create new problems without correcting the main problems! The main problems can be listed as follows.
1. Nomos translated as "law" or "torah" always instead of its frequent use with the meaning of "norm", "custom" or "status quo" in the Paul's letters.
2. Refusal of most translations to correctly translate pistis as "faithfulness" (supportiveness) instead of "faith", which is reduced to mere credo.
3. Degenerate translation of the adjective pistos as believer instead of "faithful"
4. A two millenia long devolution of the verb pisteuo from its original Greek meaning in agreement with Hebrew, "to support"/"enter a trust with" into a bare believing that requires no obedience, with all the spiritual wreckage of gnosticism in its wake.
5. Refusal to translate Amæn as Amæn (let it be supported) and attempting to put some circumlocution like "Truly" thus disguising the Hebrew loan word that was meant to stay Hebrew.
6. The mistaken translation "justify", which could be explained right, but most often is not requires us to replace it with the verb "justice". A lot of people who think they are being Messianic are merely repeating Protestant or Catholic nonsense here, and now are getting it from Messianic Shepherds who know no better. They could use a lesson from the Bishop of Durham, N.T. Wright on this. Yes, even a bishop can do right sometimes.
7. The word "righteousenss" in many cases should be replaced with "justice", as all the Latin based speakers of Spanish, French, Latin, etc. know already.
8. There there are, of course, the many words of Ecclesiastical usage that need correction, apostle, baptise, church, eternal, etc.
9. Lot's of tiny little theological paradoxes created by mistranslation of the Greek conjunction for "but" which is really Aramaic borrowed into Hebrew in disguise.
That should be enough to blow the mind of the average reader by now, so I'll quit with a summary. The end result is, and will be a total revolution in our understanding of the Word of Yahweh—one which is free from the gnostic plauge of easy believism and the heresies of Augustine, Calvin, and Luther, and the Greek Philosophies of Aristotle and the false doctrines of Manicheaism, which have and still plauge the Messianic Community under the name of "Reformed Theology".
Finally, there are no doubt some foibles that can only come from an individual translator rather than a committe to dot every i and cross every t, and get every thing perfect. All I can say is the commitees have failed, so you are stuck with an individual messenger. Blessings to ye who do not stumble over the messenger and who get the message.
Daniel Gregg, 11th month, 3rd day, 6150 1/8/2011 9:39 p.m.
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Downloading: http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation.zip (if you need instruction see below)
Method #1: (takes least time)--will be more frequently updated as I have figured out how to compress the archive on the hosting server remotely.
1. If you have an older version change the name of NewTranslation directory to another name so that you don't overwrite it by accident. You can keep the older version as an archive.
2. Download the zip file: http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation.zip (updated 2/23/2011). Typically Firefox will put it in a directory called "Downloads" under you documents folder.
3. Right click on NewTranslation.zip, then choose "Extract all.."
4. Enter NewTranslation directory and open bibleframe.html with firefox, and you are good to go.
5. Note the presence of font files: SBL_Hbrw.ttf and SBL_Grk.ttf and koptos.ttf. You will want to install them if you haven't yet. Copying them to your fonts folder will install them.
Method #2: (takes more time, but you get latest, i.e. what you get is guarantteed to agree with the online version). This will also allow you to copy individual files.
I have opened the directory here:
http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/
All you have to do is name a directory "NewTranslation" on your computer, and then follow the above link. Copy everything to that directory. Then access by opening bibleframe.html on your computer. The free software at the following website will make an easy task of copying the whole MISB: HTTrack Website Copier. The font files come with it, but you will still have to install them in your fonts directory.
The Future of the Online MISB: (section added 7/18/2011)
The Online version will no longer be edited or revised in the forseeable future in favor of the forthcoming printed edition.
The Printed Edition will be avaiable in the NT first after sufficient editorial decisions have been made comparing the text with the Greek and other standard versions to forstall any potential copyright challenges based on uniqueness in those other versions. The Online version is clearly NASB except for critical changes, but it was not for sale. I do not think it can be made so even though it is a grey area of the copyright law and bible translations. The printed version will be availabe as soon as the grey area can be sufficiently eliminated.
Funding
Funding of this project is accomplished from personal resources and donations via the Paypal link on the main webpage: www.torahtimes.org.
End notes:
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a. With the small inconvience of having to click twice to get a link to end up in the right place. That's why I used Firefox instead of Chrome. This program works perfectly with Mozilla FireFox (which you can download for free at www.mozilla.com), and also works with a one known bug with Google Chrome, which you can download for free at (www.google.com/chrome). The popup notes do not work with Internet Explorer. I hear it works with Safari, and I think you can get that for free too. Make sure the javascript is up-to-date. It usually is if you have not disabled it. But if the javascript does not work, get a teckier buddy to fix it for you. It is not known if it works with any other browsers. I highly recommend using the free open source, public firefox browser from mozilla mentioned above, since this is the browser I am now doing all the testing in.
b. There is a glitch in some chapter 1's of some books, and the links are not complete yet. So if nothing happens, then try clicking on the verse number in chapter 2. Then the side windows will disappear.
c. When I first tested IE its scrambled interpretation of the javascript rendered gibberish.
d. Practically all computers have this now, and it is regularly updated via internet. It is necessary to read the notes, but not necessary to read the translation.
e. Here are two fonts you can download and install to improve the reading of Hebrew and Greek. They work with the pop up notes. When you hover the mouse over a note mark or important word, then a box pops up explaining it. Often a Hebrew or Greek phrase will be given for the word and some equivalent or alternative translation. It will still appear in Hebrew or Greek letters, BUT.... if you want the accent marks and diacritical marks to show up right instead of little square boxes, you need to install these two fonts:
1. SBL Hebrew (Society of Biblical Literature)
2. SBL Greek (Society of Biblical Literature)
Click on link SBL Hebrew, download it, copy it to your font's directory. Then do the same for the SBL Greek font. Then when you hover the mouse over notes with Hebrew and Greek, it will all be properly accented and marked. You may need to close and reopen your browser or reboot your computer before the font files activate.
f. There are a number of legacy notes floating around that will not respond. Usually these refer to the bottom of the page or chapter or have a link hiding under them. Try the link. These are in the process of being updated and converted.
g. The MISB uses a stylesheet located here: link to stylesheet. The stylesheet removes all the underlines and different font colors of hyperlinks. If you save an MISB file to your computer and forget to go and get the stylesheet too, the formatting will look pretty ugly.