Public Domain Bibles

This page is a record of the Bible translations published between the years of 1923 and 1964. These years are known as the transitional period in U.S.A. copyright law. Everything published before 1923 in the United States is in the public domain, everything published after 1963 with a proper copyright notice will be locked into a copyrighted status for several more decades.

Any book published in the United States between 1922 and 1964, that was not renewed in a timely manner has lapsed into the public domain. This page is a record of my copyright research regarding Bibles published during this time period. It should not be regarded as legal advice.

Key

Status Unknown

on the DCL Bible CD-ROM

1923. Edgar J. Goodspeed, The New Testament: An American Translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923.

1923. William G. Ballantine, The Riverside New Testament, a translation from the original Greek into the English of to-day. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1923. A version in modern speech, based on the Nestle text; slightly revised in 1934.

1924. Helen Barrett Montgomery, The Centenary Translation of the New Testament. Philadelphia: The American Baptist Publication Society, 1924. A Baptist revision of the American Standard Version (1901), called "centenary" because it was published in commemoration of the centenary of the American Baptist Publication Society.

1926. James Moffatt, A New Translation of the Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments. New York: Doran, 1626. Revised edition, New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1935. Reprinted, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1995. This version was highly regarded by scholars, and also popular.

1926. A. E. Knoch, Concordant version, the Sacred Scriptures: designed to put the English reader in possession of all the vital facts of divine revelation without a former knowledge of Greek, by means of a restored Greek text, with various readings, conforming, as far as possible, to the inspired autographs, a consistent sublinear based upon a standard English equivalent for each Greek element, and an idiomatic, emphasized English version with notes, which are linked together and correlated for the English reader by means of an English concordance and lexicon and a complementary list of the Greek elements. Los Angeles: Concordant Publishing Concern, 1926.

1927. J.M. Powis Smith, ed., The Old Testament: An American Translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1927.

1931. Edgar J. Goodspeed and J.M. Powis Smith, eds., The Bible: An American Translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931. 2nd edition, 1935.

1933. Charles Cutler Torrey, The Four Gospels, A New Translation. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1933. Revised 1947. Based on Torrey's reconstruction of hypothetical Aramaic documents underlying the Greek Gospels. Book of Revelation published in 1958.

1935. Cuthbert Lattey, ed., The Westminster Version of the Sacred Scriptures. London: Longmans and Green, 1935. An unofficial Roman Catholic version. Only the New Testament was completed; revised 1948.

1937. Charles B. Williams, The New Testament, a translation in the language of the people. Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1937. Based on the Westcott & Hort text, with a careful attempt to represent the nuances of Greek tenses. Slightly revised in 1950 (Chicago: Moody Press).

1941. Edward P. Arbez, ed., The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, translated from the Latin Vulgate; a revision of the Challoner-Rheims version edited by Catholic scholars under the patronage of the Episcopal committee of the Confraternity of Christian doctrine. Paterson, N.J.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1941.

1946. Revised Standard Version New Testament. Luther Weigle, ed., The New Covenant, Commonly Called the New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Revised Standard Version, Translated from the Greek, Being the Version Set Forth A.D. 1611, Revised A.D. 1881 and A.D. 1901, Compared with the Most Ancient Authorities and Revised A.D. 1946. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1946. Revised 1952, 1959, 1971. Roman Catholic edition, 1965.

1947. George Swann, The New Testament ... Translated from the Greek text of Westcott and Hort. Louisville: Pentecostal Publishing Co., 1947. A literal translation.

1948. Thomas F. Ford and Ralph E. Ford, New Testament, Letchworth Version in Modern English. Letchworth: Letchworth Printers, 1948. The King James text with archaic expressions replaced by modern English.

1949. S. H. Hooke, ed., The Basic Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments in Basic English. Cambridge: The University Press, 1949. The New Testament was published in 1941. Limited to C. K. Ogden's Basic English vocabulary of 850 words proposed as an international auxiliary language, with an additional 150 biblical words.

1950. New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures Rendered from the Original Language by the New World Translation Committee. Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1950. Old Tesament published 1953-1960. Revised in 1961, 1970, 1984.

1950. Angelo B. Traina, Sacred Name New Testament. Irvington, New Jersey: Scripture Research Association, 1950. Reprinted as Holy Name Bible, 1963, revised 1974. The King James Version "with Semitic names restored to their Hebrew and Aramaic forms."

1951. Olaf Morgan Norlie, The New Testament ... in Modern English. Northfield, MN, 1951. In 1961 Norlie's Simplified New Testament in plain English for Today's Reader was published by Zondervan; reprinted in 1962 as The Children's Simplified New Testament.

1952. Revised Standard Version. The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version. Containing the Old and New Testaments, translated from the original tongues; being the version set forth A.D. 1611, revised A.D. 1881-1885 and A.D. 1901; compared with the most ancient authorities and revised A.D. 1952. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1952. Roman Catholic Edition, 1966. 2nd edition, 1971. The New Testament appeared in 1946.

1952. Charles Kingsley Williams, The New Testament, A New Translation in Plain English. London: S.P.C.K. and Longmans, Green and Co., 1952. Based on the Greek text underlying the English Revised Version; "Plain English" comprises a simplified vocabulary of 1,500 words, and is supplemented by some 170 words explained in a glossary. Reprinted 1963 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).

1952. Emile Victor Rieu, The Four Gospels. A new translation from the Greek by E. V. Rieu. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1952.

1954. James A. Kleist and Joseph L. Lilly, The New Testament rendered from the original Greek with Explanatory Notes. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1954. The translators were Roman Catholic. Based on the Greek Bover text.

1955. Ronald A. Knox, The Holy Bible; A Translation from the Latin Vulgate in the Light of the Hebrew and Greek Originals. London: Burns and Oates, 1955. The New Testament appeared in 1944.

1955. Hugh J. Schonfield, The Authentic New Testament, edited and translated from the Greek for the general reader. Aberdeen: Dennis Dobson, Ltd. Central Press, 1955. Translated by a Jewish scholar to reflect "the atmosphere of the period in which the documents were written."

1957. George M. Lamsa, The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts. Containing the Old and New Testaments, translated from the Peshitta, the authorized Bible of the Church of the East. Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Co., 1957. The New Testament was published in 1940. Based on the Syriac Peshitta version.

1958. J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English. London: G. Bles, 1958. A fresh translation in colloquial English. The Gospels were published in 1952, four Prophets (Isaiah 1-39, Hosea, Amos, Micah) in 1963, and a revised New Testament in 1972. Phillips shares some thoughts on his work as translator in his book, Ring of Truth: A Translator's Testimony (New York: MacMillan, 1967. Revised 1978). See also the discussion in Edwin H. Robertson, The New Translations of the Bible (London: S. C. M. Press, 1959), pp. 119-132.

1958. Tomanek, James L. The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Anointed. Pocatello, ID.: Arrowhead Press, 1958.

1959. Gerrit Verkuyl et al., The Holy Bible, The Berkeley Version in Modern English. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959. The New Testament was published in 1945. Revised in 1969 as The Modern Language Bible.

1961. The New English Bible New Testament. C. H. Dodd, ed., The New English Bible. New Testament. Oxford and Cambridge: Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1961. A paraphrastic version sponsored by several denominations in Great Britain.

1961. The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, rendered from the Original Languages by the New World Bible Translation Committee. Revised A.D. 1961. Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1961. The New Testament appeared in 1950.

1961. Fan S. Noli, The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Translated into English from the Approved Greek Text of the Church of Constantinople and the Church of Greece. Boston: Albanian Orthodox Church in America, 1961. Based on the traditional Greek Byzantine text.

1961. Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961. Reprinted 1994. ISBN: 0802812295. This is a one-volume edition of a translation which was first published in 3 volumes, 1956-59, under the title, Wuest's Expanded translation of the Greek New Testament.

1962. Jay P. Green, The Children's King James Bible. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962. A simplified version "in the spirit of the King James Version"; revised as The King James II Bible, 1971.

1963. New American Standard New Testament. Reuben A. Olson, ed., New American Standard Bible: New Testament. Pilot ed. La Habra, California: [Foundation Press] Produced and published by the Lockman Foundation, 1963. A conservative literal revision of the American Standard Version (1901). The New Testament text is based on the 23rd edition of Nestle. The entire Bible appeared in 1971.