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Ang Malayang Biblia (Bagong Tipan)

Ang Malayang Biblia (AMB) started in 2017 whose vision is to provide a fresh Tagalog translation of the Bible that is accessible to all Bible loving Filipinos. This translation aims to reach not just the casual reader, but also serious students of the Word who would rather use the more popular English Bibles over a Filipino translation. But there is a good amount of reason why this is the case, which I will explain here in detail. Personally, among the challenges I face when reading the available Tagalog Bibles are the following: first, the language used seems to lean more on the formal Tagalog used in academic literatures rather than the vulgar version used everyday by Filipinos. It is quite interesting that the NT Greek was not written in Classical, but in Koine Greek. The former is the language of the more educated Greeks, while the latter was the language of the masses. There is wisdom I see in doing so: this decision by the disciples in Bible transmission was in line with the mandate of reaching every creature for the Gospel; therefore, the language or the medium of communication must be the one that is used by the majority, not just by the more privileged or educated few. Second, there is a silent divide in the Christian community, on which source text or Bible is pure or uncorrupted; a debate that has been raging since 1881, when a recently discovered New Testament Greek manuscript was used to publish a new English Bible, the RSV.

Since the first translation of the Bible in Tagalog came to the Philippine masses, the work of Bible translation has been done through the hands of individuals selected within the mainstream Protestant and Roman Catholic Denominations. The first Tagalog New Testament (NT) was released in 1902 under The American Bible Society (ABS) and British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) which made use of the Textus Receptus Greek Text. In 1905, the first full Tagalog Bible, known as Ang Biblia, was published by the Philippine Bible Society (PBS), an auxiliary of the ABS. This formal translation was based on the American Standard Version (ASV). This cycle of corporate driven Bible Translations continues to this day; however, AMB is produced in a unique way, free from denominational biases and baseless human traditions.

Many Filipino Christians mistakenly believe the 1905 Ang Biblia is a direct Tagalog translation of the King James Version (KJV) because both use archaic language. While the KJV uses archaic English, and the 1905 Ang Biblia uses archaic Tagalog, their textual foundations are vastly different. The KJV New Testament is based on the Textus Receptus Greek text, whereas the 1905 Ang Biblia and nearly all subsequent Filipino New Testament translations have been based on the Nestle-Aland Greek text. This reliance on the Nestle-Aland text has been the standard for over a century, until recently.

Ang Salita ng Diyos ay hindi nakakulong. - 2 Timoteo 2:9 (AMB)

Ang Malayang Biblia (AMB), which translates to "The Liberated Bible," was created to challenge this convention. Its name reflects the belief that the NT Greek Text underlying most modern Bibles have been corrupted by errors introduced in the 19th century—a position championed by scholars like F. H. Scrivener and Dean Burgon (see The Revision Revised). True to its name, the AMB aims to free our Tagalog New Testament by returning to the Textus Receptus, providing a translation that is more faithful to the traditional and original NT manuscripts.

What's Unique about AMB?</b>

  1. This Tagalog New Testament translation is primarily based on the Textus Receptus.

  2. Every Strong's Number and Greek parsing from the source text is linked to every word or phrase in the Tagalog translation which can be shown using iBiblia for PC https://github.com/rubiot/ibiblia. This is done for the purpose of transparency and accountability of every word or phrase.

  3. AMB has an option that includes Strongs Definition and Greek parsing of every Tagalog word or phrase which can be shown using MySword https://mysword.info/ for Android or theWord https://www.theword.net/ for PC.

  4. AMB is not a paraphrase translation. We use mainly literal word-for-word (vs. though-for-thought), and phrase-for-phrase method of translation, same method used by the KJV Translators often called as "formal equivalence." But in order to make the reading as smooth as possible, we made use of what we call "smoothing words." Smoothing words refer to words or phrases that translators strategically use to make the translated sentences, when read, sound more natural. These words help to bridge ideas, clarify relationships between sentences, and enhance the overall readability of the translated text in the target language. Smoothing words not found in the Greek are in italics to distinguish them from words that are in the original Greek.

  5. Pronouns referring to God or Christ, and common words used in spiritual terms (i.e. Ang Batas, Buhay, Kamatayan, Kongregasyon, Mensahero, etc.:) which otherwise could not be understood in their proper context, have their initial letters capitalized.

  6. AMB faithfully translates into Tagalog all transliterated words found in Tagalog Bibles (except for proper names) that often hides the meaning of the word. Transliteration is the practice in translation where a word from the source text is translated to another language in such a way as to make the newly translated word sound very similar to the original word from which it was translated. Examples are: ἀπόστολος, which sounds like "apostolos", and the English transliteration is, "apostle", in Tagalog, "apostol;" but the actual Tagalog equivalent word is "mensahero." Another one is βάπτισμα (means immersion), which sounds like "baptisma", when transliterated in English is "baptism," in Tagalog, "bautismo." But to translate this faithfully in Tagalog, it should say, "lublob."

  7. Just like how the Koine Greek in Biblical times was used as the language of the masses, AMB uses the same approach to its translation by making its language like the language of the common people meaning, it uses conversational and up to date words and phraseology. Some of the terms in the Filipino vocabulary that were used in other translations were updated on this translation, especially those terms that were taken from the Spanish vocabulary. Examples are: Iglesia, Obispo, and Diakono. We replaced these old words with: Konggregasyon, Tagapangasiwa, and Lingkod, respectively.

  8. Units of measurements of distance, weight, volume, and money currency found in the Bible were translated to modern day equivalence using the metric system, and the Philippine peso currency, respectively.

  9. AMB uses words that show respect for elders or people in authority just like what a good Filipino would do. This is done by addressing such people with the plural form instead of the singular 2nd person pronoun and adding the term "po" and "opo". Examples: "niyo" instead of "mo" or "kayo po" instead of "ikaw."

  10. AMB is on Github and is available to all. Qualified translators can contribute, modify or add changes to the text as they see fit via Ang Malayang Biblia Github.

  11. Places in the Bible are translated in English not Tagalog for practical and educational purposes. In order that the student of the word can learn more about a place in the Scriptures by the use of existing Bible dictionaries or Bible Maps which are widely published in the English language. Exception to this are those few and more popular places like those Churches mentioned in Paul's letters.

  12. Includes Old Testament (OT) quotations, or references with indication on which OT source manuscript they were taken from: i.e. from the Septuagint (LXX) Text, or from the Masoretic Text (MT), or from both ().

  13. Words of Jesus in Red.

    14. Special Thanks to:

    1. Costas Sergiou, for providing the world with TheWord software free of charge.
    2. Rubio Terra, for providing the iBiblia software and building it according to translators’ needs.
    3. Steve Sweigart, Jon Graef, Jonathan Koehn and theWord community for formatting and providing bible texts and books without which this work of translation would be virtually impossible.

      4. Also check our translations workflow process found here: http://www.xmind.net/m/65GpbK

      For other inquiries please contact us at malayangbiblia@gmail.com

      Ang Malayang Biblia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

      Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at malayangbiblia@gmail.com

      If you are blessed with this ministry, please consider supporting us financially. To know how, please pop us an email at malayangbiblia@gmail.com. Your generous support will help us accomplish our future translation projects that will help provide Filipino Christian literature to our Filipino Churches.