BIBLICAL, SOCIETIES. - The most important are the following:
I. BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY (B.F.B.SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL STUDIES)
Before 1804, several Protestant societies had been founded in England and Scotland to spread the Bible, pamphlets and religious tracts. Such were the S.P.C.K., or Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (1698), the S.P.G., or Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (1701), the R.T.S., or Religious Tract Society (1799), and several others. But the idea of publishing Bibles at a low price and in all languages, and of founding a special society dedicated solely to this purpose, arose only in 1804 among some members of the R.T.S. (Religion Tract Society) and was supported by the aforementioned societies.
The criterion followed was: for the nations that already had Protestant translations, these were reprinted (Diodati for Italy, Valera for Spain, etc.); for those that lacked them, the Authorized Bible of James I was translated, wholly or in part. Thus translations were produced in many dialects and languages (about 700). Not long after the founding of the society, the thorny question arose of the deuterocanonical books, falsely called "apocrypha" by Protestants, which the society had simply suppressed in its editions. The secretariats and auxiliary societies that had been established on the continent, with the grants of the B.F.B.S., printed Bibles and included the deuterocanonical books as well, though in a place distinct from the protocanonical ones, saying that their customers did not want to buy the book without them. The B.F.B.S. then decided that the secretariats and auxiliary societies might indeed print the deuterocanonical books, but on their own account; it would send them unbound Bibles, to which the missing books could be added at will. Such an uproar arose from this that the society had to exclude the deuterocanonical books absolutely from all its editions. Indeed, the auxiliary societies of Scotland demanded that those who had permitted such publications be punished; and since their request was not granted, they separated and founded a society
Scottish Bible society, which, in 1861, took the name of National Bible Society of Scotland.
II. SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL STUDIES SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL STUDIES AMERICANA (A.B.SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL STUDIES)
When the founding of the English B.S. became known in the United States, several similar B.S. were immediately formed, which, uniting in 1816, constituted the American Bible Society.
Like the English one, it too experienced the question of the deuterocanonical books, which was the cause of a split. In 1822, when the A.B.S. learned that in Latin America only the Catholic translation made by Fr. Scio would be accepted, it decided to print this translation, and did so until 1827. In that year, on account of observations made by some members, the general direction ordered that the Bible of Fr. Scio continue to be printed, but that the deuterocanonical books be suppressed from it. This was the cause of some division among Latin American Catholics, some accepting such Bibles, though incomplete, because the translation had been made on a Catholic basis, while others rejected them, because they were incomplete. In 1841 the A.B.S. definitively replaced the Catholic translation of Fr. Scio with that of the Protestant Cipriano Valera, and in 1885 it also began to publish the Version Moderna of the Protestant H. B. Pratt. Another question, which led to a split with the Baptists, was the following: a Baptist missionary in India asked the A.B.S. for a subsidy to print a translation of the Bible that he had made into the Bengali language, noting that the English B.S. had refused to help him, because the word "baptize" had been translated with the Bengali equivalent of "immerse." The directors of the A.B.S. likewise refused to assist the undertaking. The Baptists then founded on their own account the American and Foreign Bible Society.
III. ALTRE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL STUDIES SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL STUDIES
Besides the four mentioned, we shall cite among the principal ones the Scripture Gift Mission, English (1880), or Mission to Give Away the Scripture; and its American sister, the American Scripture Gift Mission, which send parts of Holy Scripture free of charge to colleges and schools, and distribute them among rural populations, etc. The texts that they consider most important against the Catholic Church or favorable to Protestant doctrines are underlined. Another American Bible society, which flooded Latin America with translations of the New Testament, was "The campaign to distribute a million Testaments in Latin America." Also important is the "Bible House" of Los Angeles (California), established to send Bibles to Protestant missionaries and distributors who request them. To those already mentioned, belonging to England and the United States, one may add six German Bible societies and two French ones; one each is had by: Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland. In 1917 a Universal Bible Alliance was established.
The characteristics of the Bibles printed by the Protestant Bible societies are these: they are not preceded by any preface and pontifical authorization at the beginning; they do not contain the deuterocanonical books, and they have no explanatory notes.
Bibliography5 works
Camillo Crivelli