This translation traces its beginnings to July 1975 when the Catholic group, Priests for Equality (PFE), released their “Charter of Equality” which summoned “the Church to act out the words of justice proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council.” In 1988 PFE launched a nineteen effort to translate the Christian and Hebrew Scriptures in inclusive language. They began by developing inclusive liturgical materials. Beginning in 1992 they focused their efforts on creating an inclusive New Testament. The first edition was published in 1994. This was followed by The Inclusive Psalms in 1995. They continued by translating the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. This turned into a ten year effort and was published in three volumes as follows: The Writings in 1998, The Torah in 2000 and The Prophets in 2004. A single volume Bible was published in 2007. The contents of the single volume are nearly identical to the four-volume series. One change that was made was to standardize the references to God. Beginning in The Prophets, the tetragrammaton was transliterated as YHWH. This was made consistent for the entire Hebrew Scriptures in the 2007 Bible.
This Bible was the result of the work of many people, but Craig R. Smith is credited in the complete Bible as the person who “translated and wrote the scholarly commentary for the final version of each volume.” He was also reviewed the text for the single volume edition.
For sample verses from the Inclusive Bible - Priests for Equality, click here.
New Testament
Title: The Inclusive New Testament
Date: 1994
Publisher: Priests For Equality: Brentwood, MD
Contents: New Testament
References: Taliaferro-BVE CN00305, Taliaferro-EELBV 8730.100.
Images: Cover, Title page
Old Testament Portions
Even though this was produced by Catholics, the Old Testament is divided according to the Jewish Canon with the addition of the deuterocanonical books in the Writings section.
Torah
Title: The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures: Volume I: The Torah
Date: 2000
Publisher: Priests For Equality: Brentwood, MD
Contents: Torah
References: Taliaferro-BVE CN00305, Taliaferro-EELBV 8730.104.
Images: Cover, Title page
Prophets
Title: The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures: Volume II: The Prophets
Date: 2004
Publisher: AltaMira Press: Walnut Creek CA.
Contents: Old Testament Prophets
References: Taliaferro-BVE CN00305, Taliaferro-EELBV 8730.106.
Images: Cover, Title page
Writings
Title: The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures: Volume III: The Writings
Date: 1999
Publisher: Priests For Equality: Brentwood, MD
Contents: Old Testament Writings and Deuterocanonical Books
References: Taliaferro-BVE CN00305, Taliaferro-EELBV 8730.102
Images: Cover, Title page
Complete Bible
Title: The Inclusive Bible The First Egalitarian Translation
Date: 2007
Publisher: Sheed & Ward (also Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.)
Contents: Catholic Bible
References: Taliaferro-BVE CN00305, Taliaferro-EELBV 8730.110.
Images: Cover, Title page
