President Eyring Announces “Great Blessing” for Portuguese-Speaking Saints
Contributed By Michael Morris, Church News contributor
In the video below, President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, encourages members to “gather around the scriptures” as he announces the publication of the Latter-day Saint edition of the Holy Bible in Portuguese.
Article Highlights
- The scriptures are the ultimate guide to learning the gospel—a key to understanding our Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
- The LDS version of the Holy Bible in Portuguese, available online now and in print March 2016, will be “a great blessing.”
- The First Presidency encourages Portuguese-speaking members to obtain personal copies of these new editions and to “gather around the scriptures.”
“The Holy Bible is a link to our brothers and sisters of other religions—a common ground of faith built upon the words of our Father, the writings of ancient prophets, and the enduring teachings and Atonement of our Savior and Redeemer.” —President Henry B. Eyring
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Representing the First Presidency, President Henry B. Eyring encouraged members of the Church to “gather around the scriptures” as he announced the publication of the Latter-day Saint edition of the Holy Bible in Portuguese, available now at asescrituras.ChurchofJesusChrist.org and on the Gospel Library mobile application.
“The scriptures are the ultimate guide to learning the gospel—a key to understanding our Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ,” President Eyring said. “As you prayerfully learn and teach from the scriptures, your testimonies will grow and you will receive greater direction in your daily lives.”
He said the scriptures provide comfort, spiritual power, strength to resist temptation, and a connection to those of other faiths.
“The Holy Bible is a link to our brothers and sisters of other religions—a common ground of faith built upon the words of our Father, the writings of ancient prophets, and the enduring teachings and Atonement of our Savior and Redeemer,” he said.
The new edition, called “a great blessing” for the Church’s nearly 1.4 million Portuguese-speaking members of the Church, will be available in print in March 2016. Other formats, such as ePub and PDF versions, are available now, with audio and braille coming in 2016.
Approximately 100,000 copies of the new edition of the Bible are being printed at the Church’s printing centers in Salt Lake City and Brazil for worldwide distribution. Hardcover and softcover editions of the new Bible will be available first, followed by genuine and simulated leather covers. A quadruple combination will also be introduced in 2016.
A five-year labor
Under the direction of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a team of General Authorities, Area Seventies, professional linguists, and Church members labored five years to review and prepare the LDS edition of the Holy Bible in Portuguese. The new edition, titled Bíblia Sagrada, Almeida 2015, is based on the 1914 edition of the João Ferreira Annes de Almeida translation of the Bible, which was selected because of the high quality of its translation. The conservative update in the translation addresses outdated grammar and vocabulary.
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Typeface adjustments in the new edition help readers distinguish between scripture and study helps. The style and format of titles, table of contents pages, and abbreviations pages have also been standardized to improve the reading experience.
Scholarship and appreciation
“As you prayerfully learn and teach from the scriptures, your testimonies will grow and you will receive greater direction in your daily lives,” President Eyring promises.
“This new edition of the Bible will promote gospel scholarship and a deeper appreciation of this marvelous, fundamental scripture,” said Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “We anticipate that it will lead Portuguese-speaking Church members to study the Bible regularly, that the excellent study aids will open the scriptures to greater understanding, and that a more earnest application of scriptural teachings will follow. We trust that this new Bible translation will lead to more coordinated study of and greater appreciation for all of the standard works.”
Elder Ulisses Soares of the Presidency of the Seventy agrees.
“The revision of the scriptures will be a great blessing and will impact the lives of many people who speak Portuguese,” said Elder Soares, a native of São Paulo, Brazil. “We can know the Lord better through the scriptures in our own language, cross-reference them, and really search more deeply their meaning in our lives.”
In addition to containing cross-references, the LDS edition of the Bible in Portuguese will include such study aids as footnotes, a topical reference guide, harmony of the gospels, Bible chronology, selections from the Joseph Smith Translation, and Bible maps and photos.
The First Presidency encourages Portuguese-speaking members of the Church to obtain personal copies of these new editions and to “gather around the scriptures.”
For years, Elder José A. Teixeira, born in Vila Real, Portugal, has anticipated the blessing of having an LDS edition of the Bible in his native language.
“I imagine the impact worldwide for Portuguese-speaking members is going to be the same impact that it will have in my life,” said Elder Teixeira. “I can say that I will certainly feast on the [new Bible] because it’s in my mother language, and that will make all the difference in the world for me. And I’m sure it will make all the difference in the world for all members who speak Portuguese.”
Sister Ana Gaertner De Agostini, a native Portuguese speaker and member of the Relief Society general board involved in preparing the Portuguese edition, expressed gratitude for the inspiration that team members received while doing their work. The result, she says, will yield improved gospel study and understanding of the word of God by Portuguese-speaking Latter-day Saints.
“To think that they will have the opportunity to understand the word of God in a much simpler, pristine way is tremendous,” she says. “It is impossible to measure.”
In addition to containing cross-references, the LDS edition of the Bible in Portuguese will include such study aids as footnotes, a topical reference guide, harmony of the gospels, Bible chronology, selections from the Joseph Smith Translation, and Bible maps and photos.
The Portuguese triple combination of the scriptures has also received a minor update. Additional information about the new edition of the Bible and the updated triple combination is available in Portuguese at bibliasagrada.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
