The Beginnings of Bible Translation

The work of translating the Bible began around 250 B.C. when a group of Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek because many Jewish people were living in places where Greek was the everyday language. This translation is known as the Septuagint. The purpose of the Septuagint was clear: to communicate the Hebrew Scriptures in the language familiar to most of the Jewish people in these particular places.
Since that first Bible translation, the words of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament have been translated into hundreds of languages. These languages include ancient languages (like Coptic, Arabic, Latin, and Syriac), as well as more recent, modern languages (like Portuguese, Russian, Navajo, Danish, Spanish, and English). The purpose behind all these Bible translations is exactly the same as that behind the Septuagint: to put the words of the Bible into a language that people will understand.