Figure 1.

Santa Biblia: Reina-Valera 2009 was the first edition of the Bible prepared by The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a language other than English. ©  Intellectual
Reserve, Inc.
Santa Biblia
The Latter-day Saint Bible in Spanish

Joshua M. Sears

A fter the release of the first Latter-day Saint edition of the Bible in
  1979 and a new edition of the Triple Combination containing the
Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price in
1981, Elder Boyd K. Packer declared:
With the passing of years, these scriptures will produce successive gen-
erations of faithful Christians who know the Lord Jesus Christ and are
disposed to obey His will. . . . The revelations will be opened to them as
to no other in the history of the world. . . . They will develop a gospel
scholarship beyond that which their forebears could achieve. They will
have the testimony that Jesus is the Christ and be competent to pro-
claim Him and to defend Him.
Decades of experience have proven the value of those scripture editions
for millions of Latter-day Saints, and yet, as Elder Packer went on to
relate, “even all of this is but a beginning, for we have it only in English.”1
Although the Triple Combination has been translated into forty-four
languages, for many years only English-speaking Saints could enjoy
the advantages of reading the Old and New Testaments in a Church-­
sponsored edition. That changed in September 2009 with the publica-
tion of the Santa Biblia: Reina-Valera 2009, a Spanish edition of the LDS
Bible and the first new language edition to be published since the English
version thirty years earlier (fig. 1). The Santa Biblia2 marks a significant

1. Boyd K. Packer, “Scriptures,” Ensign 12 (November 1982): 53.

2. Santa Biblia means simply “Holy Bible,” but in this article the phrase will
refer exclusively to the LDS edition of the Bible in Spanish.

BYU Studies Quarterly 54, no. 1 (2015)43

44 v BYU Studies Quarterly

milestone in the history of Latter-day Saint scripture both because of its

contents and because of what it indicates about the internationalization
of the Church. In this article, I will attempt to capture some of that sig-
nificance by analyzing the Santa Biblia’s translation, textual basis, study
aids, and impact.

History
The English LDS Bible published in 1979 featured the traditional King
James translation with innovative formatting and study aids including
interpretive chapter headings, cross-references to other LDS scripture,
citations from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, explana-
tory notes, a Bible dictionary, a concordance called the Topical Guide,
and maps.3 (In 2013 an updated edition appeared that makes several
improvements but closely follows the overall form and content of the
1979 edition.) That Bible edition set the formatting standard for a new
English Triple Combination in 1981, which in turn became the template
for subsequent foreign-language editions of the Triple Combination,
including a new Spanish edition in 1993.4
In the years following, President Packer initiated the idea of having
an LDS edition of the Bible in Spanish similar to what was available in
English.5 Church leaders weighed the advantages and disadvantages
of creating an entirely new translation of the Bible themselves, but
after a lengthy review it was decided to use an existing translation. The
question then became which version to adopt, and attention naturally

3. See Robert J. Matthews, “The New Publications of the Standard Works—

1979, 1981,” BYU Studies 22, no. 4 (1982): 387–424; Fred E. Woods, “The Latter-
day Saint Edition of the King James Bible,” in The King James Bible and the
Restoration, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center,
2011), 260–80; and That Promised Day: The Coming Forth of the LDS Scriptures,
a documentary broadcast on BYUtv on October 3, 2010, available at http://
www.byutv.org/watch/2039-100.
4. “Study Aids Enhance Spanish Scriptures,” Church News, published by
Deseret News, December 11, 1993, 5.
5. As recounted by Richard G. Scott during an interview with Carlos Amado
and Ted Brewerton, in “La edición Santo de los Últimos Días de la Santa Biblia en
español,” an orientation video about the Spanish Bible available at https://www​
.lds.org/media-library/video/2009-03-000-latter-day-saint-edition­-of​-the​-holy​
-bible​-in-spanish?category=escrituras&lang=spa. Statements from Elder Scott,
Elder Amado, and Elder Brewerton quoted in this article are taken from the
subtitles provided in an English version of the video that was previously available.
 Santa Biblia V 45

turned to the translation Latter-day Saints

had already been using, a traditional and
acclaimed Bible called the Reina-Valera.
Like the King James Version in English,
the Reina-Valera Version is very much a
Protestant translation and traces its his-
tory to the religious upheavals of the six-
teenth century. Casiodoro de Reina, much
like his English counterpart William Tyn-
dale, spent much of his life abroad trying
to avoid authorities who were none too
pleased with him. In 1569, Reina published
his greatest work: history’s first complete
Figure 2. The title page of
Spanish Bible based on the original bibli- Casiodoro de Reina’s Spanish
cal languages. Reina spent twelve years at Bible published in 1569.
his task, working from Hebrew and Greek
texts while consulting previous Spanish
translations, such as a 1543 New Testament translated by Francisco de
Enzinas. Reina’s Bible came to be known as la Biblia del Oso, “the Bible
of the Bear,” due to a distinctive picture on its title page (fig. 2). Many of
the first copies were confiscated and burned. Another reformer-in-exile,
Cipriano de Valera, later revised Reina’s work and republished it in 1602.
The Reina-Valera Version, as it would later be called, eventually estab-
lished itself as the standard Bible for Spanish-speaking Protestants.6 This
Spanish translation of the Bible has even influenced English speakers.
The translators who worked on the King James Version consulted Valera’s
revision—published only two years before they began their own work—
and various examples of common phrasing make it “fairly certain that
in the quarry which formed the King James Bible may be heard echoes
of the Reina-Valera.”7

6. Eduardo Balderas, “How the Scriptures Came to Be Translated into Span-

ish,” Ensign 2 (September 1972): 26–29; Jorge A. González, “Las Traducciones
de Reina y Valera,” in La Biblia en español: Cómo nos llegó, ed. Justo L. González
(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2008), 85–103; and Rafael A. Serrano, “La
historia de la Biblia en español,” in El Origen de la Biblia, ed. Philip Wesley
Comfort (Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House, 2008), 341–73.
7. Joan F. Adkins, “The Reina-Valera Bible and the King James Version
(1569–1611),” Cithara 14, no. 1 (1974): 74. See also David Daniell, The Bible in
English: Its History and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003),
443–44.
46 v BYU Studies Quarterly

The original Reina-Valera Version has been updated several times

in the past four centuries in order to keep pace with changes in the
Spanish language and advances in biblical scholarship. For many years
the Church used the 1960 edition, which is published by the American
Bible Society and remains the most popular version of the Reina-Valera
today. Efforts were made to obtain copyright permission to reprint that
edition with the unique LDS study aids inserted around the biblical text.
Permission was denied. A search was then made through older editions
that were in the public domain, and the Church decided to make its
own update to the predecessor of the 1960 version.8 This edition was
published in 1909 and is commonly known as la Versión Antigua, “the
Old Version”—an allusion to its status as the traditional Bible of choice
for conservative Protestants.9 Although copyright challenges initiated
the search that led to the 1909 Reina-Valera, Elder Richard G. Scott
explained that “the Spirit identified the edition that we ought to use and
has guided [our] efforts in every detail.”10
In 2004, Jay E. Jensen and Lynn A. Mickelsen of the First Quorum of
the Seventy were called to co-chair the Spanish Bible project. This project
involved both modernizing the 1909 text and preparing Spanish transla-
tions of the appropriate study aids. The entire project was carried out
under the direction of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles. In March 2009, the Church formally announced the new Bible
and its release in September of that year. The timing coincided with the
centennial anniversary of the Reina-Valera Antigua, and the new edi-
tion’s tie to the traditional text was celebrated in its official title, Santa
Biblia: Reina-Valera 2009.11

8. Jay E. Jensen, interview on Mormon Channel, available at http://www​

.mormonchannel.org/conversations/45-elder-jay-e-jensen?v=1756076529001.
9. The 1909 edition of the Reina-Valera was prepared using revisions made
in the years prior by Juan B. Cabrera and Cipriano Tornos. See Eric M. North,
The Book of a Thousand Tongues (New York: American Bible Society, 1938), 305;
and Hazael T. Marroquín, Versiones Castellanas de la Biblia (Mexico City: Casa
de Publicaciones “El Faro,” 1959), 15, 62–63, 100, 200. Their work was in turn
based on an 1862 revision by Lorenzo L. Pedrosa. See Jaime Memory, “Lorenzo
Lucena Pedrosa (1807–1881): Recuperando una figura señera de la Segunda
Reforma española,” Anales de Historia Contemporánea 17 (2001): 224–25.
10. “La edición Santo de los Últimos Días de la Santa Biblia en español.”
11. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Spanish Bible to Benefit
Millions of Mormons,” Newsroom, March 30, 2009, http://www​.mormon​news​
room​.org/article/spanish-bible-to-benefit-millions-of-mormons; The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Church Edition of Spanish Bible Now
 Santa Biblia V 47

Language and Translation

The language of the 1909 Reina-Valera presented some challenges. This
version of the Bible is a Spanish classic, traditionally worded and beau-
tifully expressed. However, the vocabulary is often incomprehensibly
antiquated, the syntax is sometimes awkward, and abandoned ver-
bal forms appear alongside nouns and prepositions whose spelling or
accentuation would raise eyebrows in any modern Spanish classroom.
One option would have been to preserve the 1909 version as it stood,
much like how English-speaking Saints read the similarly archaic lan-
guage of the King James Version.12 Instead, explained Jeffrey C. Bateson,
then director of the Church’s Translation Division, the decision was
made to make “very conservative changes” so that the language would
be more accurate and understandable.13
Church translators began by updating archaic language, spelling, and
accentuation until a reviewable manuscript was ready. Next, Elder Jen-
sen and Elder Mickelsen led an intensive review process that involved
a repeating cycle of feedback and revision from some two hundred
Spanish-speaking priesthood leaders and their wives in nearly a dozen
countries.14 Because the new translation would serve Spanish-speaking
Church members from Spain to Texas to Chile, it was important that

Published,” Newsroom, September 14, 2009, http://www.mormonnews​room​

.org/article/church​-edition-of-spanish-bible-now-published; and “Church
Publishes LDS Edition of the Holy Bible in Spanish,” Ensign 39 (September
2009): 77–78.
12. The most recent official Church statement on the King James Version
acknowledges that modern translations are “easier to read” but affirms the KJV’s
superiority “in doctrinal matters.” See Handbook 2: Administering the Church,
2010 (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2010), 21.1.7.
For a brief discussion of other reasons why the Church uses the KJV, see D. Kelly
Ogden, “Bible: King James Version,” in The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed.
Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 1:109–10. For a histori-
cal review of the Church’s use of the KJV, see Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the
Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion, rev. ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013), 162–98.
13. “Spanish Bible to Benefit Millions.”
14. Elder Brewerton explained that the translation was “guided by the Spirit
through the Melchizedek Priesthood” but also stressed the important contri-
bution of the “many women in the Church who have helped us. They have
given their opinions . . . regarding many points, and we have seen that the Lord
inspires all men and women.” “La edición Santo de los Últimos Días de la Santa
Biblia en español.”
The Santa Biblia and Localization

Localization is an important new paradigm in translation theory.

The term comes from the language industry, and it reflects the idea
of a locale: “a set of linguistic, economic, and cultural parameters
for the end-use of a product” (Anthony Pym, Exploring Trans-
lation Theories [New York: Routledge, 2010], 121). Locales may
include communities such as Argentine Spanish speakers or Mexi-
can Spanish speakers. Localization is the process of preparing a
product for a given locale.
Localization represents a significant change from prior transla-
tion paradigms because it abandons the idea of one-to-one corre-
spondence between a completed source text and a target text. An
example of such one-to-one correspondence would be a transla-
tion of Hamlet into Arabic or French. In that case, a target text
results directly from a source. Rather than moving directly from
source to target, localization employs an intermediate stage known
as internationalization. In the case of an American computer prod-
uct, an internationalized version would be one in which American
cultural elements are removed. This internationalized version—an
intermediate, generic version—can be quickly translated for many
different locales simultaneously.
Essentially, an internationalized product seeks to be as univer-
sal as possible. In some industries, this universal product may even
be distributed along with its more culturally detailed localized ver-
sions. Indeed, the film industry regularly combines localized and
internationalized products. In the DVD version of Disney/Pixar’s
animated film The Incredibles (Los Increíbles, 2005), for example,
Spanish-speaking viewers can watch either a localized Mexican
or Argentine version while reading subtitles written in “neutral”
Spanish. This neutral or internationalized Spanish is a Spanish
spoken by no one but supposedly understandable to everyone.
The new LDS Santa Biblia presents an interesting combina-
tion of internationalized and localized Spanish. Joshua Sears notes
that the Santa Biblia translators sought to create an international-
ized language that would appeal to Spanish speakers everywhere,
in all countries, by minimizing “regional or dialectal differences”
 Santa Biblia V 49

(Sears, 49). At the same time, translators employ language local-

ized for LDS Spanish speakers in several ways: (1) by conserving
familiar archaic scriptural terms such as “aconteció” or “he aquí”;
(2) by employing well-known biblical phrases that are “important
in LDS discourse or that help link biblical passages to linguistic
echoes in modern revelation” (Sears, 52); and (3)  by providing
explanatory notes, many of which are specifically designed for
LDS readers. This combination of internationalized and localized
language represents an important step in the Church’s efforts to
promote scriptural literacy among its members.
—Daryl Hague
Associate Professor of Spanish, Brigham Young University

regional or dialectal differences be minimized. The wording was com-

pared to Hebrew and Greek texts, other Spanish versions, and the King
James Version in English. The challenge was to craft a reading that is
textually accurate, doctrinally sound, beautiful to the ear, and under-
standable to modern readers.15 Achieving these several goals required
more than just dictionaries and lexicons. As Elder D. Todd Christof-
ferson explained, “It is not just a technical undertaking to translate the
scriptures. It’s important that the Spirit be there, that the meaning be
there, that the intent of the Spirit be reflected in the translation.”16
Some examples help demonstrate the kinds of revisions that were
necessary:

15. See the Mormon Channel interview with Elder Jensen; and Scott Tay-
lor, “LDS Spanish Bible Praised for Adding Clarity and Depth,” Deseret News,
September 14, 2009. The American Bible Society went through a very similar
process when it updated the same 1909 text to create the 1960 edition of the
Reina-Valera. See Eugene A. Nida, “Reina-Valera Spanish Revision of 1960,”
The Bible Translator 12, no. 3 (1961): 107–19. Indeed, the wording of several pas-
sages in the Santa Biblia indicates that the Church’s translators consulted the
1960 edition during the course of their work.
16. That Promised Day.
50 v BYU Studies Quarterly

Spelling and Accentuation

1909 Reina-Valera Santa Biblia English meaning
á a to
fué fue was
Bethlehem Belén Bethlehem
Ruth Rut Ruth

Archaic or Obscure Terms

1909 Reina-Valera Santa Biblia English meaning
criar crear to create
parir dar a luz to give birth
la haz la faz face
la conversación la conducta behavior
muy mucho muchísimo very much

Simplified Language
1909 Reina-Valera Santa Biblia
“Señoree en los peces de la mar” “Tenga dominio sobre los peces
(Gen. 1:26) del mar”
[Lord it over the fish of the sea] [Exercise dominion over the fish
of the sea]
“Confortaron las manos de ellos” “Les ayudaron”
(Ezra 1:6) [They helped them]
[They comforted their hands]
“Estaba acostada con calentura; y le “Estaba acostada con fiebre; y en
hablaron luego de ella” (Mark 1:30) seguida le hablaron de ella”
[She lay hot in bed; and they told [She lay in bed with a fever; and they
Jesus afterwards about her] told Jesus about her right away]
“Mas el que es rico, en su bajeza” “Pero el que es rico, en su condición
(James 1:10) humilde”
[Yet he that is rich, in his baseness] [But he that is rich, in his humility]

Certain terms were changed to avoid incorrect or potentially mis-

leading doctrinal interpretations:

Doctrinal Vocabulary
1909 Reina-Valera Santa Biblia
pontífice sumo sacerdote
[pontiff] [high priest]
 Santa Biblia V 51

la salud la salvación
[salvation/health (in modern use usu- [salvation (in appropriate contexts)]
ally the latter)]
“Febe . . . la cual es diaconista” “Febe . . . quien está al servicio”
(Rom. 16:1) [Phoebe, who gives service]
[Phoebe, who is a (female) deacon]

Sometimes the 1909 Reina-Valera is a defensible translation from

Hebrew or Greek (and similar phrasing will appear in other Bible trans-
lations), but does not match the meaning as translated in the King James
Version in English.17 In many cases these differences were allowed to
stand, as in the following examples:

Santa Biblia Passages That Read Differently Than the KJV18

King James Version Santa Biblia (compare other modern
translations)
“For I know that my redeemer liveth, “Yo sé que mi Redentor vive, y que al
and that he shall stand at the latter day final se levantará sobre el polvo”
upon the earth” (Job 19:25) [I know that my Redeemer lives, and
that in the end he will stand upon the
dust]
“. . . and the form of the fourth is like “. . . y el aspecto del cuarto es seme-
the Son of God” (Dan. 3:25) jante a un hijo de los dioses”
[. . . and the appearance of the fourth
is like a son of the gods]
“If any man will do his will, he shall “El que quiera hacer la voluntad de él
know of the doctrine” (John 7:17) conocerá . . . la doctrina”
[He who desires to do his will shall
know . . . the doctrine]

17. For an overview of why different versions of the Bible sometimes read
differently, see Ben Spackman, “Why Bible Translations Differ: A Guide for the
Perplexed,” Religious Educator 15, no. 1 (2014): 30–65.
18. Regarding the second example, the Spanish translation of Daniel 3:25, “a
son of the gods,” does not interpret the passage as an allusion to Christ as the KJV
does. The chapter heading in the 1979 English LDS Bible interpreted the passage
as a reference to Christ (“The Son of God preserves them”), but the 2013 edition
deliberately avoids an interpretation (“They are preserved”).
Regarding the third example, the KJV translation of John 7:17 sounds like
it focuses on one’s actions because modern readers interpret the first “will” as
indicating the future of “do,” but the meaning of the Greek thelē is “wishes/wants.”
The Santa Biblia, like most modern translations, focuses instead on one’s desires.
52 v BYU Studies Quarterly

In other cases, especially when the KJV contains phrases that are
important in LDS discourse or that help link biblical passages to linguis-
tic echoes in modern revelation, the 1909 Reina-Valera was modified to
read more like the KJV. The following are a few examples:

Santa Biblia Passages Harmonized with the KJV

1909 Reina-Valera (cf. modern Santa Biblia (cf. the KJV)
translations)
“Por tanto, he aquí que nuevamente “por tanto, he aquí que nuevamente
excitaré yo la admiración de este haré una obra maravillosa entre este
pueblo con un prodigio grande y pueblo, una obra maravillosa y un
espantoso” (Isa. 29:14) prodigio”
[Therefore, behold, once again I will [Therefore, behold, once again I will
astonish this people with a great and do a marvelous work among this peo-
terrible wonder] ple, a marvelous work and a wonder]
(cf. 2 Ne. 27:26; D&C 4:1)
“Él convertirá el corazón de los padres “Él hará volver el corazón de los padres
á los hijos” (Mal. 4:6) hacia los hijos”
[He will direct the heart of the fathers [He will turn the heart of the fathers
to the children] toward the children] (cf. 3 Ne. 25:6;
D&C 2:2; 110:15; 128:17)
“Por tanto, cuando viereis la abomi- “Por tanto, cuando veáis la abomi-
nación del asolamiento, que fué dicha nación desoladora de la cual habló el
por Daniel profeta, que estará en el profeta Daniel, quedaos en el lugar
lugar santo . . ., entonces los que están santo . . ., entonces los que estén en
en Judea, huyan á los montes” (Matt. Judea huyan a los montes”
24:15–16) [Therefore, when you see the abomi-
[Therefore, when you see the abomi- nation of desolation of which spoke
nation of devastation, which was spo- the prophet Daniel, stand in the holy
ken of by the prophet Daniel, which place! . . . then let those in Judea
will be in the holy place . . . then let flee to the mountains!] (cf. D&C 87:8;
those in Judea flee to the mountains!] 101:22; JS—M 1:12)
“Y á los ángeles que no guardaron su “Y a los ángeles que no guardaron su
dignidad” (Jude 1:6) estado original”
[And the angels who did not keep their [And the angels who did not keep their
office] original estate] (cf. Abr. 3:26, 28)

Another important decision Bible translators or editors must make

is which Hebrew or Greek words to translate and which to transliterate.
Translation expresses the word’s meaning in a new language while trans-
literation simply spells out the foreign word. For example, the revelatory
device used by the Israelite high priest could be translated into English
as “Lights and Perfections” or transliterated as Urim and Thummim.19

19. “Lights and Perfections” is a traditional translation, but scholars still

debate the exact meaning.
 Santa Biblia V 53

Transliterating a word can be advantageous when it is a technical term

that has no exact equivalent in the target language and a translation
would mask the foreign nature or specific nuance of the word. For exam-
ple, the Hebrew term for the place where the dead dwell is Sheol (com-
pare D&C 121:4), but because the KJV translates it variously as “grave”
(31 times), “hell” (31), “pit” (3), and “depth” (once, Isa. 7:11), English read-
ers miss both the specific cultural meaning and the connection between
the various references. The 1909 Reina-Valera similarly uses eight differ-
ent Spanish terms to represent this one Hebrew word. In contrast, the
Santa Biblia changes all but one of these references to the transliterated
word Seol. The disadvantage of transliterating is that it introduces a for-
eign word that readers may not be familiar with, but in the case of Seol,
the editors helped by placing a footnote on some of the references that
explains, “heb[rew] world or dwelling of the dead, grave, hell.”
The King James Version, the 1909 Reina-Valera, and the Santa Biblia
take different approaches in transliterating other words as well. The chart
below displays several examples of the choices made in each version, with
translated words highlighted in gray and transliterated words in white:

Differences in Translation/Transliteration
Hebrew/Greek KJV 1909 Reina-Valera Santa Biblia
ʾăbaddôn destruction Abadón Abadón
apostasia falling away apostasía apostasía
ʾăšērâ grove bosque Asera
macho cabrío
ʾăzaʾzēl scapegoat Azazel
expiatorio
bĕliyyaʿal Belial perverso, Belial perverso
dēnarion penny denario denario
magoi wise men magos magos
mamōnas mammon riquezas, Mammón riquezas
nětînîm Nethinims Nethineos sirvientes del templo
sabaōth Sabaoth ejércitos ejércitos
šabbāt sabbath sábado día de reposo
sepulcro, sepultura,
šĕʾōl grave, hell, pit Seol
infierno
yahweh the Lord Jehová Jehová

These differences mean that Spanish-speaking Latter-day Saints may

become more familiar with certain Hebrew or Greek terms than their
English-speaking counterparts (and conversely, certain other terms will
54 v BYU Studies Quarterly

be more familiar to English speakers). Consider the final example in the

chart, yahweh/Jehovah, the name of God.20 The KJV usually replaces
the name with the euphemistic title “the Lord,” while the Reina-Valera
line of Bibles preserves it as a proper name. Spanish speakers thus inter-
act with the name Jehovah much more often than English speakers and
will more readily recognize Jesus Christ as “the Great Jehovah of the Old
Testament.”21

Name “Jehovah” in . . . English Spanish

Old Testament 4 6,842
Book of Mormon 2 3
Doctrine and Covenants 6 8
Pearl of Great Price 2 2
Total 14 6,855

Considering all the reasons why the 1909 Reina-Valera may have
been modified in particular cases—outdated spelling, vocabulary, or
grammar; doctrinal concerns; linguistic disharmony with other LDS
scripture; and transliteration—how extensive are the revisions? The
chart below displays a sampling of twenty chapters totaling 546 verses
for which I compared the 1909 and 2009 versions word for word.22
It turns out that only 17  verses in the sample, or 3.11  percent, remain
exactly the same in both versions; the rest feature at least one change in
spelling/accentuation (11.90 percent of the verses), at least one change
in vocabulary (13.00 percent), or at least one change to both spelling and
vocabulary (71.98 percent).

20. Modern LDS vernacular typically employs “Jehovah” as the name of

the premortal Jesus Christ and “Elohim” as the name of God the Father. In
biblical usage, ʾĕlōhîm is the generic Hebrew word for “God/god/gods” and
yahweh (Jehovah) is the proper name of the Israelites’ God. For a review of how
Latter-day Saints have used these terms over their history, see Ryan C. Davis
and Paul Hoskisson, “Usage of the Title Elohim,” Religious Educator 14, no. 1
(2013): 109–27.
21. “The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles,” Ensign 30 (April
2000): 2.
22. The chapters include Genesis 1; Deuteronomy 1; Ruth 1; 1 Kings 1; Ezra 1;
Psalm 1; Isaiah 1; Daniel 1; Micah 1; Malachi 1; Mark 1; Luke 1; Acts 1; Romans 1;
1 Corinthians 1; 1 Thessalonians 1; Hebrews 1; James 1; 1 John 1; and Revelation 1.
 Santa Biblia V 55

Frequency of at Least One

Spelling or Vocabulary Same in both
versions (3.11%)
Change per Verse in a 546- Spelling changes
Verse Sample Comparing (11.90%)
the 1909 Reina-Valera
and the 2009 Santa Biblia
Vocabulary
changes (13.00%)

Spelling and vocabulary

changes (71.98%)

These data suggest that the “very conservative changes” made to the
1909 edition must be understood as conservative in kind, but not num-
ber. While the editors rarely made changes that substantially alter the
basic meaning of the 1909 Reina-Valera, the changes are bounteous, and
the result is a Bible that is considerably more readable. The Santa Biblia
is by no means colloquial and certainly retains the dignity of language
that Latter-day Saints expect from their scriptures, but the moderniza-
tion of its grammar, syntax, spelling, and vocabulary make a profound
difference in reading comprehension.23

Textual Makeup
The wording of any particular verse in the Santa Biblia depends not only
on how it was translated from Hebrew or Greek into Spanish but also on
which particular Hebrew and Greek manuscripts were utilized as the basis
for translation. Because multiple manuscript copies of the scriptures exist
and most do not read exactly the same way in every instance, Bible trans-
lators and editors must employ textual criticism, the process of comparing
variant readings and deciding, based on all the evidence, which reading is
to be preferred.
Both the King James and Reina-Valera Old Testaments are based on a
medieval manuscript family called the Masoretic Text, and thus their tex-
tual base is very similar. The English and Spanish LDS Bibles occasionally

23. I should stress that the language is not completely modernized. For
example, the Santa Biblia retains the second person plural pronoun vosotros
(which has mostly disappeared from spoken Spanish outside of Spain) as well
as traditional scriptural terms like he aquí (“behold”) and y aconteció (“and it
came to pass”).
56 v BYU Studies Quarterly

contain footnotes suggesting alternate readings based on the Greek Sep-

tuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and other non-Masoretic sources.24
Both the King James and Reina-Valera New Testaments are based
on a printed Greek text from the sixteenth century known as the Textus
Receptus (TR), which itself is based on a few late Greek manuscripts.25
While the King James Version follows the TR very closely, the Reina-
Valera New Testament has always included some passages that incor-
porate other textual traditions. Reina himself included some variant
readings from other sources such as the Latin Vulgate. During the nine-
teenth century, scholars began publishing new editions of the Greek
New Testament that incorporated evidence from Greek manuscripts
that are much older than those used for the TR. These “critical editions”
of the Greek New Testament are based not on any single manuscript but
review all available data and decide on a case-by-case basis which vari-
ant reading is the best for any given passage.26 Different editions of the
Reina-Valera have varied in how much they follow these newer editions
and deviate from the TR.
Where does the Santa Biblia fit into this picture? The chart below dis-
plays a sampling of about two hundred verses I examined that I knew
ahead of time read differently in the TR and modern critical editions.
I looked up each of these passages in the Santa Biblia and in the editions of

24. There are twenty-eight text-critical notes in the LDS English Old Testa-
ment and twenty in Spanish, a very small number in comparison with most
modern Bibles (the New Revised Standard Version surpasses that count in the
book of Genesis alone). The most significant advancements in Old Testament
text criticism in the past century have resulted from the discovery of the Dead
Sea Scrolls, but unfortunately no LDS edition of the Bible has yet incorporated
any insights from those texts. For a brief introduction to what the scrolls con-
tribute to our understanding of the text of the Bible, see Donald W. Parry, “The
Dead Sea Scrolls Bible,” Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 2 (2010): 1–27.
25. For more background on the Textus Receptus and the various New Tes-
tament manuscript families, see Carol F. Ellertson, “New Testament Manu-
scripts, Textual Families, and Variants,” in How the New Testament Came to Be,
ed. Kent P. Jackson and Frank F. Judd Jr. (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies
Center and Deseret Book, 2006), 93–108; and Lincoln H. Blumell, “The Text
of the New Testament,” in Jackson, King James Bible and the Restoration, 61–74.
26. For discussions on New Testament textual criticism from a Latter-day
Saint perspective, see Carl W. Griffin and Frank F. Judd Jr., “Principles of New
Testament Textual Criticism,” in Jackson and Judd, How the New Testament
Came to Be, 78–92; and Lincoln H. Blumell, “A Text-Critical Comparison of the
King James New Testament with Certain Modern Translations,” Studies in the
Bible and Antiquity 3 (2011): 67–126.
 Santa Biblia V 57

the Reina-Valera that preceded it to see which reading they follow in each
case. For comparison, two English versions are also listed, the King James
Version (1611) and the New Revised Standard Version (1989):
0   20   40   60   80   100   120   140   160   180   200  

1602 RV

1862 RV

1909 RV

1960 RV

Santa Bib

KJV

NRSV

Transla�on  follows  modern  cri�cal  Greek  texts  

Transla�on  follows  the  tradi�onal  reading  in  the  Textus  Receptus  

As shown above, the original 1602 Reina-Valera follows the Textus

Receptus in nearly three-quarters of the sample. With the advancement
of textual criticism in the nineteenth century, the editors of the 1862
Reina-Valera modified the text to follow additional critical text readings.
The 1909 Reina-Valera preserves most of these modifications and adds a
few more, and the 1960 update by the American Bible Society seems to
have followed a strategy of adopting critical readings on most occasions
when the opportunity presented itself. Next, the Santa Biblia appears.
For the verses in this sample, the Santa Biblia’s editors switched a few
critically worded passages back to the TR wording but also amended
twenty-two existing TR readings to follow the critical wording instead.
This means the Santa Biblia features a net gain of critical readings over
its 1909 parent text (although still not as many as its 1960 sister text).
One example of a textual emendation is found in Matthew 5:22. The
KJV (following the Textus Receptus) reads, “Whosoever is angry with his
brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.” The phrase
“without a cause” is a late intrusion into the Greek text.27 It also appears in
the 1909 Reina-Valera (“locamente”), but the phrase was dropped from
the Santa Biblia, bringing it into line with both critical Greek texts and,

27. See Daniel K Judd and Allen W. Stoddard, “Adding and Taking Away
‘Without a Cause’ in Matthew 5:22,” in Jackson and Judd, How the New Testa-
ment Came to Be, 157–74.
58 v BYU Studies Quarterly

significantly, the reading in the Book of Mormon (compare 3 Ne. 12:22).

Other examples of passages in which the Santa Biblia New Testament
follows a different textual reading than the KJV include the following:28

Textual Differences between the KJV and Santa Biblia

King James Version 1909 Reina-Valera, Santa Biblia, and
(based on the Textus Receptus) modern translations
(based on critical Greek texts)
“Ye have heard that it was said by them Omit “by them of old time”
of old time, Thou shalt not commit
adultery” (Matt. 5:27)
“As it is written in the prophets, “The prophets” replaced by “Isaiah the
Behold . . .” (Mark 1:2) prophet”
“The day of Christ is at hand” (2 Thes. 2:2) “Christ” replaced by “the Lord”
“As newborn babes, desire the sincere Add a missing phrase: “grow thereby
milk of the word, that ye may grow unto salvation”
thereby” (1 Pet. 2:2)

In other cases in which the KJV and the 1909 Reina-Valera are textu-
ally distinct, the latter was altered to read like the KJV. These emenda-
tions do more than simply translate Greek into Spanish a little differently:
they reflect a change in which Greek texts underlie the translation in the
first place. For example:

Santa Biblia Passages Textually Harmonized with the KJV

King James Version and the Santa Biblia 1909 Reina-Valera and other modern
(based on the Textus Receptus) translations
(based on critical Greek texts)
“I came not to call the righteous, but Omit “to repentance”
sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17)
“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Omit “of Christ”
Christ” (Rom. 1:16)
“God, who created all things by Jesus Omit “by Jesus Christ”
Christ” (Eph. 3:9)
“Hereby perceive we the love of God” Omit “of God”
(1 John 3:16)

Many of these kinds of textual changes reflect a desire to follow the

reading that maintains the most emphasis on Jesus Christ, or to preserve

28. For more examples, compare the KJV and Santa Biblia in Matthew 15:8;
24:2; 28:2; Mark 9:24; 11:10; Luke 4:41; 11:29; 23:42; Acts 7:30; 1 Corinthians 9:1;
and 2 Corinthians 4:10.
 Santa Biblia V 59

other important doctrinal ideas that may be reflected in one variant

reading but not another.
To those unfamiliar with Bible translating, it may seem strangely eclec-
tic to pick and choose readings from disparate textual witnesses. This is
a standard practice, however. All translator-editors, be they tied to a uni-
versity or a church, come to their work with certain goals and viewpoints.
These determine how they prioritize evidence while engaging in textual
criticism, and how they then balance that evidence with other concerns. An
interesting example is how translations treat Mark 16:9–20, the final dozen
verses of Mark. These verses do not appear in the earliest manuscripts, and
the vocabulary varies somewhat from the rest of the book. The 1952 Revised
Standard Version of the Bible does not include this passage because its
editors decided that if Mark were not the original author then these verses
should be treated differently. In 2001, a group of evangelical Christians
published the English Standard Version, an update of the Revised Standard
Version that modifies what they considered to be its more liberal edito-
rial choices. They restored the longer ending of Mark. Both groups of edi-
tors had access to the same information, but their goals and viewpoints
meant they approached this textual decision differently. For its part, an LDS
Church manual acknowledges that Mark 16:9–20 “might not have been
written by Mark” but concludes that “whatever the reasons for the manu-
script variations, the Church accepts all of Mark 16 as inspired scripture.
Its value is based not on which human being wrote it, but on its inspired
testimony of truth.”29 The “original” reading, then, is an important but not
the only issue when determining how variant readings should be treated.
The textual editing of the Santa Biblia reflects these priorities. The
Santa Biblia’s editors, as does any group that engages in biblical transla-
tion, used the results of textual criticism but did so in light of their own
perspectives and priorities. For Latter-day Saints, it is only natural that
textual decisions be made in light of the doctrinal and textual insights
available through the restored gospel.

Formatting, Chapter Headings, and Appendices

The basic page layout in the Santa Biblia looks very familiar to those
who have used other LDS scriptures (fig. 3). The text is arranged in dou-
ble columns above a three-column space for footnotes. Headings run
along the top of the page, and each chapter begins with a summarizing

29. See the commentary under “Mark 16:9–20. The Conclusion of the Gos-
pel of Mark,” in New Testament Student Manual: Religion 211–212 (Salt Lake City:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2014), 135.
60 v BYU Studies Quarterly

Figure 3. Genesis chapter 1 in the Santa Biblia. The design is based on the English
LDS Bible with a few differences, such as larger type. © Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
 Santa Biblia V 61

Figure 4. Jonah 1:8–2:6 in the Santa Biblia. In contrast to the prose text of chapter 1,
the psalm in chapter 2 is arranged in poetic stanzas. © Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
62 v BYU Studies Quarterly

heading in italics. A few cosmetic details, which are standard in other

foreign-language scripture editions, differentiate it from the En­glish
Bible, such as a horizontal line separating the text from the header space.
The Spanish Bible also uses a larger font than the English edition, requir-
ing over four hundred more pages to cover Genesis through Revelation.
On rare occasions, the Reina-Valera versification differs from the KJV.30
One of the most striking visual differences between the two Bibles are
the poetic stanzas that appear in the Psalms and many other sections
with poetry, a feature the Santa Biblia preserves from the existing Reina-
Valera translation (see fig. 4 for one example).
The chapter headings in the Santa Biblia are for the most part close
translations of the headings found in the LDS Bible in English. In sev-
eral instances the headings differ from the original 1979 headings and
more closely resemble those found in the 2013 English edition, following
changes that had been incorporated into the online English scriptures
years before they appeared in print. And yet even in comparison with the
2013 edition, the Spanish chapter headings sometimes feature their own
unique wording that improves the description. Consider a few examples:

Improvements in Spanish Chapter Headings

1979/2013 English headings Santa Biblia headings
“Abraham marries” (Gen. 25) “Abraham se casa de nuevo”
[Abraham remarries]
“Joseph meets Jacob” (Gen. 46) “José se reúne con Jacob”
[Joseph reunites with Jacob]
“The nearest relative declines, “El pariente más cercano se niega a cumplir
and Boaz takes Ruth to wife— con su deber, y Booz toma a Rut por esposa—
Ruth bears Obed, through Rut da a luz a Obed; éste fue padre de Isaí,
whom came David the king” quien engendró al rey David”
(Ruth 4) [The nearest relative refuses to fulfill his duty,
and Boaz takes Ruth to wife—Ruth bears
Obed; he was the father of Jesse, who begat
King David]
“He opens the ears and loosens “Jesús le abre los oídos y le suelta la lengua a
the tongue of a person with an un hombre sordo y tartamudo”
impediment” (Mark 7) [Jesus opens the ears and loosens the tongue
of a deaf and stuttering man]

30. Sometimes versification in the Reina-Valera that conflicts with the KJV
was allowed to stand in the Santa Biblia (for example, 1 Kgs. 18:33–34; 3 John
1:14–15), and in other places the verses were reordered to match the KJV (for
example, Job 38–40). All versification systems were created long after the bibli-
cal books were written.
 Santa Biblia V 63

In addition to the footnotes and chapter headings, other Santa Bib-

lia study aids appear in an appendix with three sections: Bible Refer-
ence Guide, Selections from the Joseph Smith Translation, and Bible
Maps and Photographs. The fourteen-page Reference Guide (“Guía de
Referencias”) is a new feature not found in the English LDS Bible. It
consists of lists of chapter-and-verse references under the headings of
the Godhead, Gospel Topics, People, Places, and Events. It serves as a
very basic concordance to substitute for the much more detailed Guide
to the Scriptures, which was not included under the covers of the Santa
Biblia because most readers would already have it in their copies of
the Triple Combination.31 The Bible Maps and Photographs section
updates a similar appendix that previously appeared in the Spanish
­Triple Combination.

The Joseph Smith Translation

The section in the appendix titled “Selections from the Joseph Smith
Translation” deserves special consideration. As with the English edition,
excerpts from Joseph Smith’s revision of the Bible are found in the foot-
notes or, if the citation is too lengthy, in the appendix. At the time the
Santa Biblia was published, the 1993 edition of the Spanish Triple Com-
bination already contained a similar section in its own appendix. The
Santa Biblia’s version, however, was rewritten so that the JST changes
work around the Santa Biblia’s own text, whereas the Triple Combina-
tion’s version was based on the 1960 Reina-Valera.
The text of the JST required some adjusting to account for the syntax
and vocabulary differences between English and Spanish.32 As in the
English LDS Bible, italicized words indicate changes made by Joseph

31. The Guide to the Scriptures is a simplified combination of both the Bible
Dictionary and the Topical Guide, and is included in foreign-language versions
of the Book of Mormon and Triple Combination.
32. In most cases these adjustments read smoothly, but in some cases the
differences prove difficult to reconcile. For example, KJV Exodus 34:14 reads,
“the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God,” and the JST changes the
first “Jealous” to “Jehovah.” Since the name Jehovah is the Hebrew term behind
KJV “the Lord,” and since the Reina-Valera simply uses the proper name, a
Spanish translation incorporating the JST would read, “Jehovah, whose name is
Jehovah, is a jealous God.” To avoid this awkward construction, the Santa Bib-
lia’s JST footnote reads instead, “the Lord, whose name is Jehovah, is a jealous
God,” a fix that inadvertently signals to Spanish readers that the biblical word
“Jehovah” was changed by Joseph Smith to “the Lord.”
64 v BYU Studies Quarterly

Smith,33 but the Santa Biblia innovates with the occasional addition of
square brackets that “were added to the Spanish translation to help con-
vey the meaning,” according to the Abbreviations page. These brackets
appear thirty-seven times in the footnotes and JST Appendix, and their
most common function is to mark phrases that are identical in the KJV
and JST but that read differently in the Santa Biblia and the Spanish JST.
This helps indicate to Spanish readers that the bracketed phrase in the
Spanish JST, while different from the wording in the Santa Biblia, does
not represent a change made by Joseph Smith.34
In addition to differences in language, sometimes rendering the
Joseph Smith Translation into Spanish is a challenge because the JST
was created using a specific English translation, the King James Version,
as a base text. JST revisions often respond to issues that are not inher-
ent in the Bible but are rather tied to the unique phrasing of the KJV.35

33. Italicizing unique JST phrasing was an innovation of the 1979 English
edition, but unfortunately the explanation for the italicized words found on
the Abbreviations page of the 1979 edition disappeared when that page was
redesigned for the 2013 edition.
34. The square brackets in the Spanish JST perform a total of four func-
tions: First, to indicate phrases that are common to the KJV and JST but read
differently in the Santa Biblia (Gen. 14:18; 24:9; 1 Chr. 21:15; Ps. 11:5; 138:8, first
set of brackets; Isa. 42:21, 23; Matt. 21:49; Mark 11:10; Luke 4:2; 8:1; 8:23, both
sets of brackets; 9:31, the phrase “las cuales habían”; 11:41; Acts 23:27; Rom.
1:18; 4:5; 1 Cor. 7:9, first set of brackets; 10:11; 14:35; Gal. 2:4; 3:20, both sets of
brackets; Heb. 4:3; 6:7; 7:20; and 2 Pet. 3:5, 10; all references follow JST versi-
fication). Second, to mark words added for the benefit of Spanish syntax (Ex.
14:7; Luke 12:42; John 11:17; and Heb. 6:10; 10:10). Third, to insert editorial clari-
fications (Ex. 4:25; Luke 9:31, the phrase “de Jesús”; and 1 Cor. 7:9, second set
of brackets). Fourth, to provide an alternate word for the preceding word (Ps.
138:8, second set of brackets). The brackets in the JST footnote to Mark 11:10
mark words missing in the Santa Biblia not because of translational variation
between it and the KJV, but because of textual differences in Greek manu-
scripts (the Santa Biblia, like most modern translations, does not include the
KJV line “in the name of the Lord”).
35. Many Latter-day Saints assume that the Joseph Smith Translation rep-
resents a restoration of original biblical text, and while parts of it certainly can
be, much of the JST seems to represent other kinds of changes. According to
Kent Jackson, one of the foremost scholars of the Prophet’s work, most JST
revisions appear to be efforts on the part of Joseph Smith to make the Bible
more understandable to modern readers, including modernizing archaic King
James language. See Kent P. Jackson, “New Discoveries in the Joseph Smith
Translation of the Bible,” Religious Educator 6, no. 3 (2005): 152–53; and Kent P.
 Santa Biblia V 65

A common example is the way the JST updates archaic English words to
modern English words (such as wot to know or which to who). Because
of this, the JST sometimes solves difficulties that are nonexistent in other
translations of the Bible, including the Reina-Valera in Spanish. In cases
where a JST revision contributes little or nothing to the Spanish text,
the editors of the Santa Biblia sometimes left out the JST reference and
sometimes included it anyway.36
When the Santa Biblia was released in 2009, it contained twenty-four
JST citations that were not included in the 1979 English Bible, and thus
Spanish-speaking Latter-day Saints actually had access to more of the
JST than English speakers. The 2013 English edition caught up with
the Spanish edition and includes some new JST citations the Spanish
edition does not have. The chart below compares the number of verses
from the JST cited in whole or in part in the 1979 English Bible, the 1993
Spanish Triple Combination appendix, the 2009 Spanish Bible, and the
2013 English Bible:37

Jackson and Peter M. Jasinski, “The Process of Inspired Translation: Two Pas-
sages Translated Twice in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible,” BYU Stud-
ies 42, no. 2 (2003): 58–62. See also Robert J. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation”:
Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible: A History and Commentary (Provo, Utah:
Brigham Young University Press, 1975), 253.
36. For an example of the latter, in KJV Acts 23:27 the Roman chief cap-
tain writes that Paul “should have been killed” by the Jews. The JST amends
“should” to “would,” which more clearly expresses in modern English that the
chief captain is describing a hypothetical situation and not something that he
desires to happen. In the Santa Biblia, this English distinction is not an issue (it
simply says iban ellos a matar, “they were going to kill” him), but a JST footnote
rewrites the sentence to include the conditional tense (ellos habrían [matado],
“they would have [killed]” him; brackets in original). In cases like this, the Span-
ish JST does represent what Joseph Smith said, but it is unclear how the Spanish
reader benefits from the alternate reading.
37. These counts include JST citations found in only the footnotes or appen-
dix of the Bible and not verses in the Book of Moses or Joseph Smith—Matthew,
which also come from the JST but are printed in the Pearl of Great Price. The
half-verses (“.5”) displayed under the 1979 English Bible represent JST Luke 21:24,
which in that edition appears in part in the footnotes and in part in the appendix
(the 2013 edition moves the entire verse to the appendix). Three footnotes (1 Cor.
14:2a; Heb. 9:15c; Rev. 2:1a) explain that a JST change also applies to other verses in
the same chapter, and I have counted those additional verses as having been cited.
66 v BYU Studies Quarterly

JST verses cited in . . . 1979 1993 Spanish 2009 2013

English Triple Spanish English
Footnotes only 460.5 — 453 478
Appendix only 425.5 368 430 428
Both 1 — 12 12
Total 887 368 895 918

When comparing these numbers, it is important to keep in mind that

some JST references were deliberately left out of the Santa Biblia either
because the JST change is not relevant in Spanish or because the Santa
Biblia already reads like the JST anyway. This exclusion explains why the
Spanish edition cites only a few more total verses than the 1979 English
edition (895 compared to 887) even though it introduced twenty-four new
JST citations. Similarly, even though the 2013 English edition quotes many
more JST verses than the Spanish edition (918 compared to 895), all but a
handful of the additional verses would not be relevant in Spanish anyway.
The Santa Biblia’s JST appendix includes a few other modifications.
The chart below compares various features in the “Selections from the
Joseph Smith Translation” section in the appendices of the 1979 English
Bible, the 1993 Spanish Triple Combination, the 2009 Spanish Bible, and
the 2013 English Bible:

JST Appendix Feature 1979 1993 Spanish 2009 2013

English Triple Spanish English
Italics to indicate changes x x x
Introductory paragraph x x x
Parallel JST/biblical verse x x x
references
Explanatory headings x x
Larger font x x

The Santa Biblia’s JST footnotes and appendix mark a historic develop-
ment in how Latter-day Saints use the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.
Although selections from the JST had previously been included in the
appendices of foreign-language editions of the Triple Combination, a com-
plete foreign-language translation of all the verses available in the En­glish
LDS Bible “is something we [previously] had never had in the Church.”38

38. As phrased by Elder Carlos Amado in “La edición Santo de los Últimos
Días de la Santa Biblia en español.” It is important to note, however, that even in
English the LDS edition of the Bible only includes a selection of all the changes
 Santa Biblia V 67

Explanatory Footnotes
The footnotes in the Santa Biblia are, like the chapter headings, based
on those found in the English LDS Bible. They include cross-references
to the Bible and other LDS scripture, alternate translations of Hebrew
and Greek words, explanations of difficult idioms, alternate meanings
of archaic expressions, citations from the Joseph Smith Translation of
the Bible, and other miscellaneous notes. The Santa Biblia’s explanatory
notes, however, are not all exact copies of the English originals. They
occasionally innovate by adding more detail to existing English notes
and by correcting mistakes in them, including mistakes that remain in
the English version up through the 2013 edition.39
Individuals who look through the Santa Biblia often notice, some-
times with some surprise, how few footnotes there appear to be in
comparison with the English edition.40 This observation may lead to
the assumption that because the Spanish notes are fewer, they must
represent an abbreviated or “lite” version of the English notes—and
thus are inferior. It is a fact that the explanatory footnotes41 number

made by Joseph Smith. The definitive edition of the complete JST is Scott H.
Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds., Joseph Smith’s New
Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies
Center, Brigham Young University, 2004). A more reader-friendly edition of
the complete JST may be found in Thomas Wayment, ed., The Complete Joseph
Smith Translation of the Old Testament: A Side-by-Side Comparison with the
King James Version (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012) and The Complete
Joseph Smith Translation of the New Testament: A Side-by-Side Comparison with
the King James Version (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005).
39. Some examples where the Santa Biblia adds more detail to or corrects
English notes include Isaiah 11:8a; 15:5 (footnote b in English and a in Spanish);
60:8a; Ezekiel 27:16a; Amos 5:8a; Hosea 2:15a; Mark 13:1 (the incorrect state-
ment in English footnote a was dropped in Spanish); and John 4:20a (the cross-
reference in English points to the wrong historical reference, but the Spanish
note replaces it with an accurate description).
40. For example, Barlow notes that the “explanatory footnotes are some-
what sparer than in the English version” (Mormons and the Bible, xl), and Kent
Larson writes that he was “surprised when [he] saw noticeably fewer footnotes
than in the English edition.” Kent Larson, “Some Notes on the New Spanish
LDS Bible,” Times and Seasons [blog], September 18, 2009, http://timesand​
seasons​.org/index.php/2009/09/some-notes-on-the-new-spanish-lds-bible/.
My own anecdotal experience suggests that this is not an uncommon reaction.
41. My analysis here purposefully focuses on what I call “explanatory
notes”—those that provide cultural, textual, or linguistic information. In con-
trast, my figures ignore cross-references and Topical Guide entries. Compar-
ing these kinds of notes in English and Spanish is often an apples-to-oranges
68 v BYU Studies Quarterly

about 40 percent fewer in the Spanish Bible. That figure does not tell
the whole story, however. While there are indeed helpful English notes
that did not make it into the Santa Biblia, often an English note did not
need to be included in the Spanish edition because the Spanish trans-
lation already read clearly without it. In other cases, as shown in the
examples below, the 1909 Reina-Valera originally read like the KJV but
the editors of the Santa Biblia, instead of simply translating the English
footnote, took the footnote’s wording and inserted it directly into the
biblical text (strikeouts below show the original wording, bolding com-
pares the English footnote and the Spanish textual revision):

English Footnotes Incorporated Directly into the Spanish Text

KJV text and LDS footnote Changes from the 1909 Reina-Valera
to the Santa Biblia
“in the aoracle” (2 Chron. 3:16) “en el oratorio santuario interior”
  a or inner sanctuary
“the snares of death aprevented me” “previniéronme los lazos de la muerte
(Ps. 18:5) me confrontaron”
  a heb confronted
“thy bprofiting may appear to all” “para que tu aprovechamiento pro-
(1 Tim. 4:15) greso sea manifiesto a todos”
  b gr progress, advancement
“aAccounting that God was able” “Pensando Considerando que Dios es
(Heb. 11:19) poderoso”
  a gr Considering

Because some explanatory notes would be helpful in both the En­glish

and Spanish editions, while some notes would be helpful in only one or
the other, the number of notes in each edition must be compared with
those differences in mind. The charts on page 70 compare the number of
explanatory notes of various kinds that appear in the 2013 En­glish edi-
tion and the Santa Biblia.42 (Numbers for the 1979 English edition differ

endeavor because the entries in the English Topical Guide and Spanish Guide
to the Scriptures are organized differently.
42. The numbers I present here are a little different than what one would
find by simply performing an electronic word search to determine how fre-
quently a certain footnote label appears (such as HEB, the label for Hebrew
notes, or IE, the label for idioms and difficult wording). There are several rea-
sons for this. (1) For simplicity, the few Aramaic notes are counted as Hebrew
notes. (2) Sometimes the English edition assigns one label to a certain note and
the Spanish edition assigns another; in such cases, I chose the label I think best
 Santa Biblia V 69

significantly from the 2013 edition only in the case of JST references, so
those are displayed separately.) Whether or not a footnote is language-
specific or more universally applicable is distinguished according to the
key below:
= Unique footnotes that would not be helpful in the other edition

= Unique footnotes that would also be helpful in the other edition

= Footnotes that appear in both language editions

When the numbers in each category are added up, we find that the
English edition contains a total of 5,207 explanatory notes. The Spanish
edition borrows 2,419 of these, or 46.46 percent. The Spanish edition
then adds 908 new explanatory notes, creating a total of 3,327. The Span-
ish total is 36.12 percent smaller than the English total.
Moving past the raw totals, distinguishing between notes that are
edition-specific or that would be helpful in both editions leads to two
important observations. First, the data provided in these charts show
that although thousands of explanatory notes from the English Bible
do not appear in the Santa Biblia, the vast majority—2,474 out of 2,788
missing notes—did not carry over simply because they are not needed
in Spanish. The fact that the Santa Biblia borrowed fewer than half of
the English explanatory notes does not signify that its notes are inferior
to the English version’s as much as it suggests how much more lucid the
Spanish translation is in comparison with the KJV.
The second important observation is that 641 of the 908 new explan-
atory notes added to the Spanish edition (more than two-thirds) are not
uniquely tied to the Spanish text but provide information that would be
useful in English as well. Consider, for example, how helpful it might
be for the English notes to elaborate on terms like covenant, Sela, Levi-
athan, or the technical terms that appear at the beginning of many
Psalms—all of which the English notes routinely ignore and the Spanish
notes routinely comment on. Furthermore, in contrast to these 641 notes

represents the note and count them both that way. (3) Some notes that are text
critical in nature, meaning they provide an alternate reading from different
manuscripts, hide under other labels like OR. In cases where I spotted them,
I ignore the printed label and count it as a “Textual” note. (4)  Sometimes a
footnote will contain what are really two notes together and I split them for
the purpose of counting. (5) The Spanish Bible occasionally uses the label Tam-
bién (“Also”), but it is so rare and always fits so well with other labels I simply
re­assign the note to another category.
 HEB GR
ALTERNATE TRANSLATIONS FROM HEB FROM GREEK
ALTERNATE TRANSLATIONS
HEBREW ALTERNATE TRANSLATIONS FROM ALTERNATE TRA
HEBREW ALTERNATE

674
726 674
48 726 7
61 48 726
101 193 27
101 193 61
466 466 394 394 101
466 466 394
466
ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH
ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH
ENGLISH

OR OTHER
IE
ARCHAIC EXPRESSIONS ORWITHOUT LABELS
EXPLANATORY NOTES
GRAND
IDIOMS IE
ARCHAIC EXPRESSIONS EXPLANATORY
S FROM ALTERNATE HEB
TRANSLATIONS FROM GREEK
DIFFICULT WORDING
GRAND
IDIOMS ARCHA
ALTERNATE TRANSLATIONS FROM ALTERNATEDIFFICULT
TRANSLATIONS FROM GREEK
WORDING
HEBREW 6
72
213 72 9 57
194
852 213 72 9
674
45 194
15
852 213
127 674
45 15
852
48 726 1467 127
579 75 48 68 687
146
193 61
579 27
579 75 68
362
101 362
193 61
579 27
579 75
466 394 394 362 362
466 466 394 394 362
PANISH ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH
ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH
PANISH ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH
ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH
JST (1979) JST (2013)
, VULGATE, JOSEPH TEXTUAL
SMITH TRANSLATION JOSEPHJST
SMITH(1979)
TRANSLATION JS
OTHER
COMPARISONS(not
TO SEPTUAGINT, VULGATE, TEXTUAL
JOSEPH (not
SMITH TRANSLATION JOSEPHJS
S
NS OR
to
EXPLANATORY NOTES
scale)
ETC. WITHOUT LABELS
OTHER
COMPARISONS(not
to scale)
TO to
SEPTUAGINT,
scale) VULGATE, JOSEPH (n
S
ARCHAIC EXPRESSIONS EXPLANATORY NOTESETC.WITHOUT LABELS (n
G

3 6
6
772
159 24 163
13 757 247 16
5
213 15
9 57
215
852 5 13
42 15
127 15 5 42
17
146 509 127
509 533 533
17
68 17
14668 509 509 533
579 75 17
68 17
68 509
362
ANISH 362
ENGLISH 362
SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH
ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH
PANISH ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH
PANISH ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH

JST (2013)
ATION JST
JOSEPH SMITH(1979)
TRANSLATION JST (2013)
T, VULGATE, JOSEPH SMITH
(not toTRANSLATION
scale) JOSEPH SMITH TRANSLATION
(not to scale) (not to scale)

24 16
7 24 16
15
5
24 4
509
17 533 533
509 509 533 533
PANISH ENGLISH SPANISH
PANISH ENGLISH SPANISH ENGLISH SPANISH
 Santa Biblia V 71

that the English edition is missing out on, there are only 314 notes in the
English edition that the Spanish edition does not have but would benefit
from. In other words, it turns out that between the two versions, it is the
English edition that is missing out on most of the information that is
found in one edition but not the other.
The footnotes, then, follow the pattern of the other features of the
Santa Biblia: they take what is already good in the English edition and
find ways to improve it when possible.

Impact
Just as the English LDS Bible did in 1979, the Santa Biblia marks a
milestone in the history of Latter-day Saint scripture. The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now has over fifteen million members
around the world, more than half of whom live outside of the United
States. Church materials have been published in more than 170 lan-
guages, and Church members who do not speak English outnumber
those who do. The publication of its first foreign-language edition of the
Old and New Testaments, then, marks an important if natural develop-
ment in the international growth of the Church.
At the same time, the Santa Biblia reflects more than changes in Mor-
mon demographics. It is important to remember that the Santa Biblia is
not only the Church’s first Spanish Bible, it was the first Bible transla-
tion the Church had published in any language. The English edition
inherited the King James translation whole, which, even considering the
enormous effort that went into the study aids, limited the kinds of ques-
tions that needed to be asked of the text. In contrast, although the 1909
Reina-Valera provided the Church with a base text (saving it the dif-
ficult task of starting a translation from scratch), the decision to revise
the biblical text itself required interacting with the Bible to an extent
and level of detail perhaps unmatched since Joseph Smith completed
his own revision in 1833. In addition to hundreds of new footnotes, this
interaction is reflected in how the translators and editors approached
the respected yet archaic language of the 1909 Reina-Valera. They set
out to achieve the challenging goal of updating and modernizing in
a way that still preserved the sacred flavor of the original, and in my
opinion they succeeded. This translational approach represents a differ-
ent strategy than what has been done with the English Bible, where the
perceived benefits of exactly preserving a historically significant transla-
tion have, thus far, outweighed any benefits of linguistic modernization,
even if this means people must struggle more to understand Hosea or
72 v BYU Studies Quarterly

Paul. The Santa Biblia is also relatively progressive in its attitude toward
New Testament textual criticism. By allowing several passages inherited
from the Reina-Valera to remain textually distinct from the KJV (and
ultimately the Greek of the Textus Receptus) and especially by freshly
altering existing TR readings to follow other textual readings, the Santa
Biblia’s editors implicitly acknowledged that multiple textual witnesses
exist and that no single one of them is the best in every case.43
The Santa Biblia is also notable for the ways in which it was allowed
to appropriately diverge from the English edition. While the Spanish
edition is formatted to look like its English predecessor and its study
aids follow the English version as much as possible, its editors did not
see the En­glish edition as completely sacrosanct. In appropriate situ-
ations, the English chapter headings were modified and the footnotes
were deleted, refined, or supplemented. Even though the King James
translation was consulted and some passages in the Santa Biblia were
modified to read like the KJV, there was no overriding concern that
every verse sound the same or even mean the same thing. Even chap-
ters with parallel translations in the Book of Mormon were not harmo-
nized to strictly match that rendition. This independence means that
the Spanish biblical text is in many instances more readable and more
accurate than the King James translation.
The Santa Biblia also transcends its identity as a “Spanish Bible” by
making at least two important contributions that benefit even Latter-
day Saints who are not native Spanish speakers. First, in the Church
at large the Santa Biblia is leading to an increased recognition of
heroes from history whose dedication and faith helped further God’s
purposes, but whose stories are often overlooked. General conference

43. To appreciate the significance of this editorial decision, one must

remember how passionately President J. Reuben Clark argued for the Textus
Receptus against modern critical editions of the New Testament. His fullest
treatment of this subject, Why the King James Version (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book, 1956), relied on the work of several conservative Protestant scholars of
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and some of his arguments are
now sorely out of date. For two recent appraisals by LDS scholars, see Grant
Hardy, “The King James Bible and the Future of Missionary Work,” Dialogue 45,
no. 2 (2012): 1–44; and Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 173–90. One important
effect of President Clark’s legacy in this matter is perhaps reflected in the almost
complete lack of any footnotes providing alternate textual readings in the LDS
edition of the English New Testament—four notes in all. Most modern transla-
tions include dozens if not hundreds of such notes.
 Santa Biblia V 73

addresses and Church manuals have frequently highlighted the sacri-

fices of reformer-translators like John Wycliffe and William Tyndale
of En­gland and Martin Luther of Germany.44 Where are the heroes
Spanish-speaking Saints can claim? The release of the Spanish LDS
Bible began to draw more attention to Spanish history through a special
half-hour orientation video about the new Bible that aired, in Spanish
and English, in between general conference sessions in October 2009.45
More recently, the 2014 edition of the Institute manual for the New
Testament took a significant step forward in an introductory section
that covers the history of the Bible as a book. The new manual presents
a broader view of that history by describing not only the stories of
Luther, Wycliffe, and Tyndale, but also the Spanish reformers Francisco
de Enzinas, Casiodoro de Reina, and Cipriano de Valera. The manual’s
description of Enzinas’s imprisonment, Reina’s persecution and exile,
and Valera’s twenty-year translation effort provides the first English
retelling of their stories in a Church print publication in more than
forty years.46 As proportionally fewer and fewer Latter-day Saints speak
English, it will become increasingly important that our Church narra-
tives include the contributions of inspired and inspiring individuals in
the histories of other cultures, and the Santa Biblia has positively drawn
attention to some of those stories.
The Santa Biblia also benefits those beyond its target audience when
it is studied by those who can read Spanish but are not native speak-
ers (this might include the tens of thousands of missionaries who have
served in Spain and Latin America). Although the King James Version is
wonderful in many ways, one disadvantage of reading it (or any version)

44. Numerous general conference addresses and Ensign articles discuss

these individuals, especially Tyndale. Preach My Gospel (Salt Lake City: The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2004), 45, provides basic infor-
mation about these reformers for the benefit of missionaries, but the Spanish
translation provides no additional information on individuals who were actu-
ally involved in the history of the Spanish Bible.
45. The Spanish version of this video is available at https://www.lds.org/
media-library/video/2009-03-000-latter-day-saint-edition-of-the-holy-bible​
-in​-spanish​?category=escrituras&lang=spa.
46. See New Testament Student Manual, 7–8. The histories of Casiodoro de
Reina and Cipriano de Valera are described in a 1972 Ensign article (Balderas,
“How the Scriptures Came to Be Translated into Spanish,” 27–28), but searches
at LDS.org show no other references to them until the appearance of the Santa
Biblia in 2009.
74 v BYU Studies Quarterly

exclusively is that readers may come to see its particular translational

interpretations, its unique expressions, and even its specific typesetting
format as being synonymous with “the Bible” itself. Interaction with
other versions of the Bible improves our understanding of scripture by
helping us see which features are idiosyncratic to our particular version
and which are truly “biblical.” For example, while teaching Spanish at
the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, I saw the surprise sev-
eral new missionaries experienced when they opened up their Reina-
Valera Bible and wondered why the name Jehová—for them a relatively
rare word—appeared on almost every page. The Spanish Bible taught
them that the small-capitals “Lord” they grew up with was code for
Jehovah all along. On one occasion, an English speaker asked me why
the new Santa Biblia text was spaced so “weirdly” in several places, with
sentences chopped up into twos and threes and placed in different lines.
It turned out that because the KJV typesets poetry and prose the same
way, he had never in his life known that the Bible even has poetry! Com-
paring how various translations express ideas differently can also help us
understand gospel concepts in new ways. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland once
taught an implicit lesson on the value of multiple translations when he
described the greater appreciation he had for Jesus’s invitation, “Abide
in me” (John 15:4), after reading the Spanish rendering, permaneced en
mí. “‘Abide’ is not a word we use much anymore,” he explained, “but [in
Spanish] even gringos like me can hear the root cognate there of ‘per-
manence.’ The sense of this then is ‘stay—but stay forever.’”47 Bilingual
readers who study both editions of the LDS Bible will inevitably find
insights that they could not have gained from one alone.
Of course, the greatest benefits of the Santa Biblia have come to the
millions of Spanish-speaking Saints it was designed to bless. President
Thomas S. Monson declared, “This new Latter-day Saint edition is the
finest Spanish Bible in all the world. . . . My heart is filled with gratitude
as I ponder the blessing this new edition of the Bible will be in your
lives.”48 One Church member described how after obtaining her copy of
the Santa Biblia, “I could hardly wait to get home and start studying—
I stayed up until two in the morning. . . . I had tears in my eyes because

47. Jeffrey R. Holland, “‘Abide in Me,’ ” Ensign 34 (May 2004): 32; emphasis
in original.
48. “La edición Santo de los Últimos Días de la Santa Biblia en español.”
 Santa Biblia V 75

I had been waiting for it for so long.”49 Another said, “Sunday when we
received word that it came . . . I was very happy! . . . One can really see
the promises of the Lord being accomplished.”50
One final feature to note about the Spanish Bible is a unique intro-
duction that explains the history, content, and features of the new edi-
tion. The final paragraph promises, “El lector que con oración sincera
estudie esta edición de la Santa Biblia llegará a adquirir, mediante la
inspiración del Espíritu Santo, una mayor comprensión y un testimonio
más firme de Dios, el Eterno Padre, y de Su Hijo Jesucristo, nuestro
Señor y Redentor, así como de la plenitud del Evangelio de Jesucristo.”
[The reader who prayerfully studies this edition of the Holy Bible will
gain, through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, a greater understand-
ing and a stronger testimony of God the Eternal Father and His Son
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer, as well as the fulness of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.] Many Spanish-speaking Latter-day Saints testify that
this has been their experience.

Joshua M. Sears received a BA in Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Brigham

Young University, an MA in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at The Ohio
State University, and is currently a PhD student in Hebrew Bible at The Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin. He began learning Spanish while serving in the Chile
Osorno Mission. With Gaye Strathearn he authored “The Church of the First
Century,” in The Life and Teachings of the New Testament Apostles: From the
Day of Pentecost through the Apocalypse, ed. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and
Thomas A. Wayment (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 35–62. He presented
“Santa Biblia: The LDS Spanish Bible and Its Place in Mormon Scripture” at
the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, on
November 25, 2013.

49. Taylor, “LDS Spanish Bible Praised.”

50. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Reaction to the New
Latter-­day Saint Spanish Bible,” Newsroom, September 22, 2009, http://www​.mor​
mon​newsroom.org/blog/reaction-to-the-new-latter-day-saint-spanish-bible.