The Reader's edition: its rules
The WPRB is derived from the WPB verse by verse, in the same pass. It ignores the WPB's rules of form and softens the wording for an eighth-grade reader.
The one rule
Change the wording, never the reading. The WPRB may rewrite anything about how the WPB says something. It may not change what the WPB has decided the text says. The "reading" means:
- The text followed: the qere, the Masoretic or LXX text, the NT base text and its variants.
- The resolution of cruxes: if the WPB prints "When God began creating" at Gen 1:1, the WPRB does not print "In the beginning God created."
- Referents: who does what to whom.
What the WPRB may do
- Split long sentences; reorder clauses into natural English; supply verbs, articles and connectives.
- Replace strange glosses with common equivalents, under the test in "Provocative glosses" below.
- Replace transliterations with English: "kairos" → "the right time"; "logos" → "word" or "message". Christos → "Christ" (ruled; see Divine names).
- Replace Hebrew and Greek idioms with plain equivalents ("bad in the eyes of" → "displeased").
- Use quotation marks for every speech, and section headings for navigation (WPB rulings 27 and 51 do not apply).
- Keep wordplay only where English carries it easily.
Provocative glosses
Ruled 2026-10-01 (Wilson, D3.2). Test: a WPB gloss stays when (1) it is ordinary English an eighth-grader reads without stopping, and (2) softening it would change the reading (resolve a crux, break an argument the text makes, or import a sense the source lacks). It softens when its strangeness is only in the form (transliteration, coinage, calque, Latinism) and the familiar word carries the same reading.
Kept: justice / just; judgment; happy (against bless); human; slave; messenger; assembly; sky / skies; rethink; mortal; bad; guilty; sin / revolt / rebel.
Softened:
| WPB | WPRB |
|---|---|
| logos, logoi | word, message |
| kairos; chronos | the right time, season; time |
| tohubohu; hammered sheet; Abyss | formless and empty; dome; the deep |
| icon | image |
| wood (ξύλον) | tree, everywhere, the cross texts included (Acts 5:30), so the tree-of-life / cross link survives |
| gratis | for free |
| gospel (verb) | bring good news |
| sabbathed | stopped |
| shofar | ram's horn |
| fleshen | made of flesh |
| soulish (ψυχικός) | merely natural |
| producings (תּוֹלְדוֹת) | family history |
| nude (עָרוֹם) | naked |
| bdellium | resin |
Mechanical rules:
- Age: "to the age" (עוֹלָם / αἰών formulas) → "forever"; ζωὴ αἰώνιος stays "the life of the age."
- Man / woman: possessive אִשָּׁה / γυνή, אִישׁ / ἀνήρ → "his wife" / "her husband"; without a possessive they stay "woman" / "man" (1 Cor 11:3).
- Land: אֶרֶץ / γῆ → "earth" only when paired with sky / skies; elsewhere "land" (Matt 5:5).
- Soul: נֶפֶשׁ / ψυχή → "life" or "self" in idioms; "living soul" stays.
Divine names
Ruled 2026-10-01 (Wilson, D3.1). Familiar English for the names; every crux the WPB holds open stays open.
| Source | WPB | WPRB |
|---|---|---|
| יהוה | ADONAI (small caps) | the LORD (small caps) |
| Written אֲדֹנָי | Adonai | the Lord |
| יהוה אֱלֹהִים | ADONAI Elohim | the LORD God |
| אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה | Adonai ELOHIM | the Lord GOD |
| אֱלֹהִים, singular agreement | Elohim | God |
| אֱלֹהִים left open (WPB lowercase, e.g. Exod 21:6) | the elohim | the elohim (unchanged: "God," "judges" or "gods" would resolve the crux) |
| Aramaic אֱלָהּ | Elah | God |
| אֵל compounds | El Shaddai, El Elyon | El Shaddai (not "Almighty," a disputed etymology); God Most High |
| מָשִׁיחַ (Masoretic) | anointed | anointed (not "Messiah") |
| κύριος; θεός | Lord; God | Lord; God |
| Χριστός | Christos | Christ, throughout (not "the Messiah," which would decide title against name verse by verse) |
Scope
Ruled 2026-10-01 (Wilson, D3.3): one reader's Old Testament, derived from wpb-mt, plus:
- the books found only in the LXX (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1–4 Maccabees, Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh, the Odes), derived from
wpb-lxx; - the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel (Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon) as separate short books, never spliced into the Hebrew-based books (ruling 52).
Versification and book order follow the English/Masoretic tradition. Readers who want the LXX OT read wpb-lxx; a second reader's OT can be added later without changing anything.