Status of the Current Work on
Republishing the Bedel/O'Daniel's Text

The general steps to completing the Project are laid-out as follows:

The prices and schedules listed below are my attempt at outlining just what such a project like this could cost. There may be ways to reduce the costs, but at least the prices reflect our goals and targets.

 

Step 1 - Obtain various Texts of the Bible in Irish, cataloguing them, and collating differences, and uses of each text


I have collated a growing collection of Irish Bibles and translation materials
William Bedel's and William O'Daniel's Complete Bible (in old Irish font). The Irish equivalent of the Authorized Version
An unusual find - an 1858 translation of the New Testament by Robert O'Cathain in a more modern Irish font - seems to be based on the Received text.

John MacHale's Irish and English Bible with commentary (used the Latin Vulgate and the Douay, and only completed Genesis through Deuteronomy)
A Hibernian Bible Society Revised Standard version in Irish by Cosslett O'Quinn - not worth much!
A complete copy of an 1817 Irish Bible in modern Roman font. This is Bedel's and O'Daniel's Bible, but in a readable font.

So far, I have purchased and obtained the following texts

I still require the following texts:

I am currently looking into some rare bookstores here in Ireland that have small Irish New Testaments to see if they will work with scanning. I will expand my search to Northern Ireland, and then to Wales and the U.K.

Just for fun, you can click here and see the Gutenberg Latin Bible, page by page

The cost of obtaining the right New Testament text, with other comparative editions already has personally cost me already almost $800.

Step 2 - Conduct and Collate all research into the histories of each Bible, and its distribution in Ireland

History of translating the Bible into Irish

This step has just only begun, and will require several months of collecting, collating, and publishing the work. What I need is a lot of background information on the work of William O'Domhnuill, and then any other person who contributed to the Irish New testament translation and printing. Books on this are only to be found in rare bookshops!

Budget on this step will need to be around $250 for sources, besides research on the Internet!

Time Needed: By October, 2003 this step should be completed.

Step 3 - Prepare office computers to work in Irish

That means obtaining the necessary Celtic fonts, keyboard layouts, and Irish dictionaries. This step is currently in progress.

I have already purchased a good scanner and some software for scanning on either my PC or my iMac. I purchased the iMac and Adobe InDesign just so that I could graphic work like this project. My expenditure so far exceeds $2,500

Additional budget: up to $500 for specialised Optical Character Recognition scanning software

Irish fonts have changed dramatically in the past 400 years - quite unlike the English language

Step 4 - Obtain various Irish/English Helps

None of these have been purchased yet due to the cost, but I am praying the Lord will provide.

Budget for this step will be around the $700 mark.

Step 5 - Begin typing/scanning in the test documents of the following short-term projects:

This is what we have so far, a booklet taking shape that will present Luke, Acts and Revelation It is not fully formatted, nor printed as we want, but is in a state that can be reviewed, and modified by consulting advisors.

This step will take shape in stages with the first work being available by the end of 2003.

The Gospel of Luke could be published in small amounts by Summer of 2005.

The Luke, Acts, and Revelation Booklet should be available for review in 2006.

At this stage, the work needs to be evaluated by some Irish speaking scholars, and verified by trial testing the distribution of the leaflets and Scriptures in Irish-speaking areas.

Step 6 - Print the Irish projects now as parallel texts with the AV1611 next to each Scripture, so that the reader can read the verses in Irish, and then English

Once some portions of Irish Scripture have been typeset and prepared for publication, they can be modified with the AV text along side.

Let me explain WHY use the Authorized Version of the Bible for the English text source

Step 7 - Identify printer companies, able to print at least 1,000 copies of the above projects

To do a proper publication of 1,000 copies of the Gospel of Luke would require a Budget of about $2,000 - maybe less. These copies would be freely available for distribution on the Internet, and by hand door to door!

Step 8 - Find various Irish-Speaking events that can be used as venues to hand out the published texts at

The following places are currently targeted:

Step 9 - Begin work on the other three Gospels

Step 10 - Complete the entire New Testament