Translation Landscape
Translation Landscape
History of Bible translation into Persian
Bible translation into Persian has a long, discontinuous history. The earliest surviving fragment is a pair of Psalm passages in Pahlavi (Middle Persian) script, discovered in 1905 at a monastery site near Turfan, the only physical trace of pre-Islamic Persian Bible translation. Gospel portions circulated in the Persian Diatessaron tradition from around the thirteenth century, and a Muslim scholar, Khatun Abadi, produced a Gospel translation in the sixteenth century. The modern era begins with Henry Martyn, an English East India Company chaplain who, working with the Persian scholar Mīrzā Sayyed ʿAlī Khan, completed a New Testament translation in 1812 (published 1815); a companion Old Testament followed from William Glen and Mīrzā Moḥammad Jaʿfar in 1845, and the two were combined into the first complete Persian Protestant Bible in 1846. Robert Bruce substantially revised this text for late nineteenth-century usage, producing the Tarjome-ye Qadim (Old/Standard Version, commonly dated 1895/1896 in circulation), which, alongside the twentieth-century Mojdeh (Today’s Persian Version, New Testament 1976, complete Bible 2007 under the United Bible Societies), remains the dominant translation pairing in circulation among Persian-speaking Christians and house-church believers today. This Language Package follows their precedent for established terms (عیسی، خداوند، مسیح، پسر خدا) rather than introducing new renderings.
Bible translations available in Persian, by usage
Ordered by popularity/most-used first among Persian-speaking Christians and house-church believers, based on this Language Package’s existing research together with direct verification of the working YouVersion links below.
| Translation Full Name | Denomination / Publisher | Source Texts | Translation Style | YouVersion Available | Age / Revision | Key Risks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tarjome Ghadeem / Persian Old Version (POV-FAS) | Elam Ministries (19th-century missionary translation base, modernized 1995) | Textus Receptus / Masoretic (inferred, consistent with the translation’s 19th-century missionary origin) | Formal equivalence | bible.com/bible/136/JHN.3.16.POV-FAS — confirmed live, John 3:16 text verified | 1895 base, revised 1995 | None significant; the established, doctrinally conservative reference text this Language Package follows for core Christological terms |
| Mojdeh / Today’s Persian Version (TPV) | United Bible Societies | Critical Text (NT); Masoretic (OT) (inferred, consistent with UBS’s standard practice) | Dynamic/common-language equivalence | bible.com/bible/181/JHN.3.16.TPV — confirmed live, John 3:16 text verified | NT 1976, complete Bible 2007 | None significant; widely trusted alongside Tarjome Ghadeem, though its more dynamic style is less precise than Tarjome Ghadeem for doctrinally load-bearing terms |
| Today’s Persian Version, 2023 revision | United Bible Societies | Same as TPV above (inferred) | Dynamic/common-language equivalence | Reported on YouVersion (id 3737) but exact version code unconfirmed; flagged rather than guessed | 2023 revision of TPV | Same profile as TPV; treat as a minor update pending confirmation |
| Hezâre-ye Now / New Millennium Version (NMV) | Elam Ministries | Critical Text (inferred) | Dynamic equivalence, aimed at Muslim-background readability | bible.com/bible/118/JHN.3.16.NMV — confirmed live; John 3:16 spot-check shows the standard literal “پسر یگانهٔ خود” (his only/unique Son), not a softened rendering, in this specific verse | 2014 | Reported (not independently re-verified in this pass) to have softened other theologically loaded phrases in pursuit of Muslim-background readability, which provoked significant backlash in Iranian Protestant and house-church circles; see Comparative Theology for the full discussion. Use with caution as a reference; do not follow its softened-term precedent |
| Tarjome-ye Mo’aser / Contemporary Translation (PCB) | Biblica (International Bible Society) | Critical Text (inferred) | Dynamic equivalence | bible.com/bible/1619/JHN.3.16.PCB | 1995 | None significant |
| Tarjome-ye Mo’aser-e Novin / New Contemporary Translation (NPCB) | Biblica | Critical Text (inferred) | Dynamic equivalence | Reported on YouVersion (id 4715); exact year unconfirmed, flagged rather than guessed | Year unconfirmed | None significant; likely a revision cycle of PCB above |
| Tarjome-ye Parsi-ye Ostandard / Korpu Standard Persian (KPS) | Korpu Company | Unconfirmed | Unconfirmed | Reported on YouVersion (id 4702); flagged rather than guessed | Year unconfirmed | Newer, smaller publisher; doctrinal review status unconfirmed |
| Tarjome-ye Kelasik-e Baznegari Shode / Classic Revised (RCPV) | Korpu Company | Unconfirmed | Unconfirmed | Reported on YouVersion (id 4205); flagged rather than guessed | Year unconfirmed | Same publisher caveat as KPS above |
| New World Translation (Jehovah’s Witnesses) | Watchtower Bible and Tract Society | Watchtower’s own text | Doctrinally biased | Not confirmed on YouVersion for Persian at time of research | 2014 Persian edition reported to exist | Doctrinal-bias flag: denies the Trinity and the full deity of Christ; must never be treated as a reference text for this Language Package if encountered |
| Henry Martyn’s Persian New Testament | Henry Martyn, with Mīrzā Sayyed ʿAlī Khan | Textus Receptus (inferred) | Formal equivalence | Not on YouVersion — historical | 1812 (published 1815) | None doctrinally; superseded by later translations, of interest mainly to translation history and as the origin point of the Tarjome Ghadeem lineage |
Note: Korpu Company also publishes editions in Bandari and Sistani (Zaboli dialect) under separate YouVersion language listings; these are distinct regional language varieties, not standard Persian/Farsi, and are excluded from this table. Dari (Afghan Persian) and Tajik (Cyrillic-script Persian) each have their own separate translation traditions and YouVersion listings, out of scope for this table, which covers Iranian/standard Farsi specifically, consistent with this Language Package’s Perso-Arabic-script scope described in Regional Analysis.
Where existing translations fall short for this Language Package
- The Hezare No controversy: the New Millennium Persian New Testament was published to be more approachable for Muslim-background readers and is reported, per this Language Package’s original research, to have softened several theologically loaded phrases; whatever the precise extent (a direct spot-check of John 3:16 in this pass found the standard literal rendering, not a softened one), the translation provoked significant, well-documented backlash within Iranian Protestant and house-church circles, many of which continued using Tarjome Ghadeem/Mojdeh specifically to avoid this kind of dilution. This Language Package takes a clear position in that live debate: it follows the unsoftened precedent throughout.
- No settled glossary bridging Shia-specific categories: existing Persian Bible translations render individual terms but do not systematically address how Shia-specific categories (the Imamate, Karbala intercession, the Mahdi) interact with New Testament doctrine. This Language Package’s
translation_memory.jsonanddoctrine_risk_registry.jsonfill that gap. - Doctrinal precision vs. readability trade-offs: translations optimized for devotional reading do not explain, for example, why فیض (grace) must be actively corrected away from its Illuminationist-philosophical “emanation” sense; a Bible study curriculum needs to be more explicit than a Bible translation alone can be.
Readiness assessment
Persian occupies a middle position in this pipeline’s readiness spectrum: unlike Hindi or Arabic, it lacks a continuous centuries-old native Christian theological tradition (Persia’s ancient Church of the East heritage did not persist into the modern era), but unlike newer-translation-tradition languages it does have two established, broadly accepted translations spanning more than a century (Tarjome Ghadeem, Mojdeh) and a real, live, and instructive translation controversy (Hezare No) to learn from. The translation task here is disciplined adherence to the pre-Hezare-No precedent, informed by explicit awareness of Shia-specific doctrinal risk documented in Comparative Theology.
Recommended default YouVersion version
This Language Package recommends the Tarjome Ghadeem / Persian Old Version (POV-FAS, YouVersion id 136) as the default reference for hyperlinks, consistent with the existing precedent in this Language Package. The reasoning: it is the most doctrinally conservative and precise of the actively circulating translations for the load-bearing terms this pipeline cares most about (پسر خدا for Son of God, unsoftened Christological titles throughout), it predates the Hezare No controversy and was never party to it, it is the translation Iranian house-church believers most consistently report using and trusting, and it is confirmed live and stable on YouVersion. Mojdeh (TPV, id 181) is an acceptable secondary reference for readability-focused contexts but is not the default because its more dynamic style is less precise for doctrinally sensitive passages.
Worked example (John 3:16): https://www.bible.com/bible/136/JHN.3.16.POV-FAS. To build a link for any other passage, replace JHN.3.16 with the target book/chapter/verse in YouVersion’s standard reference format (e.g. ROM.1.17 for Romans 1:17), keeping 136 and POV-FAS fixed.