Young's Literal Translation of the Bible

Young used the present tense in many places where other translations used the past tense- particularly in narratives. The Preface to the Second Edition states:

“If a translation gives a present tense when the original gives a past, or a past when it has a present; a perfect for a future, or a future for a perfect; an a for a the, or a the for an a; an imperative for a subjunctive, or a subjunctive for an imperative; a verb for a noun, or a noun for a verb, it is clear that verbal inspiration is as much overlooked as if it had no existence. THE WORD OF GOD IS MADE VOID BY THE TRADITIONS OF MEN. [Emphasis in original.]”

For example, the YLT version of Genesis begins as follows: 

1.       In the beginning of God’s preparing the heavens and the earth---

2.       The earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters,

3.       And God saith, ‘Let light be;’ and light is.

4.       And God seeth the light that it is good, and God seperateth between the light and the darkness,

5.       And God alled to the light ‘Day,’ and to the darkness He hath called ‘Night;’ and there is an evening, and there is a morning---day one.

Young's Literal Translation in the 1898 Edition also consistently renders the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (the four Hebrew letters usually transliterated YHWH or JHVH that form a biblical proper name of God) throughout the Old Covenant/Testament as "Jehovah", instead of the traditional practice of  "LORD" in small capitals, which was used in editions prior to 1898.

Young's usage of English present tense rather than past tense has been supported by scholars ranging from the medieval Jewish rabbi Rashi (who advised, "If you are going to interpret [this passage] in its plain sense, interpret it thus: At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth, when the earth was (or the earth being) unformed and void . . . God said, ‘Let there be light.’") to Richard Elliott Friedman in his translation of the Five Books in "The Bible with Sources Revealed" (2002).

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