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Originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, the Holy Scriptures
soon became unreadable by all except the most learned. Between the
2nd and 4th century AD the Christian Faith and its Bible spread quickly
throughout the Roman Empire. First came the Latin Bible, commissioned
by the Pope and translated by St. Jerome. The scattering of the Roman
Empire into multiple smaller empires formed multiple Latin-derived
languages, many still spoken today. These include the Romance
languages such as Portuguese, English, Spanish, Romanian,French,
and Italian. The Bible, however, remained only in Latin and its original
languages.
With the extinction of Latin, came the fight for Bibles in each language.
In general, the Roman Catholic Church opposed efforts to translate
the Latin Vulgate to modern spoken languages. The Church wanted to
keep its power over the common man, and therefore left the Bible in
Latin, which was almost only known by priests. Reformers like John
Wycliffe,Martin Luther, William Tyndale, and Casiodoro de Reina are
well known for opposing the Church by translating the Bible to their own
languages. Between the 15th and 16th centuries, Bibles were made in
English, German, Spanish, and many other languages. Even so, it would
be much later before the people of Portugal would have a Bible in their
native tongue.[1]
The Roman Catholic Church was extremely powerful in Portugal during
the years of the European Reformation. Due to the rebellion against the
church in nearby countries, the Pope launched a Counter-Reformation to
strengthen it and increase its authority. João III, King of Portugal,
established the Court of Inquisition in 1536, and from then
on executions were used on almost anyone that was supposedly
³against the Church.´ Due to this power, the Inquisition was able to
repress the Portuguese Bible from being developed during the
Reformation, and Portugal remained almost completely Catholic.
During this time, some small-scale translating of the Bible was done in
Portugal› 
 
   translated the first published portion of the
Bible into Portuguese in › It was only the 


 
 
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and was hardly ever used. Another fraction of the Bible was translated
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  . For the most part, however, the Bible remained relatively
untranslated to Portuguese. Services and Bible readings in the Church
were conducted in Latin, which the common people of Portugal and
Brazil did not understand. As in other countries which did not have the
Bible in their native tongue, the people of Portugal remained quite
ignorant of the Holy Scriptures.
It was not until $% that the first complete version of the Bible was
published in Portuguese. This version was translated by &

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, a man born in Torres de Tavares, Portugal in 1628. Little is
known about Almeida. He was raised Catholic, but became
a Protestant as a young adult. Around the same time, he moved to a
Portuguese-speaking region of Malasia, to work for the local Igreja
Reformada Holandesa, or Dutch Reformed Church. Two years later, at
the 

 ), Almeida began translating the New Testament from
Spanish to Portuguese.
In 1651, he became a chaplain at the Presbitério da Batávia, in Djacarta.
There Almeida studied theology and edited the parts of the New
Testament that he had previously translated. He also began to take a
stand against the Catholic Church, which went on to impede him
from preaching in Portuguese. The Inquisition also ordered some of his
writings to be burned publicly. In 1663 he began studying Greek and
Hebrew, which allowed him to better translate the Bible into Portuguese.
After finishing the translation of the New Testament, Almeida fought a
long battle in order to get it published. He sent his texts to
the Netherlands, but the process of publishing it took much longer than
normal, due to resistance from the Church. Finally, in 1681, the Novo
Testamento de Almeida (Almeida¶s New Testament) was printed.
However, this translation was laden with errors, and it took ten more
years before it was ready for publication. During this time, de Almeida
began translating the Old Testament. R
 
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translated 

  
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Testament was finished by a Dutch pastor, &

 
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. It
underwent many changes until it was finally published for the first time in
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 (João Ferreira de Almeida¶s
Translation). As the power of the Portuguese Inquisition weakened, it
became easier to translate the Bible. Padre Antônio Pereira de
Figueiredo, a reform-minded Roman Catholic Priest, was able to
translate the Latin Vulgate into Portuguese. By 1790, the Old and New
Testaments of the Versão de Figueiredo (Figueiredo¶s Version) were
published. This Bible is now considered less accurate than the Tradução
de João Ferreira de Almeida, due to its being translated from Latin rather
than the original Hebrew and Greek. Right after Figueiredo¶s version was
published, however, it was more popular than its predecessor because it
was written in modern Portuguese. After these two translations were
published, a number of other versions followed, most of them simply
revisions of Almeida¶s text. In 1898, a commission of
Brazilian translators edited the Tradução de João Ferreira de Almeida to
make it more understandable for those who spoke the Brazilian-dialect
of Portuguese. It was called the Revista e Corrigida (Revised and
Corrected). Another revision of Almeida¶s translation, the Revista e
Atualizada (Revised and Modernized), was made in 1956. The Versão
dos Monges Beneditinos (Benedectine Monks¶ Version) and the Versão
dos Padres Capuchinhos (Capuchinho Priests¶ Version) were separate
translations made in 1959 and 1968, respectively.
Nowadays, the most commonly used translations are the second edition
of the Revista e Atualizada (1993) and the NVI (2000). The process for
the translation and publication of the Portuguese Bible was a long and
arduous one. It was wrought with danger, difficulties, and opposition. For
many years the common people of Portugal and Brazil were unable to
read the Bible. However, thanks to the power of the Lord, and some
remarkable Christian heroes, there are now multiple accurate versions of
the Portuguese Bible.


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