The Interlinear Bible Translation ISA3 by Scriture4All

The best works are often free. People with love have taken the effort to reproduce the basic Greek text of the Bible accurately and without theological distortions. One of these valuable Bible programs is ISA3 from Scripture4All. It is available in English, German and Dutch. Scrivener's Textus Receptus 1894 serves as the ancient Greek source text.  It is much more accurate than Biblehub, for example, which also includes ecclesiastical interpretations.

When God speaks of the Sabbath (σαββατου, σαββατων), He means the Sabbath (σαββατου, σαββατων) and not Sunday (ἡμέρα Ήλίου) or the 7-day week (εβδομάδα). Every single word in the Bible has been precisely chosen by God and no one has the right to change what God has said.

The Concordant Literal Version 1926, 1966 (CLV = complete Bible, CLNT = only NT, Link) belongs to ISA3 and shows the correctly translated text. The words marked in italics and gray have been inserted into the CLV for better understanding. The Sabbath has of course been retained and not replaced or distorted by Sunday or the 7-day week, as is the case in some modern Bibles. Ancient Greek and every other language in the world has always had its own words for this (see week). The color coding was added by us to make it easier to compare the statements of the individual verses:

Mt 28:1   Now it is the evening of the sabbaths. At the lighting up into one of the sabbaths came Mary Magdalene...

Mk 16:2  And, very early in the morning on one of the sabbaths, they are coming to the tomb at the rising of the sun.

Mk 16:9  Now, rising in the morning in the first sabbath, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene...

Lk 24:1   Now in the early depths of one of the sabbaths, they, and certain others together with them, came to the tomb...

Jn 20:1   Now, on one of the sabbaths, Miriam Magdalene is coming to the tomb in the morning, there being still darkness…

Jn 20:19  It being, then, the evening of that day, one of the sabbaths, and the doors having been locked where the disciples...

Acts 20:7  Now on one of the sabbaths, at our having gathered to break bread, Paul argued with them…

1Cor 16:2  On one of the sabbaths let each of you lay aside by himself in store that in which he should be prospered…

Lk 18:12  I am fasting twice of a sabbath...

The ISA3 translation program is not only about the rendering of the text, but also gives the exact grammatical forms and the Strong's numbers for each word. It is important to note that theological wishes have been deliberately avoided here, but the biblical text has been rendered as it was given to us by God and Jesus Christ.

However, in order to understand the statements of the New Testament, knowledge of the Old Testament is required. Anyone who does not know God's calendar described in Leviticus 23 will never understand why the evangelists spoke of the “one/first of the Sabbaths” (Mk 16:2; Lk 24:1; Joh 20:1) or “early on the first Sabbath” (Mark 16:9). It is about a very special Sabbath, namely the “first of the Sabbaths” (or the “first Sabbath”) of a series of exactly seven (7) weekly Sabbaths, which must be counted every year between Passover (15th Nisan, High Sabbath) and Pentecost (50th day, High Sabbath) and can be found in every biblical (e.g. TorahCalendar) and Jewish calendar and can be easily determined using Gregorian dates. Those who do not have this foundation of the Old Testament will never understand what the evangelists said, and a “first Sabbath” will sound illogical to them. Someone might mistakenly think that it means the “first day of the week”. This is impossible because there are completely different expressions for it in ancient Greek and in every other language in the world. Many Christians only know the Catholic “first Sunday in Advent” from the Pope, but not the biblical “first Sabbath” of God, which is why they cannot really understand the NT.

The chapter on the resurrection is about a very special Sabbath, because this “one Sabbath” is not only the “first Sabbath” in the count of the seven (7) weekly Sabbaths until Pentecost, but it is the one special weekly little Sabbath that falls between the two High annual Sabbaths on 15 and 21 Nisan, which mark the beginning and end of the 7-day Passover (Days of Unleavened Bread). It is therefore the “one/first of the Sabbaths”, in Greek: “μια των σαββατων” in the plural or simply “πρωτη σαββατου” (first Sabbath) in the singular. Every Hebrew child understood this and every Christian child of the first Christian church, because back then everyone still knew the biblical calendar, which has largely been forgotten in Christendom today. It is our task to lead the church back to the beginnings of biblical teaching and away from the comfortable spirit of the times.

The following illustration shows the little Sabbath between the two High Sabbaths on Passover. The same sequence of days also occurred in 2023, when the Jewish calendar fell on the biblical calendar. Statistically, this sequence of days occurs very frequently on Passover, about every third year, when the 14th of Nisan falls on a Wednesday and the “first Sabbath” on the 17th of Nisan:

Now to the translation of ISA3, including some translations such as the famous Catholic Mentelin Bible of 1466, the first Bible in the world to be printed in a vernacular language (German), which tells of the women coming to the tomb “on a Saturday”. This was also the message of many Catholic Bible translations of the Middle Ages. Martin Luther did not speak of Saturday, but of the Sabbath. It is obvious that the official German Catholic Correction Bible by Emser, which appeared as early as 1527, had the same content and proclaimed the resurrection of the Lord Jesus “on a Sabbath” morning. This was followed by various English translations that reported the resurrection of the Lord on a Sabbath morning.

CLV 1966: Now it is the evening of the sabbaths. At the lighting up into one of the sabbaths came Mary Magdalene...

CLV 1966: And, very early in the morning on one of the sabbaths, they are coming to the tomb at the rising of the sun.

CLV 1966: Now, rising in the morning in the first sabbath, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene...

Mk 16:9 Interlinear Bible with the text of the Concordant Literal Version (CLV):

CLV 1966: Now in the early depths of one of the sabbaths, they, and certain others together with them, came to the tomb...

CLV 1966: Now, on one of the sabbaths, Miriam Magdalene is coming to the tomb in the morning, there being still darkness…

CLV 1966: It being, then, the evening of that day, one of the sabbaths, and the doors having been locked where the...

CLV 1966: Now on one of the sabbaths, at our having gathered to break bread, Paul argued with them…

CLV 1966: On one of the sabbaths let each of you lay aside by himself in store that in which he should be prospered…

CLV 1966: I am fasting twice of a sabbath...

“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil”

(1Thess 5:21-22)

“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them”

(Epheser 5:11)