Ang Biblia (1905)

Ang Biblia, also known as Ang Dating Biblia ("the former Bible"), is the complete Tagalog Bible published in 1905. The New Testament had appeared in 1902. The edition came out under the American Bible Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society, through the Philippine Bible Society, and became the standard Bible for generations of Tagalog readers.

It is a formal-style translation that tries to follow the shape of the biblical text as far as Tagalog grammar allows. It was revised after 1905, including in 1915 and 1933, and the text offered on Midvash is the 1905 one. We do not say here which base text each Testament followed, because the sources we checked disagree.

A word on scope. Midvash already carries the Banal na Bibliya (ULB) in Tagalog, an open translation from 2018 written in current Tagalog and meant to be understood at first reading. Ang Biblia does not replace it. It is the older text, with a weightier vocabulary and cadence, so it sounds less everyday to a young reader. In return, it is the voice many Filipinos heard in church and can quote from memory.

The text is in the public domain because of its age, in the form distributed in the TagAngBiblia module of the CrossWire project. That makes it free to read and compare. Set beside the ULB, it shows clearly how Tagalog of 1905 differs from Tagalog today.