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PROVO, Utah  — With its scriptural texts coming from the Holy Land's Old Testament

era and its publication pedigree traced back to Germany at the turn of the

1900s, Biblia Hebraica Quinta will be a global

product with worldwide benefits — and a Utah connection.

That Utah tie comes through Donald W. Parry, a Brigham Young University

professor of Hebrew Bible. Parry is one of two dozen editors selected from

across the world — and one of only a couple from the United States — for the

current Biblia Hebraica Quinta project.

It's the fifth edition of Biblia Hebraica — the

version of the Hebrew Bible published under the auspices of the Deutsche

Bibelgesellschaft (German Bible Society), which oversees 141 global Bible

societies. Biblia Hebraica Quinta in turn will be

used for future translations of the Old Testament into almost as many

languages.

"It will become the standard for decades — no one will replace it," said

Parry, adding, "in producing the newest translations of the Old Testament,

they're going to use this work."

Invited to the editor's post in August 2008, he joins Arie van der Kooij of

the Netherlands in providing the readings, interpretations, citations and

footnotes for Biblia Hebraica Quinta's fascicle of

the Book of Isaiah — all 1,292 verses.

The purpose of Biblia Hebraica Quinta is, Parry

says, "to provide a clear statement of what the editor judges to be the earliest

attainable form of the Hebrew/Aramaic text." That documentation — textual

variants noted in the footnotes — in turn serves as a primary-source reference

work for biblical societies and Bible scholars alike.

Key to the Biblia Hebraica Quinta project will