In 1958 the Lockman Foundation and Zondervan Publishing House issued the first edition of the Amplified New Testament after more than 20.000 hours of research and prayeful study. Some four years later the first of two Old Testament volumes appeared, followed in 1964 by the pubblication of the Amplified Old Testament, part One. The next year (1965) The Amplified Bible came out in one volume. Twenti-two years later, the publishers reintroduced the Amplified Bible. The purpose of all the characters in the story of the making of the Amplified Bible is still relevant today: to communicate the word of God to people and to exalt Jesus Christ. This has been the fourfold aim of the Lockman Foundation from the beginning: These pubblications shall be true to the original Hebrew and Greek; they shall be grammatically correct; they shall be understable to the masses; they shall give the Lord Jesus Christ His proper place, the place which the Word gives Him. From the days of John Wycliffe (1329 - 1384) and the first English Bible to the prsent, translators have worked diligently on the English versions designed to faithfully present the Scriptures in contemporary language. The Amplified Bible is not an attempt to duplicate what has already been achieved, nor is intended to be a substitute for other translations. Its genius lies in its rigorous attempt to go beyond the traditional "word-for-word" concept of translation to bring out the richness of the Hebrew and Greek languages. Its purpose is to reveal, together with the single English word equivalent to each key Hebrew and Greek word, any other clarifying meanings that may be concealed by the traditional translation method.