A Sociedade Bíblica Britânica e Estrangeira e as Escrituras em português: o debate entre a "Bíblia protestante" de Almeida e a "Versão autorizada" de Figueiredo (1804-1940)

The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) was founded in 1804 in London with a single purpose: the universal diffusion of the Bible. The process of implementation of the Bible Society in Portugal, as in Brazil, made very clear that the "simple" dispersion of the Scriptures was, in fact, a quite complex activity and that the BFBS didn't renounce the right to apply supervision mechanisms to the circulation of the Bible, understood as a transmission vehicle for the revealed Truth. Pursued in many ways, that control was soon displayed through the selection of translations in circulation in the different countries the institution was present. Along the 19th century and the beginnings of the 20th century, in Portugal and in Brazil, the BFBS chose to use two translations: one from João Ferreira de Almeida (1628-1691) and another one from António Pereira de Figueiredo (1725-1797). The debate around this choice, analyzed in this paper, was mainly a discussion on the more or less authorized character that each one them disposed of and on the degrees of christianization, protestantization and catholicization that each was capable to enhance.