It claims that this style is necessary "to make the translation clear to a modern audience that tends to read male-oriented language as applying only to males" and that it is "driven by the concern to reflect accurately the intended meaning of the original texts. Who would ever interpret "train up a child in the way he should go" as if the instruction were only for boys?
The fact is, ordinary people have no trouble at all with generic masculine pronouns. The gender-neutral language policy is not driven by any legitimate requirement of "dynamically equivalent" accuracy or by any desire to help people understand the text. It is driven by the usual desire of commercial publishers to avoid offending feminist sensibilities. In connection with this we notice that in the "Tyndale Bible Verse Finder" included in most editions of the NLT the editors have carefully avoided the subject of womanly submission, despite the fact that this is a "hot topic" and highly interesting to most of the people who will be using such a topical index.
We would expect to find under a suitable heading references to the pertinent verses, such as 1 Corinthians , 1 Corinthians , Ephesians , Colossians , 1 Timothy , and 1 Peter But under the headings "Family," "Marriage," and "Women" there is no mention of this topic at all, and under the heading "Submission" we read, "Marriage calls for mutual submission Ephesians In the preface of the NLT we read that one goal of the editors was to "produce in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the message expressed by the original-language text—both in meaning and in style," But when we examine the version it seems that there was no real attempt by the NLT editors to reproduce the style of the original, or even the meaning of the text beyond a very basic and simplified level.
Rather, it appears that the main idea was simply to make the version easy to read at all costs. It should be understood that the "dynamic equivalence" approach to translation does not in itself require such a reductionistic treatment of the text. But as New Testament scholar Vern Poythress observes, "At times it seems that dynamic equivalent translation has become a broad umbrella.
It can cover at one end the meticulous attempt to reproduce as far as possible every nuance of meaning. But it can also be used as a fig leaf to cover questionable practices that appear to ignore anything beyond a minimal core meaning. The Bible in its original languages is a powerful book, not only in its message but also in the ways it presents its message. Much of it is written in poetic form or in exalted prose, in keeping with its noble themes.
It is well-designed to make an impression upon its hearers. It is full of sophisticated rhetorical devices--irony, hyperbole, allusions, metaphors, and so forth. Some English versions have been very successful in representing these features of the original. But the NLT is not one of them. The literary quality of the NLT is uniformly low, and often very far from being "idiomatically powerful.
An example of this may be seen in Matthew They may refer to me as 'Lord,' but they still won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven.
Go away; the things you did were unauthorized. Verse 21 is in the literal translation one of the most impressive and convicting sayings in Scripture. We wonder how anyone could think that the NLT's rendering of this verse, which falls flat by comparison, is more 'idiomatically powerful.
The language is just not suitable at all to the gravity of the situation, and it does not reflect the solemnity of the Greek diction here. It seems that the NLT is not really trying to produce the 'equivalent effect' which is the basic idea of the dynamic equivalence theory of translation, but simply imposing a colloquial style on the material, without any regard for the style of the original text.
In Genesis, when God discovers that Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit, the King James conjures up a roar of rebuke: "And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? We note that the NLT's "How could you do such a thing" in Genesis is not a new translation, but carried over from the Living Bible.
Taylor may have given this rendering instead of the literal "What have you done" because he thought some readers might not realize that it is a rhetorical question, and they might think that God did not know what the woman had done. His treatment of the Lord's question to Adam in is similar. Instead of the literal "where are you? So it seems that the NLT revisers had no particular concern about misunderstandings of the text. If indeed they have taken care to revise every verse, it seems that they have preferred to leave as it was for stylistic reasons.
Daniel Taylor, an English professor at Bethel College in Minnesota and one of the stylists for the version, has explained that the committee was under some "pressure" to simplify the text, and has acknowledged the drawbacks of this in an article published in Christianity Today :. In contemporary Bible translations, ours included, the pressure generally is to seek the widest possible audience and to do whatever is necessary stylistically to reach that audience.
Nevertheless, if a translation allows the least literate, least educated, least churched, least inquisitive, least motivated reader to become the de facto norm, it not only will fail to do justice to the text but also will alienate many other potential readers.
In recent years many people associated with the Wycliffe Bible Translators and the American Bible Society have been talking about the need to translate the Bible into the 'heart language' of all peoples. Hyatt Moore, the former U. Director of the Wycliffe organization, evidently regards the NLT as an example of this, because he has endorsed the NLT with the words, "I'm grateful for a modern translation of the Scriptures like the New Living Translation.
This is the word of life, so it has to be given in the language of the people—their heart language—in clear, understandable, accurate words. It doesn't take as much work and effort to understand, as a second language would. This desire to communicate on an emotional level is evident in the NLT, which tries to evoke an emotional response by various rhetorical means: the frequent insertion of such words as "wonderful" and "wonderfully," "marvelous," "dear" and "dearly;" the overuse of "very;" the use of the more personal direct address instead of indirect statements, and so forth.
Most of this derives from the Living Bible, and it is toned down somewhat in the revision. You are among those who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ, dear friends in Rome.
God loves you dearly, and he has called you to be his very own people. Again, much of this is carried over from the Living Bible, but the NLT's gushing style does not reflect the tone of the original here, which is really quite formal and declamatory.
The NLT is merely following Taylor's lead in this respect, trying hard to make the English text emotionally warm, personal, and informal. This will of course make the version appealing to those readers who want their emotions massaged, but it is not 'dynamic equivalence. One of the phrases often misunderstood by readers of the Bible who are not familiar with the "Bible English" of literal versions is the phrase "a man after [God's] own heart," spoken of David in 1 Samuel , and alluded to in Acts "a man after my heart".
This phrase is commonly thought to mean that David was always chasing after God's affection, doing things to win his love, etc. In these languages the words for "heart" are used in reference to the mind in general. So when the Bible speaks of God's "heart" it means his thoughts or his intentions , not his emotions.
When the Biblical authors wanted to refer to the emotions they used words corresponding to our words for lower organs—the intestines and kidneys—not the heart. For example, the Apostle Paul exhorts us to "put on bowels of mercies" in Colossians , by which he means "compassionate hearts.
Another problem arises from the use of the word "after" in this phrase. This is an archaic usage of the seventeenth century, at which time the word "after" was often used in the sense "according to. That is what this phrase means in the original languages. Unfortunately many pastors and authors who should know better have based whole sermons and study guides upon the highly "preachable" misunderstanding of the phrase.
This is a good example of the pitfalls of literal translation and archaic English for people who interpret such language as if it were idiomatic modern English. The main justification for the "dynamic equivalence" method of translation is that it anticipates and prevents such errors of interpretation. In the Good News Bible at 1 Samuel we read "the kind of man [the Lord] wants," which gives the meaning well enough in idiomatic English.
But the NLT is disappointing here. In 1 Samuel we read, "a man after his own heart," and in Acts it is, "a man after my own heart. Under this method of translation "a man after my own heart" in Acts is no more suitable than "bowels of mercies" in Colossians Readers of literal versions who have gained some familiarity with biblical idioms and are alert to the fact that what they are reading is not idiomatic vernacular English are not so likely to misunderstand this language, but in a version such as the NLT the reader has no reason to think that the words mean something completely different from how they are used in vernacular English.
How could the reader of the NLT know that in these two verses the word "after" is being used in an archaic sense?
Its use here is simply anomalous. Because the correct interpretation of this phrase is well-known to all competent scholars, it seems incredible that the scholars involved in the making of the NLT are responsible for the problem here.
Nor can it be explained as a carry-over from the Living Bible. Although the Living Bible did use the expression in Acts , in 1 Samuel it read, "the Lord wants a man who will obey him, and he has discovered the man he wants.
Many bad renderings have been corrected. We are especially glad to see that Taylor's indefensible Arminian glosses on Acts and Romans have been eliminated, and in other places the theological bias of the Living Bible has been toned down, if not entirely neutralized. But there are some parts of the NLT in which it seems that the revisers have been lax, making only some spot corrections of Taylor's paraphrase when a fresh translation was in order.
We may take 2 Corinthians as an example, in which there are some very questionable renderings carried over from Taylor.
On the day of salvation, I helped you. Many words and phrases were rendered literally and consistently into English, preserving essential literary and rhetorical devices, ancient metaphors, and word choices that give structure to the text and provide echoes of meaning from one passage to the next. On the other hand, the NLT translators rendered the message more dynamically when the literal rendering was hard to understand, was misleading, or yielded archaic or foreign wording.
They clarified difficult metaphors and terms to aid in the reader's understanding. The translators first struggled with the meaning of the words and phrases in the ancient context; then they rendered the message into clear, natural English.
Their goal was to be both faithful to the ancient texts and eminently readable. The result is a translation that is both exegetically accurate and idiomatically powerful. More than 90 Bible scholars, along with a group of accomplished English stylists, worked toward that goal.
I looked it up in greek after being corrected. As you said, many versions; same Message. Let the Holy Spirit guide you and you will not fail. Nice post.
I be taught something more difficult on different blogs everyday. It is going to always be stimulating to read content from other writers and practice slightly something from their store.
I enjoy the NLT personally, and my two oldest sons do as well. What boble comentary would u advise to use for bible study and prep for sermons and more,,, and…wonderfull..
Hi, thanks for reaching out! That really depends on your personal needs and preferences. I blog quite often and I genuinely thank you for your information. The article has truly peaked my interest. Contents show. From the Revision of a Paraphrase to a Full Translation. Share on Social Media. Follow us on Social Media. Tyler Martin. Hey, I'm Tyler Martin! I'm a husband, father, content creator, and Bible nerd. I have a B. I've spent my life learning about the Bible and I am passionate about helping others discover the beautiful and imaginative world of the scriptures.
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