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Most serious readers of the New Testament know that there are thousands of minor textual variants among the hundreds of ancient manuscripts available to us. And most recognize that there are no make-or-break theological issues that hang solely on a variant reading. My colleague Philip Comfort has written a scholarly (yet very readable) compendium of […]

On a separate thread, Danielo asks whether the NLT is perhaps too dramatic in the way it translates the last phrase of this verse: “I will praise the LORD as long as I live;I will sing praises to my God even with my dying breath.” He points out that some other translations translate the last […]

We’ve all heard the Christmas story from Luke 2 many times, and we’ll hear it again this Christmas. And you’ll probably hear that “there was no room in the inn.” But was it an inn (that is, a public place of accommodations) where Joseph and Mary found no room? The NLT (2nd ed.) renders this […]

My pastor is working his way through Galatians, and this morning’s sermon was on Gal 3:23-29. I found fertile ground for thinking about differences between translations. Here are some examples: Sentence structure: The UBS Greek text has 4 sentences in this paragraph. The RSV, ESV, and NIV use 6 sentences; KJV, NKJV, ASV, and NASB […]

Sentence Structure (part 2) Before moving on to other topics, I thought I’d take another look at the issue of sentence structure–and even paragraph structure. One would think that all translations would use more or less the same paragraph structure as is found in the original texts. The problem is that the original texts do […]

I’m beginning here an occasional series of posts in which I’ll explore some of the differences between the NLT and other translations. Specifically, I’ll look at underlying differences between dynamic equivalence (DE) translations and formal equivalence (FE) translations, which are also called “word-for-word” or “essentially literal” translations. In these posts I’ll typically use the KJV, […]

Mark D. Taylor As a dynamic-equivalence translation, the NLT translates the Hebrew and Greek text in natural, understandable English. This means that we try to avoid technical terms that the average reader would not understand. Two such technical terms not used in the NLT are “propitiation” and “expiation.” The Bible Translation Committee chose not to […]

Mark D. Taylor I thought it might be helpful if I commented on the NLT’s frequent use of “Hebrew” and “Greek” footnotes. Both of my examples are from the second edition text (2004 or 2007). Example 1: In Gen 6:2, the NLT text reads, “The sons of God saw the beautiful women* and took any […]

Greetings, blogophiles and bibliophiles. My name is Mark Taylor, and I will be contributing to the NLT blog from time to time. In addition to serving as President and CEO of Tyndale House Publishers and Tyndale House Foundation, I’ve had the privilege of serving on the Bible Translation Committee for the New Living Translation. And […]