Translating the biblical texts into English (or any other language) is not as simple as it may sound. For starters, the translator has to determine which philosophy of translation to follow. The two basic options are formal equivalence (also called word-for-word, literal, or essentially literal) and dynamic equivalence (also called thought-for-thought). And there is also [...]

Thanks to Ray Fowler for posting a fascinating chart about the most popular highlighted Bible passages in the six top-highlighted Bible translations on Kindle (which are all also six of the top 50 highlighted books on Kindle).

Ray observes, “I found it interesting how many of these highlights focus on trusting God and not worrying.” Commenter Thomas points out, “users of NLT and ESV appear to highlight several different passages, while users of all the other translations concentrate exclusively on just a very few verses.”

The top highlighted verses were all highlighted in multiple translations, but one set of verses, Romans 8:38-39, was highlighted (relatively) often in the NLT, but not often in any of the other six. Why do you think

Craig Blomberg has an insightful post for anyone who has ever wondered about how a committee Bible translation works. Dr. Blomberg was part of the team that worked on the New Living Translation in the 1990s. Here is what he says about his work on the Gospel of Matthew: With the New Living Translation, the [...]

*Warning: Long navel-gazing post below. Proceed with caution. I love the NLT. It is one of my primary translations at home and at church, but this wasn’t always the case. The first Bible I ever used with any regularity was an NIV. The small Christian school that I attended in first through fourth grade allowed [...]

One of the most common misconceptions about the NLT is that it is a paraphrase. It is not. The NLT is, in fact, a translation from Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic; it represents the work of nearly 100 scholars, specialists in the book(s) of Scripture to which they contributed. The history of the NLT is one [...]