NLT 2?

FE asked me,

Most of the children whom I have taught did not have a sufficient knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the Hebrew and Greek languages to arrive at an educated evaluation of the degree of precision employed in the making of the various English translations to which they have been exposed.

 

FE,

Regarding this review that you posted above,

Please notice that Weatherly wrote, “Like its predecessor, the NLT follows the dynamic equivalence method of translation, which seeks to translate concepts from the original text into expressions which will have the same impact on the modern reader.” The predecessor to the NLT referred to here was, of course, the Living Bible. Any reviewer that did not know that the Living Bible was a paraphrase rather than a DE translation was in no position to review a revision of it!

 

Fe wrote,

There was no “translation committee” involved in the production of the NLT in the sense that real translations were translated by a translation committee. The publishers of the NLT mailed a preliminary revision of the Living Bible to about 60 Bible scholars and teachers who were asked to read it and send their comments to the publisher. The publisher’s editors then used these comments to further revise the Living Bible. The use of these Bible scholars and teachers was not an original part of their plan for the revision, but, because the sales of the Living Bible were rapidly decreasing as the public became more aware of it inadequacies, the publishers wished to give their revision of the Living Bible a greater degree of respectability to make it more marketable by removing the pejorative word “paraphrase” from the title and call it a “translation [in its own right].”

When one compares the publisher’s preface with detailed descriptions of the NLT in other documents that they published, it is VERY obvious that the NLT is a paraphrase that had the assistance of Bible scholars and teachers in a late but preliminary draft, but not in the final draft. Therefore, technically speaking, it is NOT a translation—it is a paraphrase.

 

Craig,

As I have investigated the NLT1 and NLT2, I'm inclined to agree with you that the NLT1 was not a translation and should not have been marketed as a "translation." They likely did that to sale more Bibles. And the quote I gave of a higly respected theologian who was among those involved in the "revision" of the LB to the NLT1 who had his name removed from the promotional list gives some testimony to that.

Following is a quote from the VP of the ISBC about a meeting they had with Mark Taylor and his father, Kenneth Taylor - who paraphrased the LB. Mind you, this is the VP speaking here. Very interesting:

Interesting.

FA

 

Craig,

If this is accurate, then it's difficult to argue with you on this. But I believe the NLT 2nd edition is a different story.

FA

 

Too late to edit previous post. The main part that I meant to quote was:

 

Whether or not the second edition of the NLT is truly a translation or a mere paraphrase rests upon one question. Is it a revision of the first edition, which definitely was a paraphrase, or is it a translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts. I believe that if it was a translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts Tyndale house would have released by now the names of the translators who produced it—but to the best of my knowledge they have not done so.

Millions of children were taught how to read using the King James translation of the Bible as their textbook. That being the case, there is absolutely no reason why the most accurate English language translation widely available today should not be used in teaching the Bible to even very small children; and there is absolutely no reason why a child’s first Bible should not be the most accurate English language translation widely available today.

If you start a child on any of the many children’s Bibles that have been published, or a Bible for adults with poor reading skills, you cannot simply remove the training wheels when the child gets older. You have to buy him a new Bible and a bright child is going to wonder what was wrong with the first one, and if the new one is only temporarily adequate until he is old enough to have yet a more accurate one. And, of course, we have very many adults today who are so emotionally tied to the Bible of their early youth that they have allowed themselves to be persuaded that the KJV and It alone is the Word of God.

An educated adult knows the difference between a “Bible” that is only a paraphrase or is only dynamically equivalent (in the minds of the translators) to an accurate translation of the Bible and an accurate translation of the Bible, but the young child does not know the difference and therefore he should not be exposed to a paraphrased “Bible” or a translation that is only dynamically equivalent to the inspired word of God.

 

Wow - I think I can say I agree with every word of Craig's post .

 

The first edition was not a paraphrase, nor is the second.

 

The first edition was not a paraphrase, nor is the second. </font>[/QUOTE]The fact that the first edition is a paraphrase has been thoroughly documented by many, and some of this documentation has been posted in this tread. The publishers comments about the “translation committee” and their work on the second edition should immediately raise flags in the mind of any careful and knowledgeable reader because there was no translation committee for the first edition but merely 90 Bible scholars and Bible teachers who worked independently of each other rather than in committee, and all that they did was mail to Tyndale House recommendations for the revising of a preliminary draft of a revision of the Living Bible. But that is not the only problem—several of those 90 have died. Therefore, who actually did the revision work on the second edition? And if it is just a revision, it is also a paraphrase. Anyone can say that the moon is made of Swiss cheese, but it is not very difficult to prove that they are absolutely incorrect.

 

Craig,

I found a link to a description of how the original guidelines had been set up and then changed. Here it makes clear that apparently there was a change in the directions once the project got started in 89. Also, it is interesting and significant that Mark Norton - the editor of the NLT1 and the one discussing the press release - said that referring to the NLT as an "entirely new translation" was an overstatement, since the NLT1 did retain many LB renderings which would probably not have been used in a translation from scratch. That comment was made by the editor of the NLT! (1st edition)

http://www.bible-researcher.com/nlt.html#pressrelease

Here's a portion of the original press release:

Mark R. Norton, ed., Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Wheaton,
Illinois: Tyndale House, 1996. (made comments - did not make the press release)

At the link above (the 96 press release is lower on the page) is a list of the translators involved in each book or portion of scripture for the NLT2. Also, Mark withdrew the criticisms that he had on the NLT1 when the NLT2 came out, which he said corrected all but one of the issues he had noted.

The article is very good overall because it describes specifically many of the problem texts and Mark concludes that the NLT2 has dealt with these issues.

While I do like the NLT and have used it regularly, I think that the concerns that Craig has expressed should not just be ignored.

IMO it is clear that the team did look at the Matt. 7:21ff text as they did make some changes to the LB. But IMO it is not such a good idea to revise a paraphrase as they did and try to bring it up to the standard of a translation. You're likely to be inconsistent and end up with something that is neither as readable nor as accurate as a fresh translation would have been, and the effort/$$$ involved will likely be as great or greater. IMO it's better to sit down and discuss the kind of language nuances which were appealing and then write down some specific goals and guidelines to try to bring about the same effect in the translation. Then, without consulting the paraphrase at all, develop a fresh translation in the "spirit" of the paraphrase.

I think this discussion has been good for me. I've come up with some conclusions about the NLT1 and NLT2. Most of you probably won't agree with me completely on them, but now at least I am better educated on the issue to draw those conclusions. One reason that it was important is that many Bible bookstores still sell the NLT1 mainly or only - perhaps trying to exhaust supplies.

IMO the NLT1 could be classified as a poor translation in some texts, and at least an inconsistent one, and if someone insisted that it be classified as a paraphrase, I guess I'd not have too big a problem with that, even though extensive efforts were made to revise the LB based on the original languages. Another conclusion I've come to regarding revising paraphrases into translations - Don't. Start from scratch. That is essentially what they did with the NLT2, though I doubt that they did that fully since they were revising a revision of a paraphrase, and no matter how much time was put into it, there will remain somee flaws and paraphrasing language in the NLT2 and any further revisions as well.

They didn't go about this the best way.

That said, I do like the NLT.

FA

 

An issue that has only been partially addressed is the meaning of "paraphrase." The linguistic meaning is when one goes from the target language to the target language (English to English). A translation is from the source language (Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic) to the target language.

So if a paraphrase is revised, you are not really translating from the source to the target language, but just referencing it. That's not an issue when revising a translation, because you have confidence that the original work was from S to T - thoroughly. In this case, we can never have complete confidence.

But as the expression is typically used by lay people paraphrase simply means a free translation.

Personally, I really like the NLT2... but I don't think they went about it the best way. And I do think that more of those in the business of translation should have said something about that.

Almost everyone in the Btrans egroup I'm a member of said that both editions of the NLT were translations. But some did not - a couple were big names. Their issue was not with the overall freeness of the NLT, because the CEV and NCV are both more free IMO, as is the Good News translation. They were concerned with the overall process. One of them removed himsaelf from the publication list of those who were involved in the NLT1 revision.

He was originally told that it was going to be marketed as a paraphrase. So he would feel comfortable suggesting some improvements or voting on other suggestions without feeling like they needed to go through the usual process of thorough translation, revision, editing, etc.. Also, he did not feel comfortable with calling any revision of a paraphrase, and that was what the NLT1 was, a translation. But nearly all of the other 87 exegetes did feel comfortable with what the NLT translation committee was doing.

If you compare the NLT with most free translations, it is not as free.

FWIW,

FA

 

FA,

Thank you for these last two posts and for the rest of your work in this thread. I very much appreciate it.

 

Craig,

Well, I finally got a response from Mark Taylor in that BTrans egroup. He attached 2 pdf files - one regarding the history of the NLT and the other regarding the revision process of the NLT2. As you can see, Bill or ISBC didn't recall as accurately as he had thought what was said at that meal regarding the process. According to Mark below, the NLT2 was a revision of the NLT1, and not purely a new translation from scratch, but the original sources were carefully considered.

But the process of revising the LB and then later the NLT2 was, according to Mark's words in an earlier email, as rigorous and thorough a process as has been used in any Bible translation. So I would have to then classify both the NLT1 and NLT2 as translations, though as I said earier, I have no issue with someone who refers to the NLT1 as a paraphrase.

Now I noticed that you referred to the NLT editions as paraphrase in your last post, but not based on the linguistic definition, but on the popular usage of the expression - a free translation or a "though-for-thought" kind of translation.

Strictly speaking, a thought-for-thought translation is a translation, not paraphrase. It can be referred to as paraphrastic, but should not be referred to as a paraphrase, since that means that the translators did not refer to the original languages and revised the English text - going from English to English.

Of course, what we have with the NLT editions is a different critter. But I think if we compare its rendering with that of other DE (meaning based) translations, it will hold up quite nicely in regards to accuracy. Accuracy is not simply a wooden translation of words or even idiomatic phrases. The meaning intended to be cxommunicated must be considered. Quite often the meaning-based approach produces a result which can be shown to be more accurate than a wooden, FE approach.

OK, following are those new emails:

I'm getting ready for church and don't have anymore time. Anyone interested can view those pdf files that Mark sent.

I don't really want to get into a discussion on the dynamic equivalent appproach to translation vs. the formal equivalent approach on this thread. Let's stick to the NLT, which is a unique DE (or some say paraphrse) translation. I'd participate in a new thread on that though.

FA

 

FA,

I have read the two files that you gave a link to, and they substantiate my claim that the NLT was a revision of the Living Bible, Paraphrased, and that there was no translation committee in the sense that real translations are the product of a real translation committee. The revision of a paraphrase, regardless of the competence of some of the people involved in the revision process, does not magically transform the revision into a translation. The NLT is not a translation; it is a paraphrase. That does not necessarily mean, however, that its fidelity to the text of the Bible is any less than a very free translation.

Mark Taylor’s claim that the NLT is a translation produced by a translation committee is also false because a real translation committee is precisely that, a committee that translates a text. Tyndale house did not employ or put together a translation committee; they asked 90 independent Bible scholars and teachers, most of whom were employed as teachers at seminaries or universities, to use their expertise to make suggestions for the revision of the paraphrased Living Bible and to mail in these suggestions. These scholars and teachers NEVER got together to discuss each other’s work and pick each other’s brains as is the case with real translation committees.

The TLT is a sham. There are a multitude of Bible translations on the market that were specifically translated to meet the needs of the deaf, semi-illiterate adults, children of all ages from 7 years of age and up, well-educated adults, and exceptionally well-read adults, and every kind of church congregation imaginable. Tyndale House did not discover a niche that needed a new translation of the Bible; they found a way to feed a whole lot of very gullible people with a paraphrase that they deliberately misrepresented as being a translation of the Bible. The gullible public ate it up, but the learned and the wise relegated it to the trash heap where it belongs. Mark Taylor’s notion that the learned and the wise did not receive it because of a bias that they learned in seminary could not possibly be more ludicrous—they did not receive it because none of it is very good and much of it is absolutely terrible. Scraping some of the rust off of a junk care, replacing the sound system and the floor mats, and giving it a fresh coat of paint will never magically transform a junk car into a new Rolls-Royce Bentley, and no one who is knowledgeable of fine motor cars is going to be fooled by a junk car with a new sound system and floor mats, and a coat of paint over a lot of deep rust.

The wise and learned pastor will never endorse the NLT because it will never be any better than a prettied-up junk car. Why Ken Taylor tried to use the King James translation of the Bible to teach his small children the Bible staggers my imagination beyond belief. How could a 20th century adult be so extremely naïve? 40 years ago, Ken Taylor had several better options, but instead of relying on the wisdom of the learned to teach his own children the Bible, he compromised and used his own pathetic paraphrase. And now his son, Mark Taylor, is trying to feed the church greasy cheeseburgers rather than a healthy meal. May God grant him repentance.


FA,

Once again, thank you for your hard work.

CBTS

 

The KJV is not a pathetic paraphrase. The KJV has stood the test for centuries. Many a soul has been letd to the Lord via the reading of the KJV. To compare the KJV to a greasy hamburger is utter ridiculous

 

I agree with you, but I believe that you are going too far when you claim that The KJV is a demon possessed paraphrase of the Book of Mormon.

 

Craig,

I never once claimed the KJV was any kind of paraphrase whatsoever.

What is the world are you talking about?

 

Well, it certainly is not your typical revision process. But it is clear when we consider the degree of the changes from the LB to the NLT1 and again to the NLT2 that the original languages were used extensively. The original 6 sholars were given 5 sections and were to find 3 scholars for each section. Those 3 scholars for each section did focus on this and meet quite regularly. Mark Taylor was very clear on that.

These days, what with the internet, committees do not need to actually meet as often to be effective. So it is difficult to know precisely how much time was invested except by considering the number of changes themselves.

IMO the NLT1 is not strictly speaking a translation, because it came from a paraphrase. But the NLT1 and then the NLT2 were so thoroughly done that I would consider at least the NLT2 a free translation. I have personally compared the NLT with the CEV, NCV, TEV and NiRV in the past and it generally comes out as more FE and more accurate as well. But the NLT1 was done in a patchwork fashion somewhat it appears, because from time to time it has some serious errors.

But the NLT2 is missing most of those errors. Like I said earlier, IMO they went about it the wrong way. Should have come up with some specific guidelines which they felt reflected the spirit of the LB and then just done a translation from scratch.

And thanks as well, Craig. You seem to have a good grasp of this topic. Calling the NLT a "sham" I don't think fairly represents what was done. I do not agree with how they went about it, but the process was rigorous, as can be sene by the number of changes, nearly all of which improves the LB.

Here's the history as best I could piece it together. (This is mainly taken from those PDF files from Mark Taylor, so this is not that much speculation.):

So IMO the NLT2 is a translation, though the process was not the best way to go about it. It is hard to deny that the resulting product is based on the original languages, and that is the bottom-line. Any free translation will be somewhat interpretive - can't help but happen. One flaw of free translations is that the translators' theological bias tends to come through more than with FE type translations.

But IMO the NLT1 and NLT2 do not have nearly as strong a bias as the LB or most translations have. That is perhaps one of its strengths. And that is one reason I like it.

So I do not hesitate to recommend the NLT2 as a good reading Bible and for use with ESL and children. It is also helpful to use with a good study Bible. But IMO the NLT should not be considered a study Bible.

FA