As many of our readers are already aware, the NLT has undergone some changes over the years. The NLT was released in 1996 as a new translation, but it underwent a significant revision in 2004, often referred to as the NLT Second Edition (NLTse). In 2007, some further revisions were introduced, but this update was not nearly as comprehensive as the 2004 edition.
"textual history" to give a taste of the sort of changes that were made through the years. 
history and discuss the changes in light of the original text.(1) I was not directly involved in the decision making for any edition of the NLT. While I have had conversations with many of the members of the Bible Translation Committee (BTC), I don't have any special insight into what goes on in the committee meetings, and so I won't be able to give definitive answers for what they were thinking in making a particular change. I will show the differences and analyze them on my own.
(2) I will give my unvarnished opinion about the changes I see. It isn't really my nature to be overly critical of Bible translators, but I certainly don't agree completely with every rendering in the NLT. I have the utmost confidence in the BTC and so I will defend their renderings as legitimate even where I might have done something differently. It might also interest you to know that even members of the BTC don't all agree on what the best rendering should be in a given passage; in many cases, the vote was split and consensus was the best that could be hoped for. This further illustrates the value of using multiple translations, and reminds us that translation is at least as much art as it is science.
(3) Not every verse had changes in all four stages. In this series, I am going to specifically choose verses that had changes in every stage of the NLT's history, but this shouldn't give the impression that every verse was changed each time. In fact, many verses are the same in every edition of the NLT (1996 through 2007).
(4) I'm not going to be interacting with other translations. This series is about how the NLT has handled translation issues throughout its history, not about other translations. I will only be interacting with the NLT.
(5) Warning: Technical posts ahead. I will be using Hebrew and Greek in these posts, but I will try to make sure that I use language that won't alienate our friends who haven't had the luxury of learning the languages. Where technical terminology is necessary, I will do my best to explain it in a clear and accurate way.
This is great. I'm very much looking forward to this series. I will add it to the blog post where I asked some questions regarding this.
Jeff
Sorry for posting again but one passage I (and I know others) would like to see discussed is Romans 3:25 which you addressed in general in a previous post. Also James 3:14 and James 5:16.
Jeff
I look forward to the upcoming posts - very interesting.
I currently use a Slimline Reference edition of the NLTse, and I wanted to know if a similar edition will be released soon using the 2007 text?
I'm amazed at how many of the early copies of The Living Bible with the green cover that I still see at church and other places.
Well, the question I would most like to see you deal with is the inclusion of the detutero-canonical books in the first edition as a catholic version, and the apparent dropping of them in any edition now. For me these books, at least as gathered in an "apocrypha" section, are a deal-breaker in choosing my main Bible translation
@Scripture Zealot: None of those three passages have been altered in the 2007 revision, but I may interact with them at some point in this series anyway.
@Nottingman: Some Slimline Reference bindings have been reprinted with the 2007 updates, but you'd need to check the copyright page at the bookstore to make sure you're getting one. Some stores might still have stock of the 2004 editions.
@Shaun Tabatt: There's an older gentleman at my church who uses the Living Bible edition of the Life Application Study Bible.
@Doug Chaplin: Tyndale isn't philosophically opposed to doing an NLTse with the deutero-canonicals, so feedback like this is helpful.
Keith I was thinking 1996-2004. I neglected to notice you were talking 2007.
Thanks for not only writing the posts but taking our questions.
Jeff
Thanks for responding, Keith. That's good news, and I hope you will do it.
I'm currently using a Slimline NLTse (2004), and I'm pumped about the NLT Study Bible!
I've seen the New Living Translation literally change people's lives, so I get fairly excited about it.
My question: Will we see any reference works being released with the NLTse? Commentaries, Concordances, etc.
Hi Keith
Let me first say that I really enjoy the NLT. Actually, the 1996 NLT-1 was the first Bible I ever actually read from cover to cover. I did have a question/comment on how Job 21:34 is rendered in the NLTse. It states
34 “How can your empty clichés comfort me?
All your explanations are lies!”
I thought that the word "clichés" was kind of unusual in this verse. The word cliché implies overused, common sayings. Most other translations use terms such as "empty words", "nonsense", futile words", etc. An expression that is a cliché is quite different from one that is empty. The NLT-1 states,
"How can you comfort me? All your explanations are wrong!"
Besides this, "cliché" is a French word! Please don't think me too critical...overall, my NLTse Bible is one that I use often. Just thought you might have some insight as to way this verse is rendered like this.
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