Wednesday, September 24, 2008
posted by Keith Williams at 2:21 PM
Scripture Zealot has posed an important question about the NLT that deserves a clear answer: Who is the NLT really translated for?
The short answer (from the Introduction to the New Living Translation):
The reading level claims are merely descriptive, and are actually quite subjective. From a cursory Google search, the NLT has been variously assigned a grade 5+, grade 6, and grade 6.3. The translation team was not aiming for a particular reading level in their work; they were simply working hard to communicate the meaning of the original language texts clearly to the "typical reader of modern English."
Indeed, we believe the NLT is excellent for the unchurched, for young believers, and for children. It is also excellent for seasoned church leaders, serious Christians, and scholars. Any reader of modern English can benefit from reading the NLT, because it is indeed a serious translation of the Scriptures by an excellent team of Christian scholars.
HT: Wayne Leman
The short answer (from the Introduction to the New Living Translation):
The translators have made a conscious effort to provide a text that can be easily understood by the typical reader of modern English.That really is the extent of it. As Scripture Zealot rightly points out, many other claims have been made about the purpose, intent, or usefulness of the NLT. It is for the unchurched. It is for young believers. It is at a 6th grade reading level. But none of these were specific aims of the translation team.
The reading level claims are merely descriptive, and are actually quite subjective. From a cursory Google search, the NLT has been variously assigned a grade 5+, grade 6, and grade 6.3. The translation team was not aiming for a particular reading level in their work; they were simply working hard to communicate the meaning of the original language texts clearly to the "typical reader of modern English."
Indeed, we believe the NLT is excellent for the unchurched, for young believers, and for children. It is also excellent for seasoned church leaders, serious Christians, and scholars. Any reader of modern English can benefit from reading the NLT, because it is indeed a serious translation of the Scriptures by an excellent team of Christian scholars.
HT: Wayne Leman
Labels: audience, Bible Usage, Keith Williams, NLT, reading level
Thank you for posting this.
I don't know if this is something that can be answered publicly, but it would be interesting to know what directives or guidelines the translators were given, if that makes sense.
Jeff
The intended audience as expressed to the translators was quite broad. The translation was to be good for: (1) the Christian lay person, (2) the “person on the street”, and (3) pastors and teachers.
But since it is such a broad intended audience with inherent tensions, in a very practical sense the intended audience was the "typical reader of modern English," which is how the translation committee decided to describe their audience in the Intro to the NLT when the work was complete.
I need to post on this matter.
I don't know how accurate this is because I ran the tests in MS Word 2008 (Mac), but here are some reported Flesch-Kincaid reading levels for a few sample books of the NLT:
Exodus: 6.3
Matthew: 5.6
Romans: 5.3
Hello, my name is Yasmine and I am German. I started to read the bible four years ago as an educational project as our culture (virtually everything i.e. art, classical music, literature...) is based on it. It took my to buy three bibles to find one I was able to understand. The version I read in the end is the GNB in German. As it goes with the bible it was drawing me deeper and deeper.
The other day I asked at Scripture Zealots blog which study bible he'd recommand as there is not such a vast choice in study bibles on the market in German, most are based on the Elberfelder translation which is very close to the original texts and thus nearly unreadable for me. I am not uneducated but don't speak any biblish. I was referred to your translation as being highly readable while being excellently done.
And this is my point: I guess there is about 12% of the US population speaking English as their second language who deserve a chance to read Gods word. Where is the use to translate the bible into any language a small tribe at the end of the world speaks and disguise it from the person next door just to "stay with the original"? In my eyes it is the best thing you could have done to make Gods word accessible for everyone, even for me! Thank you!
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