We’ve started the countdown: all of the hardcover NLT Study Bibles are arriving soon and will start shipping out of our warehouse. Most bookstores will have Some bookstores will start having the NLTSB in stock by one month from today: August 28!

We’re holding a couple of online events to celebrate:
1: Live NLT Study Bible online seminars. NLT SB General Editor Sean Harrison will be offering an online seminar to explain the features of the NLTSB and to demonstrate the usage of the NLTSB to study Genesis. Details: seminars will be less than an hour long each, on August 7 at 11AM CST and August 28 at 7pm CST. Click here to register.

2: 31-day NLT Study Bible giveaway. During his seminars, Sean will be answering questions about the NLT Study Bible. So we want to know what questions you have about the NLT Study Bible. Post your question in the comments of this post, and each day, I will randomly choose a winner of a hardcover NLT Study Bible from among the people who posted new questions that day. Update: The contest is over. Please feel free to continue asking questions and we'll try to answer them, but we won't be choosing any more winners. I will post a list of many of your questions and the answers to those questions once we can work our way through them.

Rules: You can’t win if you don’t ask a question about the NLT Study Bible. Don’t put your mailing address in your comment--if you win, someone will email you to ask you for your mailing address. We’ll send out all 31 of the Bibles the first week of September. You can only win once—but feel free to ask questions for as many days as you want until you win. Starting today.

Update: Winners:
July 28 - Dan Masshardt
July 29 - Greg Terry
July 30 - drmellow
July 31 - Juan Martinez
August 1 - Dave
August 2 - Jimbo S.
August 3 - CD-Host
August 4 - Steven R. Robertson
Due to our power outages at Tyndale and our servers being down, there were no comments on August 5 or 6, so I randomly chose the winners for those days from among all of the comments so far.
August 5 - Scripture Zealot
August 6 - jbwiebe
August 7 - Seraph
August 8 - Rich Shields
August 9 - Elvin
August 10 - h bar
August 11 - Alicia
August 12 - Ron
August 13 - blackreformingkid
August 14 - eloratan
August 15 - Juan Z
August 16 - OngSh
August 17 - Cal Sun
August 18 - Justin
August 19 - Brent
August 20 - Curt
August 21 - beautyofthebible.com
August 22 - newbby1
August 23 - Danny
August 24 - BJ
August 25 - Richard
August 26 - Carl
August 27 - S. Stewart
August 28 - David

In my introductory post I mentioned that as a part of the product development process I often not only ask myself whether or not we at Tyndale can produce a Bible but also whether or not we should produce that same Bible.


To be honest my initial thinking was about the relative merits of a given Bible. I mean, let's face it, it is not very far down the road for us to get to Mark Buchanan's "left-handed bald gypsy fiddler's Bible" (complete with holographic maps of the temple if I recall properly. See page 200 of Your God is Too Safe) if we are not diligent. But as ElShaddai Edwards asked in the comments section with specific reference to this can/should issue, there is another side, namely market opportunity.


I have to say that I understand why the very phrase "market opportunity" in conjunction with Bibles can and does raise red flags for people. This is not unique to Bibles, and at its most basic level it is the issue of business versus ministry. This is an issue that anyone involved with Christian prducts -retailers, publishers, authors, etc. - all struggle with at some point or another. Ministry is the motivator, but the business has to be sound. This often sets up serious dilemmas which I struggled with as a book and music buyer and I also struggle with now. I have been called jokingly called a "purist" around the office and I take that as a compliment. The reality is, however, if the business end doesn't work the ministry can't happen. It seems a bit crass I know, but that's the reality we face as publishers.


Take the issue of a wide margin, single column Bible for instance. I get requests from a couple of sources for this one. Mostly these requests are from people in the blogosphere who are passionate and vocal. Frankly, I totally agree with those of you requesting this edition. I want one myself. Preferably in a really nice genuine leather edition. One that I could take notes in and someday give to one of my kids. Here is where the can vs. should issue gets tricky because it is the opposite of the way that I tend to think about it.


The problem is that the economics on a project like this have made it very difficult to create. The Notemaker's Bible in the first edition of the NLT was exactly the kind of product that we are talking about. It was developed before I came to Tyndale , but from all the reviews I have seen, the team's efforts to get it right paid off. But there was a problem. Big one. It sat on store shelves. And sat. To be fair there could be a lot of reasons for this. Maybe our price was wrong, maybe the cover or the title were just a bit off. Maybe the timing was just wrong. I'm honestly not sure.


The issue here is not one of whether or not the product is worthy, but whether or not it's viable. There's a lot that goes into the creation of a Bible. Things like the time and money invested in design, typesetting, proofreading, manufacturing, warehousing, freight (and yes that one keeps going up), how long the print run will be, which market segment is likely to stock that kind of a Bible, what the returns rate and average discount that channel receives and a whole lot of other issues as well, things like whether or not "the market" will support the product (i.e., is there a sufficient demand).


It's a complex business to publish a Bible with a lot of variables and a lot of difficult decisions to be made. Print runs are a great example. Increase the print run and the cost of goods per unit goes down. This means it's easier for us to be competitive in retail and sale pricing. It's also a huge risk because you can sit on a lot of inventory for a long time if the product doesn't work. And those are dollars that you can't put into other projects. Which means that not only does the business potentially suffer, but so does ministry because opportunities may not be able to be pursued.


So here's my question:


How would you strike the balance between "can vs. should"? What would that look like if you were the one developing Bibles?

1. The authors are directly involved in work on the NLT. Phil Comfort is the NT Coordinating Editor for the NLT and has been involved with the translation from the beginning, and Jason Driesbach is intimately involved with the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series as an editor and author.
2. Over half of this book is actually the text of the four canonical Gospels in the NLT.

So why should you be interested in this book?

In addition to the four canonical Gospels, Comfort and Driesbach have offered new translations of 17 other ancient Jesus texts, all in a style similar to the accessible New Living Translation. Some of them are long, some short. Some are well known (such as the Gospel of Thomas and the infamous Gospel of Judas), some have not received any attention outside of small scholarly circles. Some are seemingly orthodox, some are quite fanciful. But all of them are there, ready to be read for what they are by anybody who is interested. In addition, 18 more gospels are described and summarized for readers. In all, thirty-five noncanonical Jesus texts are covered, giving readers a comprehensive, accessible look at many ancient Jesus traditions alongside the four Gospels.

Do you know anybody who is interested in the "secret" gospels they've heard about on the Discovery Channel or through reading Dan Brown or Bart Ehrman? Maybe they are convinced that the church covered up the "truth" about Jesus. With this book, they can read those other gospels for themselves--right alongside the four canonical Gospels--and see what they really say. In such juxtaposition, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John stand up pretty well.

Check out the book, and give it to a friend who might be interested in Jesus but would never pick up a Bible. They'll get the chance to meet him through the text of Scripture and some other early Christian documents. And they'll also see that some of the gospels that are extolled as shedding more light on "who Jesus really was" are not really all that illuminating.

Phil and Jason have also offered some great essays to introduce the collection, and Phil has included his own story of discovering Jesus in the Preface (don't skip it--trust me, you won't be bored).

Labels: Gospels, Jesus, Keith Williams, NLT

I returned last week from ICRS in Orlando (that's "International Christian Retail Show" for those not in "the biz"). I always have mixed feelings about ICRS. There is a lot that frankly makes me cringe, but there is also a lot that gives me hope. Lot's of great books are out there which will do some serious good I believe. In my former life I was a book buyer for a small franchise chain of Christian stores. As a rule I don't carry a lot of handouts around because, frankly, they get heavy and I wouldn't get a chance to read most of them anyway. I did pick up a total of 5 books this time however:

1. Original Sin by Alan Jacobs (Harper One)
2. Life With God by Richard Foster (Harper One)
3. Surprised By Hope by N.T. Wright (Harper One)
4. Culture Making by Andy Crouch (IVP)

I picked these up because, 1) the publishers were willing to give them to me, for which I am very thankful; and 2) they will make me think. I need books that challenge me. It's much easier to read books that don't stretch you of course, but i find myself always wanting more. I have already started reading Original Sin, I actually heard him a week or so ago on "Extension 720" an evening radio program on WGN radio in Chicago that deals with all kinds of interesting topics. Very intriguing book.

The fifth was a Tyndale book which I know is crazy for me to pick up at a trade show in Orlando, but the author was there signing it. We The Purple by Marcia Ford. Generally I don't do politics, they stress me out too much, but this one intrigued me enough to pick up. I look forward to reading it.

But of course this is the NLT blog so I must talk about Bibles. One of the editors and I walked the floor and looked at the various Bibles out there. It's always fun to get a sense of what is going on, and it's definitely one of the things that I miss from my buyer days. The fact is there are a lot of great Bibles out there from several publishers. We are all different as people and different things appeal and minister to us. As Bible publishers we have gotten a lot better at producing great looking products. This is not exactly new, take a look at Bibles from 100 or 200 years ago. They were beautifully crafted. We are getting that back a bit I think (granted we also have all done some silly things as well). I have to say that I am glad that the utilitarian days seem to be over. I believe that we should celebrate the Scripture as a precious thing.

I look forward to seeing a lot of the Bibles that are coming. I got a chance to see the ESV Study Bible sampler (Gospel of Luke) and I have to say it looks great. I haven't been able to review it thoroughly, but from what I have seen, I'm impressed and I hope that it does well.

For our part, we had two major foci.

First was the launch of the NLT Study Bible. I really encourage you, if you haven't done so already to check out the Study Bible web site and blog. There's going to be a lot more coming in the next weeks and months. I am really excited about this Bible. I know that's the party line, but when I was a buyer I interacted with most every study Bible on the market. I know first hand that there are a lot of good ones. Really good ones. That's why, when I came on board Tyndale about 2 1/2 years ago I was excited to see print outs of Isaiah. I had been bugging my sales rep for a couple of years "where's the study Bible?" and I was not disappointed. I was actually blown away. I can't say enough about the job that the editorial team and the scholars have done. I believe that the best comparison will literally be to start in Genesis and look at the NLT Study Bible side by side with any other study Bible in the market, I have that much confidence in it. Now if only I can actually get my copy . . .

The second focus for us was the Operation Worship Bible. This is a unique and particularly gratifying product. The concept is simple and the ministry impact is huge. Call me crazy, but those are the kinds of products that I can get behind. Tyndale has partnered with several organizations, most notably Operation Worship, to create a Bible that will be given to U.S. troops. It's a compact Bible that fits in a fatigue pocket. The really cool part is that there are a couple of pages in the front for people to write a personal note to a soldier. It's not about supporting a war (or not supporting a war), but ministering to the hearts and minds of our service personnel.

Here's how it works. Go to a Christian bookstore, buy a Bible for under $5. Write a note. Give the Bible back to the store. That's it. The store gets a pre-paid UPS call tag and once a case of 32 is filled, they print the label and put it in the mail. The Bibles go to one of several locations around the country and Operation Worship gets them out to the troops. Very cool.

Our goal was 100,000 Bibles in 100 days. There will be more on that later, but let's just say it's going very well. It's still going and has helped push the NLT to the #2 spot in translation marketshare in Christian bookstores. It was encouraging to hear from retailers how happy they were to be a part of this program. The store gets to sell a Bible, make their full margin and be directly involved in a tremendous ministry. Don't get me wrong, it's a $5 Bible, the stores aren't making a lot of money here, but that's not the point really. I like to think of it as benevolent capitalism.

We gave retailers the opportunity to come by our booth and sign the Bibles to the troops over the several days of the convention. (They didn't have to pay for them). The stories we heard were amazing. One of our favorites was the Bible signed by someone from Beirut, Lebanon. You get chills. I talked to another person who was with the Kuwait Bible Society. On Thursday, I talked to an African American gentleman from, I believe, Alabama (forgive me if I got that wrong). He owns a bookstore. He was an Air Force Advisor in Vietnam. He told me some stories of what he saw and how people are still dealing with the affects of what they saw, did, and how they were treated when they returned to the States. He said he was called a warmonger. It was clear that it wasn't true and that it hurt. He was so excited to be a part of the Operation Worship Bible. He implored me to keep it up.

That's why I do this. It's really easy to get jaded. It's really easy to get competitive and want to "beat the competition." But in the end that misses the point. We want to minister to people. We want to be a part of what God is doing to redeem us all. That's why I am excited not only about the products that Tyndale is producing, but believe it or not, about what the ESV Study Bible is going to do as well even though it's from the "competition" across town.

Labels: ESV, ICRS, NLT, NLT Study Bible, Operation Worship

If you've been reading this blog, you've probably noticed that we're pretty excited about the NLT Study Bible. It's our biggest release since we launched the NLT back in 1996, as General Editor Sean Harrison and the scholar team have been working on this project for the last seven years.

We have just recieved our first advance copies of the NLT Study Bible. I've reserved several copies for giving away from the NLT blog.

This week is the primary trade convention for the Christian Booksellers Association. There are always great Bible events and news at the International Christian Retailing Show (ICRS) and this week is no exception.

• Mark Taylor introduced the NLT Study Bible at the large Monday morning session. More to come on his talk later.
  
• Maureen Girkins, president of Zondervan, announced Zondervan's intention to help retailers sell download cards in retail stores that the customer can take home to download audio books and Bibles.
  
• The Discover God Study Bible, NLT was announced the winner in the Bible category of the ECPA Christian Book Award Winners. The awards are determined based on " content, literary quality, design and impact".
• Thomas Nelson's Audio Bible "Word of Promise" won the ECPA "Book of the Year" award. This is the first time an audio book has won this award.
• Tyndale is holding a booth event/kickoff for the NLT Study Bible. We received our first advance copies of the full NLT Study Bible just in time for ICRS! So we have had those at the event, as well as floor displays of the NLT Study Bibles, interactive touchscreen displays about the NLT Study Bible, and a trading pin game for retailers to participate in.
• Attendees are writing notes, prayers, and encouragement on NLT Operation Worship Bibles--with a goal of sending 1,000 Bibles from the convention to U.S. troops worldwide.

Update:

• Anniversaries: Oxford University Press announced the upcoming (2009) anniversary of the Scofield Reference Bible and Zondervan celebrated the 30th anniversary of the NIV.
• Christianity Today, International will be making the NLT the default translation on their websites. More to come on this announcement later.
• Enthusiastic retailer reaction to the NLT Study Bible: see NLT Study Bible General Editor Sean Harrison's post about the NLT Study Bible at ICRS.

My friend Al Hsu at InterVarsity Press also blogged ICRS news and talks about the NLT and ESV Study Bibles releasing this fall.

It's been just over a week since the NLT Blog launched, and already we're enjoying the discussion and interaction that makes blogging what it is. Here's a sampling of how our week went (if I missed something, let me know):

After a brief post in which Laura introduced the blog (and another in which I introduced myself), things started off with a bang when I responded to Tim Challies' post from that morning, Every Word of God. Pretty quickly, several bloggers took note and linked to the post and the new blog, including the first two blogs I ever read (Better Bibles and the Internet Monk). It was fun to engage with so many folks about Bible translation and the NLT. I also wrote about my NLT Odyssey and encouraged you to write about your own Bible translation journey.

Mark Taylor has also chimed in with a great post on one translation decision in Matthew 17:24-27. I am certainly looking forward to seeing more from him, as his insider vantage point on the history of the NLT and specific translation decisions make for a very unique perspective.

Kevin and Laura will also have plenty of interesting things to say in the future. One of the greatest features of this blog is the multiple perspectives that we bring, as I think will become apparent over time. Keep an eye out for another new contributor or two in the coming weeks as well.

Also, check out the NLT Study Bible site and Sean Harrison's blog. Sean is the general editor for the NLT Study Bible, and he's been showing off some of the great features of this forthcoming Bible for a few weeks now. One post I'll highlight is where he gives a glimpse of the original language word study chain system, an interesting and unique feature of the NLT Study Bible.

Thanks to all of you who are reading and commenting on this blog for helping us get off to a good start. We welcome your feedback on anything: posts you'd like to see, questions you'd like answered, etc. We really want this blog to become an integral part of the online community that is interested in the Bible as we offer "issues, perspectives, and news related to the New Living Translation and Bible publishing."

Update: Minutes after I finished this roundup, Laura piped in with some Bible news from an industry convention.

Labels: blogs, NLT

Coins of at least three different nations were used in everyday life in Judea during the NT era. The NT text uses the names of Greek coins, Roman coins, and Jewish coins. The original readers of the NT were presumably very familiar with all of these terms and also knew their relative values, just as Americans intuitively know the relationship between a dime and a quarter and a dollar. The challenge for the translator is to use English terms for the various coins that will convey for modern readers the same intuitive sense of meaning. A case in point is the incident in Matt 17:24-27, in which Jesus sent Peter to find a coin (in a fish's mouth!) to pay the Temple tax.

Matthew--the former tax collector--is the only Gospel writer to tell about this incident. And in the space of four verses, he uses the names of two Greek coins. In 17:24 he twice uses the term didrachma, which means simply a two-drachma coin. (The drachma was the Greek coin more or less equivalent to the Roman denarius, and both coins represent the daily wage for a laborer.) This is the only use of didrachma in the NT, and it is used to refer to the annual tax required for the upkeep of the Temple. In Exod 30:13-16, its predecessor--the tax for the care of the Tabernacle--is presented (in ancient Hebrew terminology) as a tax of "half a shekel."

Matthew's readers would intuitively have understood what was meant when the tax collectors came to ask Peter, "Doesn't your teacher pay the didrachma?" But how should this term be translated into English? Can we give the reader a similar intuitive sense of what was going on? Here's a list of how nine major English translations have handled this term:

NLT	the Temple tax / the Temple tax	[with a footnote]
KJV	tribute money / tribute
NKJV	the temple tax / the temple tax
NASB	the two-drachma tax / the two-drachma tax	[with a footnote]
RSV	the half-shekel tax / the tax
NRSV	the temple tax / the temple tax	[with a footnote]
ESV	the half-shekel tax / the tax	[with a footnote]
NIV	the two-drachma tax / the temple tax	[with a footnote]
HCSB	the double-drachma tax / the double-drachma tax	[with a footnote]

So which translation is most accurate? The answer is that each is accurate in its own way. The NLT, the NKVJ, the NRSV, and the NIV (in the second instance) all communicate clearly that the temple tax is in view. The RSV and its offspring, the ESV, both borrow from Hebrew terminology (half-shekel) to help make the connection with the tax first mentioned in Exodus. (Interestingly, the ESV is not at all literal in this rendering.) The most literal renderings are found in the NASB, the NIV (in the first instance), and the HCSB, But does the modern English reader understand that the literal rendering "two-drachma tax" relates to the temple tax? I doubt it.

A few verses later (Matt 17:27), Jesus tells Peter to go catch a fish, open its mouth, and pull out a stater. This Greek coin--mentioned only here in the NT--is equal to two didrachmas, or four drachmas. And if a didrachma pays the temple tax for one man, a stater is sufficient to pay the tax for both of them. Now let's look at how the same nine translations handle this term:

NLT	a large silver coin	[with a footnote]
KJV	a piece of money
NKJV	a piece of money
NASB	a shekel	[with a footnote]
RSV	a shekel
NRSV	a coin	[with a footnote]
ESV	a shekel
NIV	a four-drachma coin
HCSB	a coin	[with a footnote]

Here only the NIV provides a literal translation--but does the reader have any intuitive sense of what a four-drachma coin represents? I doubt it. The RSV and ESV once again resort to a Hebrew term (a shekel), which provides little meaning for the English reader. Interestingly, the NASB also uses the non-literal shekel, though in the earlier verse it used the literal rendering "two-drachma tax." The other translations use variations on the theme of "a coin."

As the NLT scholars wrestled with how to translate this kind of technical terminology, we tried to ensure that the English reader would get an intuitive understanding of the meaning of the text ("the Temple tax . . . a large silver coin"). And the careful reader can look down to the NLT footnotes to get the technical data:

17:24 Footnote on "the Temple tax": Greek the two-drachma [tax]. See Exod 30:13-16; Neh 10:32-33.
17:27 Footnote on "a large silver coin": Greek a stater, a Greek coin equivalent to four drachmas.

Mark D. Taylor

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 us to memorize Scripture from either the NIV or the KJV, and I went with the NIV since it was the pew Bible at my church. When I was in high school and began to get "serious" about Bible study, I made the switch over to the NASB. I also used other translations, including the NIV, NKJV, and KJV. In the church circles I was running in, literal was best. And it didn't get more literal than the NASB.

I got a lot of mileage out of the NASB, and in fact I still have the leatherbound, ultrathin reference edition that my future wife gave me for my birthday in 1998, all marked up from my first couple of years in Bible college.

I don't remember when I first learned about the NLT, but I do remember when my wife discovered it. She was in a study group, reading through the entire Old Testament for a survey class in our first semester at Moody Bible Institute. One of her friends had an NLT, and the group quickly decided to simply pass the NLT around rather than having everyone read from their own translation. She took note and made sure that her next Bible purchase would be an NLT. Despite her enthusiasm, I still wasn't convinced, and I stayed with the NASB. This was in the fall of 1998, and she has been an NLT gal ever since.

The first time I actually used the NLT for more than checking a verse occasionally was in the spring of 2001, when my wife and I led an evangelistic Bible study through the Gospel of John. Everyone in our college ministry was able to invite their friends to come and read through John together, one chapter each week, to discover Jesus for themselves. We chose the NLT as our group text, and the church generously provided a complete copy of the NLT for everyone that attended the study. It was a fun, and fruitful, experience.

While we were leading this group through John, I was also flexing my new--and still somewhat awkward--Greek skills by translating through myself, along with the NLT, NASB, NIV, and D.A. Carson's commentary. I certainly didn't agree with the NLT everywhere, but often I found that I agreed with the NLT over against another translation in a particular reading. By the end of the 21-week session, I was quite pleased with the NLT. I still didn't switch to it as my primary Bible translation, but I had very positive feelings about it. In fact, we used it again for a new group the next year.

Through my study of Greek, I spent a lot of time in class and on my own thinking and reading about translation and language. More and more, I became disillusioned with the way I used to read a "literal" translation, under the impression that I had virtually unfettered access to the Greek and Hebrew original. As a result, I was "converted," and became a very strong advocate of dynamic equivalency. I returned "home" to the NIV, looking forward to the publication of the TNIV.

At this point, I went through a stage in my journey where I was harshly critical of more formal translations. I took every opportunity to criticize the "poor English" of the NASB. I was vocally critical of the "essentially literal" argument surrounding the (then) new ESV. This was a time when my voice was changing, and I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

In retrospect, I realize that the problem was with the way I had understood the NASB, not the translation itself. I was overconfident in the ability of any English translation to give me a transparent view of the original text, right down to words and grammar. I took my erroneous assumptions about how to use such a translation and compounded the error by blaming the translation itself.

I was just getting settled with using the TNIV when I became aware of an open position on the Bible editorial team here at Tyndale House Publishers. My wife had been using the NLT as her primary Bible (and therefore my secondary Bible) for several years, and so I was excited by the opportunity. I came in for my interview and was surprised to learn that the NLT had received a facelift. In 2004, a second edition had been released, of which my wife and I were completely unaware. We had been reading the 1996 edition. I left that interview with a copy of the new edition and burgeoning interest in the NLT.

I went home that afternoon and spent several hours poring over the NLT second edition: comparing specific passages with the 1996 edition (and my TNIV), reading Galatians straight through, checking individual verses against the Greek and Hebrew, noticing that poetry was now set as poetry, etc. I was impressed. It seemed like every verse had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb and improved where necessary. Whether I got the job or not, I became an "NLT guy" on that day.

The picture on this post is of my Bible shelf at work, and you can probably identify several of the Bibles I mentioned thoughout the post. I carry an NLT and my Reader's Greek NT to church with me on most Sundays (so they're not in the picture), but I also make regular use of the NRSV, I listen the the TNIV on my iPod, and I read the KJV in my pocket edition of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. So even if I am an NLT guy, I'm not an NLT-Only guy.



What's your story?
Post your story in the comments. Or, if you have a blog, write up a post about it and give us a link in the comments.

Labels: bible, Keith Williams, NLT, translation

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 more specifically, I was the Chief Stylist for the NLT.


I will be happy to respond to specific questions about wording in the NLT or differences between the first and second editions of the NLT. And since I've been involved in the NLT from the very beginning of the idea, I will post some entries about the history and process of the translation.

Some of you will already have recognized the family relationship--and that Bible translation is in my blood. Yes, my father was Kenneth Taylor, who was the translator/creator of The Living Bible. He also founded Tyndale House Publishers and Tyndale House Foundation, so I've been in the family business ever since I was a kid.

I look forward to interacting with you.

Mark D. Taylor

Labels: Bible Translation Committee, Mark Taylor, NLT, Tyndale House Publishers

What exactly does that mean? Hasn't that already been taken care of? Is it even, well, biblical?

I'm glad you asked. And trust me, I ask the same questions. A lot. We Bible publishers walk a fine line. We take very seriously the privilege and responsibility we have in publishing the Bible. Our goal, and on this I am pretty sure that the folks at the other major Bible publishers would agree, is to get the Word of God into the hands of those that need it (that would be all of us the last time I checked). We want people to pick up and read the Bible, to take it to heart, to hear from God and be transformed by it.

And here is where the line comes in. We are constantly asking ourselves what it takes to get people to 1) pick up the Bible, and 2) actually (here's the kicker) read it. Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we get it wrong. It is very easy, even with the best of intentions to inadvertently turn the Bible into a widget. I am constantly asking myself not just can we create a Bible, but should we. I am not perfect, so I know that I have suggested things that I shouldn't have and have probably turned down others that I should have accepted. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

What does a "Director of Bibles and Bible Reference" do exactly (other than blogging and chasing down endless strings of e-mails)? Basically, my job is a combination of acquisitions and coordination of various departments here at Tyndale to create "new" Bibles and reference products (if you want to have some fun sometime tell someone you meet on a plane that you create Bibles. Interesting responses). This can be as simple as reviewing our Bibles to see if there is a hole (like "Select" a Bible we released last summer in a calfskin leather binding), to something as complex as working from the concept stage forward on a new study Bible. A given project may be a concept developed internally that we then take to writers to flesh out or it may be something that is brought to Tyndale that we review and determine whether or not to publish.

There are a whole lot of steps that are a part of the process: writing proposals, getting manufacturing costs, looking at sales trends, working with the design team, coordinating with the editorial team to make sure that what we intended to create is what we actually got (and if not does it work? is it better?). Thankfully I don't have to keep track of all of the details, but I am involved in some way in all of these steps.

I want to make sure that in the middle of details and pro formas, of analyzing the "market" (or maybe it's "THE market", I'm not sure really) that we don't lose site of why we are doing this in the first place. Way back when, Ken Taylor started working on the Living Bible for a simple reason - he wanted his kids to understand the Bible. As the father of three, I get that. It matters. More than just about anything else. And it matters for everyone, not just my kids. I have used a whole lot of translations over the years, I still do, but I chose to come to Tyndale because I believe that the NLT offers something unique.

Around Tyndale we use the tagline "the Truth made clear" in reference to the NLT. It's more than a nice marketing statement, more than something you can remember easily. I believe that it is a reflection of what the NLT aspires to be. It is the legacy of Ken Taylor and I am privileged to be a small part of it.

Labels: bible, development, NLT

Hi, I’m Laura Bartlett. I’m the marketing manager for Bibles and Bible reference at Tyndale.

For some people, hearing the words “Bible” and “marketing” in the same sentence can be disconcerting. In the words of my fellow blogger Keith Williams, there can be a tension between consumerism and Holy Writ. And when marketing is creating a new “need” rather than communicating the solution to a real, existing need, consumerism and marketing cross paths.

But in all of us there is a real, inherent need for the Bible and a correct, internalized understanding of it. The vision that our founder, Dr. Ken Taylor, passed on to us was a desire that everyone would have a Bible that they could read and understand. Some people can find that understanding best in translations from other publishers, and we are very happy for them to do so. But we believe that the NLT is for many people and many purposes the translation that can give the best understanding of the Bible.

So my job is simply to get the word out about the NLT and how the translation and the features in some of the annotated editions can offer a deeper understanding of God’s Word when read with care and attention to the Spirit.

I’ve had the privilege of working with a great group of people at Tyndale for the last five years. I get to work on blogs, hire writers for the NLT website, represent Tyndale at conferences, and create strategy and implementation of the marketing for a lot of our Bibles.

When I’m not at Tyndale, I love spending time with my husband, Joel, and studying theology. I’m about half-way through the Historical and Systematic Theology M.A. in the Wheaton College Grad School. If I have some time after that, you’d probably find me hiking or gardening.

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 reason for the confusion, but another is related to other common misconceptions about Bible translation itself, specifically the philosophy known as dynamic equivalence. In the simplest terms possible, dynamic equivalence is a philosophy of translation that intends to communicate the meaning of the Bible, as it would have been understood in its original setting, as accurately as possible in today's language. This is often discussed in contrast with another philosophy of translation, formal correspondence or essentially literal. Again, simply, formal correspondence intends to communicate the words and word order of the original as closely as possible in the modern language. Of course, every translation of the Bible is more complex than those definitions imply. A strict formal correspondence translation would be unintelligible in any language, and a dynamic equivalent translation could become overly concerned with the limitations of its intended audience.

The juxtaposition of these two complementary translation philosophies, often with an eye to which of the two is "superior," often feeds some misconceptions about one philosophy or the other. This can happen from either side of the debate. In a recent post at Tim Challies' blog, some misconceptions about dynamic equivalence are presented, and I'd like to address them here.

The main idea of Challies' post is that words are of the utmost importance in any communication. At a basic level, that is certainly true. He begins his post with a few examples to illustrate the importance we often place on knowing and studying the exact words and not simply the message of important documents such as ransom notes, court transcripts, and love letters. Very true, but in all of the examples he cites, translation is not in view. If the kidnappers had written the ransom note in French, I'm sure any parent would insist on getting a fluent French speaker to translate the letter for them in language that made sense. And courts use on-the-fly interpreters to translate witness testimony into English for jurors. So, there isn't one-to-one correspondence between the emotional examples Challies begins with and the conclusions he makes about Bible translations.

But what about words in translation? First, it is important to understand that there is almost never a one-to-one correspondence between any word in one language and a word in another language (especially when one of the languages is ancient). To point to one example used in the post, machaira is a Greek word that refers to "a relatively short sword or other sharp instrument, sword, dagger" (BDAG), along with related metaphorical meanings. It is unlikely that any English reader, when given the word "sword," would conjure up the mental image of a 5-inch dagger. So the English word and the Greek word are similar--certainly related--but not equivalent.


So Challies' concern that the English word "sword" isn't present in the NLT and other dynamic equivalent translations isn't quite the problem he makes it out to be. To translate a metaphor in the original with an English phrase that captures its meaning, as the NLT does in Romans 13:4, is not "making a mockery of the words that were breathed out by God," as Challies characterized it. Rather, it is a transparent attempt to clearly communicate the force of the language to English readers today. When Paul wrote Romans, representatives of the government literally phorei machairan ("carried a sword"). This is no longer the case, at least not in most English-speaking areas of the world. It is appropriate to explain the metaphor in this context. In Acts 12:2, the word machaira is not being used metaphorically. James was probably literally killed with a sword. This doesn't display an inconsistency in the NLT translation philosophy; rather, it displays a deep commitment to communicate the meaning of Scripture as clearly as possible.

In Psalm 32:1, Challies compares the NLT to the ESV and wonders, "what has become of the word 'covered'? . . . Is 'covered' not one of the words God breathed out and wrote in His book?" Again, the assumption that an English word is inspired is suspect. The word in Hebrew is kesuh, and "put out of sight" is just as legitimate a translation as "covered."

More could be said about these issues, but I would like to close by pointing out some of the implicit and explicit claims about the value of dynamic equivalent translations of the Scriptures in Challies' post. Here is a sampling of his words:

Labels: bible, dynamic equivalence, essentially literal, Keith Williams, NLT, translation, words

My name is Keith Williams, and I will serve as the primary "editorial perspective" on the NLT Blog. I plan to post on translation issues (focusing specifically on the NLT), offer an editorial perspective on some specific NLT editions and NLT-related products, and interact with other blog posts that discuss similar issues.

I've been a member of the Bible editorial team at Tyndale since May 2005. Before coming to Tyndale, I earned an undergraduate degree in Bible and Theology from Moody Bible Institute and completed the coursework for my M.A. in Biblical Exegesis from Wheaton College Graduate School. I had the great privilege of studying under many excellent scholars. It is an even greater privilege to be afforded the opportunity to use what they taught me in the service of the church through my work at Tyndale.

As a Bible editor, most of my work is concentrated on the supplementary materials that we publish alongside the NLT text in various editions. For example, right now I am working on adjusting an original-language word study tool that we created for the NLT Study Bible so that it will be available for use in any NLT that has a cross-reference column. I have also worked on some of the volumes in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series, and I spent most of the last two-and-a half years working on the NLT Study Bible (coming in September). I'm also currently working on a new Bible that I'm really excited about--but I will wait until closer to publication time to talk more about it. Suffice it to say, there isn't really anything like it available right now, but I think it is going to be a great resource for people to study and meditate on God's Word.

On a more personal level: I'm 30 years old, married for the last 8 years to a woman that is clearly too good for me. I'm an insufferable OSU Buckeyes fan, and a suffering Cincinnati Bengals fan. I grew up in Cincinnati, OH, but have lived in the Chicagoland area for the last 10 years and now consider it home.

Welcome to the NLT Blog. This blog exists for discussion of issues, perspectives, and news related to the NLT, Bible publishing, Bible reading, and Bible translation.

Our blog team is comprised of Bible lovers who have a special familiarity with the NLT from different perspectives: scholarly, marketing, executive, editorial, pastoral, product development, etc. Some of us are employed by Tyndale and some are not. In this format, we hope to be able to give you diverse, timely, and interesting looks at the NLT and Bible publishing.

Our goal is to make the NLT more open and accessible and to improve our communication with you. Please join us in the process by asking questions and telling us what you think. All comments which conform to our comment guidelines are welcome.

Update: Read introductions from NLT bloggers Keith Williams, Laura Bartlett, Kevin O'Brien, and Mark Taylor.