New Believers Bible - Flipbook - Page 131
INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW LIVING TRANSLATION
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the concerns of both formal-equivalence and dynamic-equivalence in mind. On the
one hand, they translated as simply and literally as possible when that approach
yielded an accurate, clear, and natural English text. Many words and phrases were
rendered literally and consistently into English, preserving essential literary and
rhetorical devices, ancient metaphors, and word choices that give structure to the
text and provide echoes of meaning from one passage to the next.
On the other hand, the translators rendered the message more dynamically when
the literal rendering was hard to understand, was misleading, or yielded archaic or
foreign wording. They clarified difficult metaphors and terms to aid in the reader’s
understanding. The translators first struggled with the meaning of the words and
phrases in the ancient context; then they rendered the message into clear, natural
English. Their goal was to be both faithful to the ancient texts and eminently readable. The result is a translation that is both exegetically accurate and idiomatically
powerful.
Translation Process and Team. To produce an accurate translation of the Bible into
contemporary English, the translation team needed the skills necessary to enter into
the thought patterns of the ancient authors and then to render their ideas, connotations, and effects into clear, contemporary English. To begin this process, qualified
biblical scholars were needed to interpret the meaning of the original text and to
check it against our base English translation. In order to guard against personal and
theological biases, the scholars needed to represent a diverse group of Evangelicals
who would employ the best exegetical tools. Then to work alongside the scholars,
skilled English stylists were needed to shape the text into clear, contemporary English.
With these concerns in mind, the Bible Translation Committee recruited teams of
scholars that represented a broad spectrum of denominations, theological perspectives, and backgrounds within the worldwide Evangelical community. (These scholars
are listed at the end of this introduction.) Each book of the Bible was assigned to three
different scholars with proven expertise in the book or group of books to be reviewed.
Each of these scholars made a thorough review of a base translation and submitted
suggested revisions to the appropriate Senior Translator. The Senior Translator then
reviewed and summarized these suggestions and proposed a first-draft revision of the
base text. This draft served as the basis for several additional phases of exegetical and
stylistic committee review. Then the Bible Translation Committee jointly reviewed and
approved every verse of the final translation.
Throughout the translation and editing process, the Senior Translators and their
scholar teams were given a chance to review the editing done by the team of stylists.
This ensured that exegetical errors would not be introduced late in the process and
that the entire Bible Translation Committee was happy with the final result. By
choosing a team of qualified scholars and skilled stylists and by setting up a process
that allowed their interaction throughout the process, the New Living Translation has
