New Believers Bible - Flipbook - Page 133
INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW LIVING TRANSLATION
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subdialect of English, with the goal of making the New Living Translation as broadly
useful and timeless as possible.
But our concern for readability goes beyond the concerns of vocabulary and
sentence structure. We are also concerned about historical and cultural barriers to
understanding the Bible, and we have sought to translate terms shrouded in history
and culture in ways that can be immediately understood. To this end:
• We have converted ancient weights and measures (for example, “ephah” [a unit of
dry volume] or “cubit” [a unit of length]) to modern English (American) equivalents,
since the ancient measures are not generally meaningful to today’s readers. Then in
the textual footnotes we offer the literal Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek measures,
along with modern metric equivalents.
• Instead of translating ancient currency values literally, we have expressed them
in common terms that communicate the message. For example, in the Old Testament, “ten shekels of silver” becomes “ten pieces of silver” to convey the intended
message. In the New Testament, we have often translated the “denarius” as “the
normal daily wage” to facilitate understanding. Then a footnote offers: “Greek a
denarius, the payment for a full day’s wage.” In general, we give a clear English
rendering and then state the literal Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek in a textual
footnote.
• Since the names of Hebrew months are unknown to most contemporary readers,
and since the Hebrew lunar calendar fluctuates from year to year in relation to the
solar calendar used today, we have looked for clear ways to communicate the time
of year the Hebrew months (such as Abib) refer to. When an expanded or
interpretive rendering is given in the text, a textual note gives the literal rendering.
Where it is possible to define a specific ancient date in terms of our modern calendar, we use modern dates in the text. A textual footnote then gives the literal Hebrew date and states the rationale for our rendering. For example, Ezra 6:15
pinpoints the date when the postexilic Temple was completed in Jerusalem: “the
third day of the month Adar.” This was during the sixth year of King Darius’s reign
(that is, 515 B.C.). We have translated that date as March 12, with a footnote giving
the Hebrew and identifying the year as 515 B.C.
• Since ancient references to the time of day differ from our modern methods of denoting time, we have used renderings that are instantly understandable to the modern reader. Accordingly, we have rendered specific times of day by using
approximate equivalents in terms of our common “o’clock” system. On occasion,
translations such as “at dawn the next morning” or “as the sun was setting” have
been used when the biblical reference is more general.
• When the meaning of a proper name (or a wordplay inherent in a proper name) is
relevant to the message of the text, its meaning is often illuminated with a textual
footnote. For example, in Exodus 2:10 the text reads: “The princess named him
