This New Living Translation is a full translation from the original languages rather than a paraphrase of the Bible.Īnother project aimed to create something in between the very literal translation of the King James Bible and the more informal Good News Bible. In 1996, a new revision of Taylor's Living Bible was published. This translation has gone on to become one of the best selling in history. Realizing the immense benefits of a Bible that was more easily accessible to the average reader, and responding to the criticisms of the Living Bible, the American Bible Society extended the Good News for Modern Man to the Good News Bible (1976) by adding the Old Testament, in this more readable style. Like Phillips' version, the Living Bible was a dramatic departure from the King James version.ĭespite widespread criticism due to being a paraphrase rather than a translation, the popularity of The Living Bible created a demand for a new approach to translating the Bible into contemporary English called dynamic equivalence, which attempts to preserve the meaning of the original text in a readable way.
His work was at first intended for children, but was later positioned for marketing to high school and college students, as well as adults wishing to better understand the Bible. Taylor had begun because of the trouble his children had in understanding the literal (and sometimes archaic) text of the King James Bible. The Living Bible, released in 1971, was published by its author Kenneth N. Taylor, based on the literal American Standard Version of 1901. In 1966, Good News for Modern Man, a non-literal translation of the New Testament, was released to wide acceptance. In 1958, J. B. Phillips (1906–1982) produced an edition of the New Testament letters in paraphrase, the Letters to Young Churches, so that members of his youth group could understand what the New Testament authors had written. In 1946, the New English Bible was initiated in the United Kingdom, intended to enable readers to better understand the King James Bible. In the late twentieth century, Bibles increasingly appeared that were much less literal in their approach to translation. It was updated as the New Revised Standard Version in 1989. The RSV gained widespread adoption among the mainstream Protestant Churches in America and a Catholic Edition was released in 1962. The Authorized King James Version of 1611 was sporadically altered until 1769, but was not thoroughly updated until the creation of the Revised Version in 1885 it was not until the Revised Standard Version of 1952 (New Testament in 1948) that a rival to the KJV was composed, nearly 350 years after the KJV was first published. The Wessex Gospels were the first translation of the four Gospels in English without accompanying Latin text.