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Theology Thursday Book Review: NLT Study Bible

The past few years I've established a pattern of reading a different translation of the Bible every year. Normally I accomplish this by purchasing an economical (read: dirt cheap) copy from the generous "Pew and Gift Bible" versions of my chosen translation.

This year, I decided I'd get one I could use for more than just one read-through.  In fact, I planned to read through the New Testament twice!  (I've now finished my first pass, which is why I'm reviewing it.)  After hearing a caller on The Narrow Path radio show extolling the virtues of the NLT Study Bible, I did some digging.  And I thumbed through it a fair bit at Barnes and Noble.  And then I bought it!

Of course, NLT is short for New Living Translation. If you're like me (and few are), you're immediately turned off by this. I'm not exactly a fan of the paraphrase style of "translation." You might guess I have no use for The Message.  The Living Bible didn't exactly suit my fancy, either.  I'm more of a word-for-word kind of guy.  I want to know, as nearly as possible, what the Bible actually says, and if there's a difficult metaphor or an awkward phrase, I'll dive through lexicons and commentaries and see what it's about.  In the age of the Internet, it's really not even that much trouble.

After looking, though, I realized the NLT is not an update of The Living Bible, but a new translation that goes back to the source documents.  True, it doesn't really even attempt to do a word-for-word translation, but I'm okay with that now that I've read other good translations in that style.

No, what attracted me to this particular version was what I heard (and later discovered) about the study notes.  They're actually (gasp!) balanced!!!  Meaning that, when a controversial passage comes up, you're not hit with the interpretation from one side.  So on passages addressing God's sovereignty, you don't get just the Reformed take on it.  And in Revelation and Matthew 24, you don't get only the Pre-Trib view.  And that's cool.  The one controversial issue they hit fairly hard and from one side was the topic of Hell.  But that's hardly surprising since most folks don't know there's a controversy.

As for the translation itself, it's really quite enjoyable.  For the most part, it still reads like a Bible, which I like.  (BTW, I can't explain what "like a Bible" means, but I know it when I see it.  The Message isn't it.)  I think there are a few places where the translators went a bit too far to the point of making the reading clunky.  For instance, taking Philemon, since it's a short book and has an easy example:

Here's the New King James Version's rendering of Paul's greeting:

There's nothing difficult to read here.  It's recognizable as a greeting you'd expect to find in a personal letter.  The NLT clunkifies it this way:

True, it's nothing big, but letters (epistles) make up a good half of the New Testament, and the clunkiness gets to be a bit much (especially since I'm going to read through the NT twice this year).  I guess I understand the "This letter is from X..." bit, but did we really need the "I am writing to Y..."?  If we know it's a letter, we already know that it was written.  It just seems clunky.  Have I mentioned I find it clunky?

I guess I just don't like a bunch of extra words thrown in.  Maybe clunky isn't the right word.  I actually feel a bit talked-down-to when I read the greetings as rendered in the NLT.

However, it's a minor gripe, and I found nearly everything else agreeable.  Well, okay, I don't like their rendering of the "headcovering" passage in 1 Corinthians.  But the NIV messed that one up, too.  And so did NETBible.

At this point, if I had to rank the translations I've read, I think it'd end up like this:

1. New King James (just a really great, readable version that maintains some of the old KJV panache)
2. English Standard Version (another word-for-word, for the most part, but also easy to read)
3. New Living Translation (gripes aside, it's very easy on the eyes)
4. New American Standard (I've read it a couple of times, and though it's excellent at the word-for-word thing, it ends up a bit difficult to read in places)
5. New International Version (because there had to be a fifth place)