Bible in Living English

The Bible in Living English belongs to the tradition of independent, single-translator versions of the Scriptures, undertaken outside the committee structures that produced most major English Bibles. The work of one man, generally identified as Steven T. Byington, it was published posthumously and covers the complete Bible. Rather than revising an existing English text in the manner of the long Tyndale–King James line, it was rendered afresh from the original-language texts in Hebrew and Greek, guided by a philosophy that aimed to be literal while remaining idiomatic in ordinary modern English. One point warrants particular note for readers assessing its character: its publication by the Watch Tower organization should not be confused with authorship, nor with the translation methodology of the New World Translation. It is remembered chiefly as an example of the personal, scholarly Bible translation that flourished in the twentieth century.