New Living Translation

An important distinction separates the New Living Translation from The Living Bible: whereas the latter was a paraphrase of an existing English text, the NLT is a committee translation made directly from the original languages. Covering the complete Bible, it works from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, taking modern critical original-language texts as its base. Its translation philosophy is dynamic, or meaning-based, though tempered by a sensitivity to formal considerations, and it is classified as a fresh translation rather than a revision; the Living Bible served as the publishing impetus for the project, not as its textual base. Among its distinctive features is a high degree of readability that is nevertheless intentionally grounded in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek rather than derived from paraphrasing an English predecessor. It has found wide use in devotional reading, public worship, and study settings across a broad range of Protestant traditions.