Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Text/SMS
Random
Subscribe
Answer
In the 1960s, Canadian missionaries Gleason and Kathryn Ledyard sponsored a translation of the Bible that used simple English. The Ledyards served as missionaries to the Indigenous peoples of the Canadian Arctic. They saw a need for a Bible translation that people who spoke English as a second language could understand. In 1969, Barbour Publishing released the New Testament edition of the New Life Version (NLV). The complete Bible, including the Old Testament, followed in 1986.
Besides proper nouns, the NLV uses a vocabulary of about 850 English words, which is lower than that of other Bible translations. The translators rendered the original text of the Bible at about a third-grade reading level. This approach helps young children and people who speak English as a second language read the Bible without encountering difficult words or long sentences.
Like most English Bibles, the NLV was translated from the original languages. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, while the New Testament was written in Greek. Because these languages use different sentence structures and word order than English, scholars must do more than simply translate each word to produce clear, readable English.
Thus, Bible translators usually follow one of three approaches. The first seeks to stay as close as possible to the words and sentence structure of the original Hebrew and Greek. The English Standard Version (ESV) is an example of this. The second seeks to translate the meaning of phrases and sentences into natural English rather than following the original wording as closely as possible. The New International Version (NIV) follows this approach. The NLV is different from both. Its translators worked directly from the original languages but used a very limited English vocabulary and short, simple sentences to make the Bible easier to read.
For example, here is how the NLV translates John 1:1–3:
The Word (Christ) was in the beginning. The Word was with God. The Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. He made all things. Nothing was made without Him making it.”
Compare it with the ESV:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
The NLV identifies the Word as Jesus Christ in John 1:1. Yet, the word “Christ” is not in the original Greek. In contrast, the ESV, like most major English translations, follows the Greek more closely and does not include Jesus' name in the verse. However, John later identifies the Word as Jesus, making its identity clear from the context (see John 1:14, 18). For this reason, the NLV states this explicitly to help readers with limited English reading skills understand the passage more easily.
About ten years after the publication of the NLV, another group of scholars released the New Living Translation (NLT). Like the NLV, the NLT uses simple English but has a reading level of about sixth grade. Over the years, it has become much more widely read than the NLV. For comparison, John 1:1–3 in the NLT says,
“In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.”
Even so, the NLV continues to provide young children and people who speak English as a second language with a helpful introduction to the Bible.
