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Jun 4, 2013

God "Hearts" Me New Life Bible, Available July 1, 2013, A Review

I read the book of Ruth and part of the book of Romans.  Ruth is my favorite, and Romans is Paul's first letter in the cannon order.  I also read the preface and introductory comments to find out more about the New Life Bible specifically.
 
The language was easy to read, as intended by the translators.  The New Life Bible uses one word for the same word in Hebrew or Greek throughout all the occurrences of that particular word, and they only used 850 words for the entire vocabulary. 

So, if the word corn were in the Bible, then every place the original sources used corn in their language these translators would use corn.  I chose corn as it is a New World vegetable and not found originally in the Middle East. 

Also, the translators used a word for word method of translating, which gives a literal translation of each word, rather than a dynamic equivalency, which interprets the intended meaning of puns and other verbal tricks and gives the idea of the meaning rather than the exact word meanings.

By choosing the words as they did and limiting the vocabulary, they have made a Bible that would be great for new readers that are either children or adults whose original language is English, readers for whom English is a non original and new language, and in the mission field throughout the world where ever English would be taught. 

This all brought a freshness to the book of Ruth.  Even though I have read it many times, I found new questions to ponder just because of the different words used.  I prefer the word for word translation used because it allows the reader to figure out what is the meaning of the phrases and puns on their own.

I liked all that I read of the book.

I gave it 4/5 stars. :)

I got my copy from the publisher through the NetGalley review program in exchange for my honest opinion.

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