This is Year Three of my personal "read five translations of the Bible in five years" challenge. Last year was "The Bible (ESV)"   and the year before that was "The Bible (NIV)"  . Overall, I found this translation of the Bible super readable (it is written for a sixth-grade reading level), although I did notice that in order to do that it took a lot of liberties with the text, summarizing or outright contextualizing certain passages outside of a strict translation. In that sense, I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in serious Bible study or the nuances of the text, but I can also see how it's a great resource for people who are looking for basic comprehension about the narratives and concepts in the Bible. My pastor uses the NLT translation when he's trying to process through a large chunk of text at a time, or is reading the Bible "for fun," and I can definitely see the NLT's uses in those areas... as well as for younger kids (like middle schoolers) who have graduated from grade-school type Bibles and are ready for something a little more textual without getting full into the nuances and complexities of Biblical language.

Overall, I'm not sure I'll return to this translation too often unless I'm reading the Bible for leisure... and that's just not something I really do right now, when I'm at a point in my faith where I'm trying to go a little deeper and increase my comprehension. Still, it's a great reference for those times when other translations are a little too dense and I need the text to be a little clearer.

I haven't decided which translation I'm going to tackle next year yet... I'm thinking about going all-in and trying the King James Version (KJV), but I also might try to do a more literal translation now that this past year has been spent on the paraphrase end of the translation spectrum. I don't think I could follow the NLT up with another paraphrase like The Message (MSG) without going back to a more literal translation first.

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Created Feb 28, 2024 at 1:56pm • Submit your own review...