Tue, 21 Jan 1997 09:18:17 -0500

"Wycliffe only did for England what Matthew and Mark did for the
Roman world. Christianity from its beginning spoke the tongue of the
peasant" (Glassman, Eugene. The Translation Debate: What Makes a
Bible Translation Good? Downer Grove: IVP, 1981.

The two basic approaches, formal correspondance or dynamic
equivalence leads to four types of translations: 1. highly literal 2.
modified literal (KJV, NKJV, NASB etc) 3. idiomatic (NEB, NIV, TEV,
NLT etc. 4. unduly free (LB and other paraphrases).

Acceptable types are 2 and 3 for me. If I'm reading historical
narrative, I like the idiomatic type. If I'm studying logical
discourse, I like modified literal type.

The important thing is to read the Bible. Whichever type translation works for
you, use it.

Fred Haltom