The Living Bible (TLB) is an English version of the Bible by American publisher and author Kenneth Taylor released in 1971. Unlike most English Bibles, the volume is a paraphrase. Mr. Taylor was quoted as having said that he paraphrased the American Standard Version as a project for several years, largely while commuting to his job in Chicago by subway.

Taylor never intended for his paraphrase to be used as the reader's sole source of Biblical knowledge, or as an aid to serious, scholarly study, but rather to put the basic truths of the Bible in language which could readily be understood by the typical reader without a theological or linguistic background, and that he had never represented himself as a professional Bible scholar or his work as a translation.

The Living Bible was well

The Living Bible was a best-seller in the early 1970s, largely due to the accessibility of its modern language, which made passages understandable to those with little or no previous background in Bible study. A year after the 1971 release, the Living Bible was the most popular Bible sold in America. In 1973 Taylor received royalties of roughly 8 million US dollars. By 1974, those royalties had swelled to more than 29 million dollars. By 1997, 40 million copies of The Living Bible had been sold.

Criticisms of the Living Bible

With this level of acclaim and acceptance came criticism, especially from conservative circles. The criticism took several forms, but generally fit one or more of the following:

• The Bible is
  
  
  
  too sacred to be paraphrased. This shows a lack of respect for the text and is too likely to reflect the doctrinal biases of the paraphraser. This view is often expressed by proponents of literal translations.

• The paraphrase is too infelicitous of phrase in some instances.

• Taylor was devoid of linguistic, theological, or other qualifications sufficient to have his work taken seriously.

• Among Calvinists, they are uncomfortable that Taylor's Arminian (which is at the opposite end from calvinism) biases are reflected in this paraphase. In fact, the "Living Bible" became popular among Arminians because of the biases.

• It was, at the time, simply too radically different from more literal translations, such as the King James Version and American Standard Versions, to possibly be considered valid. This was similar to the sort of simply time-blinkered criticism suffered by Tyndale - just as nobody would now criticise Tyndale, many fewer today would criticise the Living Bible than did at the time of its first appearance. Nowadays, with other more accepted non-literal translations such as the Good News Bible, and ultra-modern translations such as The Message and The Word on the Street, the groundswell of defenders of literal-only translations has been greatly eroded.

Dr. Bill Ruhl, a minister from the Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee, wrote a tract containing most of these criticisms and several others. Other very conservative leaders followed suit in some instances. Supporters of Taylor accused these critics of smallmindedness and replied that many of their attacks were more of a personal nature than serious criticisms of the work.

Largely in response to the criticisms, plans were made to supplant the paraphrase with a translation that would incorporate the simplicity of language of The Living Bible and yet address some of the issues above. The result of this work is the New Living Translation, released by Tyndale House in 1996 which has effectively replaced The Living Bible.

Unusual Fact

The Living Bible is probably the only version of a Bible in modern times that contains a swear word, in 1 Samuel Chapter 20, verse 30. This angered many parents, especially since the word was also in the children's version of the Living Bible. The verse, where Saul yells at Jonathan, has been toned down in the New Living Translation.