The-Living-Bible-TLB
Short answer: The Living Bible is a paraphrase of Scripture produced by Kenneth N. Taylor, released in portions from 1962 and completed in 1971, and later revised as the New Living Translation by a larger team of scholars. A paraphrase restates the meaning of the text in fresh everyday words rather than translating directly from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. That makes TLB warm, clear, and easy to read aloud, especially for new believers and children. It also means the wording reflects one man's interpretive choices. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, "Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness," and the verse attaches that profit to Scripture itself. Use TLB as a helpful companion, not as your final authority for doctrine or memorization.
What the Living Bible actually is
The Living Bible began as a father's project. Kenneth Taylor, working from the American Standard Version and other English texts, rephrased the Bible into the plain speech he used to explain passages to his children. Portions appeared in the 1960s, and the full Bible was published in 1971 by Tyndale House. It sold widely and shaped a generation of devotional reading.
The key word is paraphrase. Taylor did not work primarily from the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts the way a translation committee does. He restated the sense of existing English versions in contemporary idiom. That is not dishonest, and Taylor never hid it. But it does mean the book is one step removed from the original languages, and its wording carries the paraphraser's judgments about what each verse means.
This is why the preface matters so much. Taylor himself acknowledged that a paraphrase is not suited for close verbal study. When a reader treats TLB as though it were a word-for-word rendering of the Greek, they are trusting a single interpreter without knowing it. Honest reading begins by knowing what kind of book is in your hands.
Paraphrase versus translation: why the difference matters
A translation asks what the original words say and how best to carry them into another language. Translators weigh grammar, syntax, and idiom, and committees check one another. A paraphrase asks what the passage means and how to say that meaning naturally in the receptor language. The second task is useful, but it inevitably adds interpretation at every turn.
Consider a single Greek word with a range of possible senses. A translation may preserve the ambiguity or footnote it. A paraphrase must choose one sense in order to write a smooth sentence. That choice may be right, but it is a choice. Multiply it by thousands of verses and you see why paraphrases read so smoothly and why they cannot settle a doctrinal dispute.
None of this makes TLB worthless. It makes it a particular tool. A paraphrase can clarify a dense passage, spark a child's interest, or give a tired reader fresh eyes. It cannot tell you what the Holy Spirit moved the prophets and apostles to write. For that you need a translation, ideally more than one, and the habit of checking the wording itself.
Does a paraphrase undermine 2 Timothy 3:16-17?
Paul's point in this passage is not about Bible versions, since none existed in English. He tells Timothy that Scripture is God-breathed and profitable. The phrase rendered as God-breathed in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 points to the divine origin of the writings themselves. The profit Paul names is practical: teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.
That profit depends on the actual text. If a paraphrase softens a rebuke or resolves a tension the original leaves open, the reader may receive less correction than God intended. The verse does not forbid paraphrases, but it does anchor authority in what God breathed out, not in what a modern writer found easiest to say.
Notice also the surrounding verses. In 2 Timothy 3:14-17 Paul tells Timothy to remain in what he learned, knowing from whom he learned it, and he ties Scripture to being complete and equipped for every good work. That is a high view of the text. A paraphrase can serve that equipment; it cannot replace it. Read TLB with a translation open beside it.
Where the Living Bible helps most
TLB shines in settings where the goal is comprehension rather than precision. Parents reading a narrative to young children, new believers working through a Gospel for the first time, or someone recovering from illness and unable to concentrate will often find it opens the text. Its sentences are short and its vocabulary is ordinary.
It can also help a familiar reader notice the emotional force of a passage. Long acquaintance with traditional wording can make a reader skim. A paraphrase may startle you into paying attention again to a psalm of lament or a prophetic rebuke.
Wisdom says use it for what it does well and stop there. Do not build a doctrine of the atonement, church leadership, or gender on a single TLB sentence. Do not memorize from it as though the words were the words of the original. Let it serve devotion, and let translation serve study.
Where it needs a translation beside it
Some passages carry weight that turns on exact wording. Debated texts about the person of Christ, the meaning of justification, the qualifications for elders, or the ordering of the household of God require the closest possible access to the original. A paraphrase's smooth sentence may hide the very difficulty scholars are discussing.
Genealogies, legal material, and poetry suffer in paraphrase. Hebrew poetry works by parallelism, repetition, and concrete imagery. Paraphrase tends to flatten these into explanation. The reader gets the gist and loses the craft, and the craft is part of what God inspired.
There is also the matter of wording drift. A paraphrase written in 1971 sounds dated in places today. The New Living Translation, produced by a committee and revised since, occupies a different category and is a translation rather than a paraphrase, though it is also quite free in places. Do not confuse the two when you cite either one.
How the church has handled paraphrases historically
Paraphrase is not a modern invention. The Jewish Targums restated the Hebrew Scriptures in Aramaic for congregations that no longer understood Hebrew. Early Christian writers produced explanatory paraphrases of Paul. The church has always needed both a faithful text and a clear explanation of it.
What the church has not done is place a paraphrase at the center of its public reading and doctrinal formulation. Nehemiah 8:8 describes the pattern: the Levites read from the book of the law distinctly, and they gave the sense so that the people understood. Translation-like reading plus explanation, not explanation alone.
That pattern suggests a healthy order. The church should read a translation, explain it plainly, and welcome paraphrases as a help to understanding. When the paraphrase becomes the pulpit text and the study text and the memory text all at once, the order is inverted and the congregation loses access to what was actually written.
Reading TLB without losing the text
A workable practice is simple. Read your translation first, slowly, and ask what the words say. Then read the paraphrase and ask what it claims the passage means. Note where the two differ; those differences are often the most instructive moments in your study. Compare translations: a formal one and a functional one side by side will show you the range.
For memorization, choose a translation, not a paraphrase, so the words you carry with you are accountable to the original. For teaching, quote a translation from the pulpit and use a paraphrase only if you label it as such. Acts 17:11 says the Bereans received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. That habit of examination is the safeguard.
Finally, remember what Scripture claims for itself. Psalm 119:105 says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path." The lamp is God's word, not a writer's restatement of it. Use every good tool, and keep the lamp itself in front of you.
Biblical fidelity check
2 Timothy 3:16-17 establishes that Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. It does not establish that any particular English edition, including The Living Bible, is itself God-breathed, nor does it mandate a translation philosophy. The verse speaks about the sacred writings Timothy had known, and it grounds their authority in God's action, not in a publisher's craft or a paraphraser's skill.
A common misreading goes like this: since Scripture is profitable, whichever version I find easiest must be the best one, because it makes me want to read. That reasoning is wrong because it confuses the reader's comfort with the text's authority. Ease of reading is a real good, but it is not the same as fidelity to what was written. Another misreading treats TLB as though it were a translation and argues doctrine from its distinctive wording, which places a single interpreter's choice in the seat of authority. Both mistakes can be avoided by using a translation as the standard and a paraphrase as a servant.
Other passages that speak to 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Paul's charge to Timothy about Scripture belongs to a wider pastoral concern that runs through the letters to Timothy. If you want to trace how sound doctrine is guarded, taught, and handed on in the church, these studies will help: 1 Timothy 1: Grace, Mercy, and Sound Doctrine, 1 Timothy 3: Overseers and Servants in God's House, 1 Timothy 4: Guarding Faith and Godliness, and Honoring Widows and Elders in 1 Timothy 5.
Frequently asked questions
Is The Living Bible a translation or a paraphrase?
It is a paraphrase. Kenneth Taylor restated the meaning of existing English versions in everyday language rather than translating directly from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, as a translation committee would. This does not make it deceptive or useless, but it does place it a step away from the original wording. For study, doctrine, and memorization, read a translation and keep the paraphrase as a companion that helps you understand and apply what the text says.
Can I use The Living Bible for daily reading and devotions?
Yes, with discernment. Many readers find it clear and warm, and clarity is a genuine gift when you are tired, new to the Bible, or reading with children. The caution is to treat it as a help rather than a standard. Read a translation alongside it, and when the two differ, slow down and ask why. That habit turns devotional reading into real study without draining the joy out of it.
Why do some churches discourage The Living Bible?
Concern usually centers on authority rather than readability. Because a paraphrase resolves ambiguities and adds explanation, its wording can carry one interpreter's conclusions into a sermon or a doctrinal discussion without anyone noticing. Churches that preach from a translation are not rejecting easy-to-read Bibles; they are keeping the pulpit accountable to the actual text. Faithful Christians differ on how strongly to press this, but the concern itself is reasonable.
