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