Recently I was in Boston at the Society for Biblical Literature annual meeting. Tyndale was hosting a dinner, as we have done for the past several years, for the scholars who work with us as contributors. This year, Mark Taylor asked me to share my thoughts about the NLT Study Bible project in retrospect: What I learned about project management, what I learned about the Bible, what I would do differently if I had it to do again, and what we should expect over the next few years by way of revisions and updates. Here are some of the things that I said, with more detail than I was able to provide in a short 10~12 minute presentation.

What I learned about project management

First, project management is both simpler and more difficult than I could have imagined.

It is simpler, because we don't really need to develop complex systems for managing a large project like the NLT Study Bible. Instead, we simply need a few very straightforward practices that help us to ensure we are on track for completing the project.

Early on, we spent a lot of time and effort developing complicated tracking systems. We made the classic mistake of trying to understand the entire task set for every subproject at the beginning, and then to build a schedule around it. We would list every task in a subproject, the number of days it would take to complete each task, and then build a schedule from the results. We kept thinking that, if we only spent more time analyzing what needed to be done and how long we thought it should take, we would be able to manage the project well and control the schedule effectively. But in fact, it doesn't work that way: Tasks kept taking longer (always longer) than we thought they would, and so the schedule kept slipping as we tried to re-work our estimates of time. It was overly complicated and incessantly frustrating to try to manage the project this way.

As it turns out, we were making it more complicated than we needed to, and (perhaps more importantly) we were approaching project management from the wrong direction. The establishing of a schedule is not completely dependent on the list of tasks that need to be done, because there are creative ways to combine tasks and otherwise fit the process to the time that is available.

In the end, there is a much simpler way of managing a large project than to try to establish comprehensive process/task lists for every subproject. A revolution in my thinking took place when our team (Tyndale Bible editors) together read the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. The GTD approach is, essentially, to do a review of projects every week and establish a list of "next actions." Then, you work through these next actions.

After reading GTD, I put it to use in managing the NLT Study Bible project, and found it to be a liberating and empowering methodology. As applied to the NLT Study Bible, it involved first estimating what needed to be done on each subproject, from which we estimated a schedule. This was not done in complex detail, but simply in broad terms based on experience over many years with many Bible projects. From this we developed a "bound book date" commitment (which we kept!). Then -- simply -- it required reviewing each active subproject each week and doing the next thing that can be done at every point in time, with priority going to the task that is next in line on the schedule. This approach is several orders of magnitude more "simple" than trying to analyze all the required tasks and their duration as the basis of a schedule.

Nevertheless, the second thing I learned is that project management is much more difficult than I could have imagined, for two reasons: First, it requires intense spiritual commitment and psychological stamina. A long, involved project like a study Bible goes on for a long time -- in our case, we spent about 7.5 years developing it from the time the prototypes were approved to the day the final pages went to the printer. I know that others have been able to work more quickly (in this regard, I'd be interested in hearing Justin Taylor's experiences managing the ESV Study Bible project). But either way, there is no way around the fact that managing a large project requires longevity of stamina that few other things I have been involved with require. Second, it requires (even in a simplified management methodology) tracking and carrying in one's heart and mind a very large number of different projects. It takes a lot of energy to keep track of so many things, and it can be wearying.

In my case, I was both managing the project and serving as the general editor, so I would constantly be putting on either my project management hat or my editor hat. It is hard to be a project manager while doing substantive editorial work, and vice versa. One way I handled it was to do all of the project management that I could for a day, then dive in and edit manuscripts without looking up for the rest of the week. This was the only way that I could develop the necessary depth of focus to do the substantive editorial work that I needed to do.

The third thing I learned about project management is that relationships are both the oil and the fuel that make the project run well. Throughout the course of the NLT Study Bible project, I sought to pay attention not just to the tasks at hand but also to the people who were involved in the project. When I sent an email about a task, I would often also ask about the contributor's life and experiences, and if the contributor told me some detail (such as, "I am going to the Philippines for six weeks to teach" or "My son is having trouble in school right now"), I would ask about it and interact with it. Very often, the personal conversations would take on a life of their own, and I found myself developing friendships with many of the contributors. On several occasions, I was able to meet with contributors when traveling through their home areas or, as often was the case, at the Evangelical Theological Society and Society for Biblical Literature annual meetings. Developing these relationships was one of the most rewarding parts of the project for me.

But it was not just personally rewarding, it was also beneficial to the project and to Tyndale House Publishers, my employer. Building good relationships means that people enjoy working together and want to be involved in the project and to do their best from the heart, and not (just) because there is a deadline hanging over them. There were times that I had to be the bad guy by insisting that things be done by a particular date, but for the most part people were responsible and did their work with pleasure in a timely way. Many of the contributors have said to me, on different occasions, that they have enjoyed working with me and this project much more than other projects they have been involved with. This is good business, in addition to making the whole project much more rewarding for everyone.

What would I do differently if I had it to do again?

First, as I discussed above, I would worry less about procedures and systems, and more about making realistic assessments. We worked hard to establish "standard procedures" that we would follow for developing and editing the subprojects. There was a sense in which I was trusting the procedures. These procedures were often useful and trustworthy. But often enough, a particular manuscript needed to be handled in its own way because of what we were given as a draft.

Second, I would move earlier in the project to dealing with the books of the Bible in "order," Genesis to Revelation. At the beginning of the project, I was dealing with the books of the Bible in whatever order they arrived as drafts from authors. This approach was justified, because I couldn't control when a particular scholar would finish making a draft. However, having things out of canonical order was difficult for various in-house departments such as copyediting and typesetting, because our systems are designed around working through a Bible in batches, from Genesis to Revelation. It also made it difficult for me to understand intuitive how far along we were. In retrospect I was too slow in moving to a canonical order for the project. Once we made the switch, it meant that some NT manuscripts suddenly sat unattended for a couple of years while we worked from Genesis forward. But it immediately made the whole project intuitively understandable, and things started falling more readily into place in a variety of ways. The value of that was enormous for everyone who was involved.

Third, I would probably delegate more to others, if I could find an effective way to do so. Now, I admit that I still have mixed feelings about delegation. In serving as the general editor, I reviewed everything -- every change, every addition, every deletion -- in addition to giving everything my own editorial reading. Although other editors read all the manuscripts alongside me, and we had scholarly general reviewers read everything, and there were copyeditors and proofreaders reading behind me, nevertheless I was the primary editor. On the one hand, there was definitely a benefit in doing things the way we did them. It was beneficial, I believe, to have a unified voice for the entire NLT Study Bible, and the feedback we have gotten is that it is uniformly well written -- so there is a payoff to having one soul fully involved in everything. On the other hand, it meant that the project took a long time -- I was the primary bottleneck. Toward the end of the NLT Study Bible project, I was working with the idea, "Delegate everything that I can." This proved to be an effective management philosophy, because it meant that I focused my attention only on those things that actually needed it. Next time, I would like to take it further.

Those are some of the things I learned about project management from editing the NLT Study Bible. In the next installment, I will talk about what I learned about the Bible.

Tell us about your involvement in the NLT Study Bible.

My job description was to anticipate the questions of the “person in the pew” and see if the NLT and study notes answered them well.

What other work have you done as an editor?

My main editing work has been to copy edit term papers, theses, and dissertations written by nonnative-English-speaking students at graduate institutions, mostly Westminster Seminary.

Of all the parts of the NLT Study Bible that you worked on, which was the most interesting to you? Why?

There was the everyday experience of seeing writers connect scriptural dots in ways I wondered why I hadn’t thought of. Sometimes I’d agree, but sometimes not. For example, I’m still not sold on the interpretation of the psalter as an integrated, developed whole, but the notes posited the existence of threads that certainly looked plausible and that I wouldn’t have thought of.

Which part of your work was the hardest? Why?

I’m not much of a lateral thinker, so coming up with good “why this and not that?” questions was hard.

You worked for, what, 20 years in PNG as a translator? And you have a very precise mind for language, meaning, and theology. In light of all of that, how was it for you to work on the NLT Study Bible and with the NLT?

It was about 19 years. As I was working on the NLT Study Bible, I kept hearing the voice of my translation instructor from 1980 (!) insisting that the Living Bible was not a paraphrase but a good example of what a real translation into a minority language in a preliterate, pre-Christian culture could be. I think the NLT1 was a big improvement over the LB (as one would expect given the different objectives and available resources), and the NLT2 is even better. We have been reading the NLT1 in family devotions, but now that my copy of the NLT2 has arrived, of course we’ll make the change.

What other projects have you worked on recently?

My day job includes copy editing monographs by leftist professors (who accurately note that the house is on fire and describe the causes, then propose to douse the fire with kerosene) and by occasional little-known Christian writers. Lately I’ve spent considerable time converting the files of one of Tyndale’s competitors’ study Bible notes and theological works from the format used in typesetting hard copy to formats for reading on personal and handheld computers. My freelancing still involves copy editing academic papers.

Is one of them particularly meaningful to you? Why / In what ways?

I find most of the monographs interesting, even if I often see the same names in the bibliographies. While I’m frustrated that the church doesn’t seem to be dealing with the problems described therein, I’m heartened when biblical solutions come to mind, and my prayer is that believers who attend the institutions that put the books in their libraries will read them, apply Scripture to the problems, and so heal the sick and free the oppressed in Christ’s name. I don’t really interact with the content of the works I do code conversion on, so my primary growth there is in discovering ways to automate the tedium.

Is there anything else you would like to say?

Just that I enjoyed working on the project and was sad to see it end.

Tyndale House has a long-standing partnership with Wycliffe Bible Translators, whose vision is to "make God's Word accessible to all people in the language of their heart." Every copy of the NLT contains the following statement on the copyright page:

Tyndale House Publishers and Wycliffe Bible Translators share the vision for an understandable, accurate translation of the Bible for every person in the world. Each sale of the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, benefits Wycliffe Bible Translators. Wycliffe is working with partners around the world to accomplish Vision 2025—an initiative to start a Bible translation program in every language group that needs it by the year 2025.

One of the partners that Wycliffe and Tyndale work with is the Seed Company, whose vision is "creatively networking God's people around the world to translate the Bible into every language for his glory." In short, the Seed Company works with nationals to do the work of Bible translation into their own language, rather than following the traditional model of sending western missionary-translators to complete a Bible translation themselves.

This past fall Tyndale House had the opportunity to give a gift of NLT Study Bibles to the Seed Company. Roy Peterson, president of the Seed Company, distributed these Bibles to a group of Nigerian Bible translators and then sent us a thank-you note with a roll of photos of the event to enjoy.

May God bless these men and women who are involved in translating the Bible in Nigeria, and may he bless the work of the Seed Company in helping to make it happen. And may the NLT Study Bible be blessing to those who are involved in the work.

Gary M. Burge is a Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, where he has been teaching since 1992. He has been a part of the NLT translation team from the beginning and was the author of the study materials for the Gospel of John in the NLT Study Bible. On his Wheaton faculty profile page, he states the following perspective on his work:

As I teach New Testament at Wheaton, I want my students to grasp how knowing the unique world of the Middle East in antiquity shapes how we read the New Testament today. Jesus’ cultural reflexes were different than ours and unless we understand him in his world, we risk misrepresenting his story. The setting of first century Palestine must be the lens through which we read the gospels. This has been the passion of my career since the 1970s and I want my students to inherit it.

Dr. Burge recently gave me the following interview for this blog.

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Tell us about your involvement in the NLT Study Bible.

I first began working on the NLT quite a few years ago when I was invited to join the translation team for the Gospel of John. It was an inspiring assignment which brought together respected scholars who were able to work within the tradition of the Living Bible and yet go back to the original Greek, use modern translation techniques, and produce a truly dynamic translation. Then I was asked to work on the study notes for the gospel in the NLT Study Bible. This meant writing an introductory article, comments on the text of John, and numerous sidebars — short studies that are threaded throughout the Bible. The most rewarding aspect of the assignment was remembering how many people would benefit from these efforts. It was that vision that kept each of us going in our various tasks.

Why did John, among all the books of the Bible, draw your interest?

I think that my interest in John parallels that of the church. It is with good reason that John has always been the beloved gospel of the church. It has a depth of meaning that is remarkable. It has symbols and double meanings that are a delight to untangle. And because it is a gospel that bridges two cultures — Jewish and Greek — it speaks of Christ in universal terms that almost anyone can understand. Which explains why John not only is ideal reading for non-Christians and new-Christians, but John continues to fascinate scholars year after year. Popular expositions of John appear every year — as well as a trainload of academic articles.

Is there an example of a symbol or double-meaning that you have enjoyed untangling in John, that has led you to deeper insight?

Double meanings appear throughout the gospel and they say two things: One, that the reality we see contains deeper truths which only the grace of God can reveal to us and two, that our inability to comprehend leads to lives of deep irony. Nicodemus serves as the most obvious example. Nicodemus must be born again. The word “born again” can also be translated “born from above” in Greek. But Nicodemus cannot comprehend and so is trapped in his own ironic misunderstanding. He must return to the womb? No. Rebirth means experiencing the Spirit of God. It really means being born “from above.” Without divinely-given insight to our lives, we simply become ironic. The wedding jars in Cana are another example of double meaning. On the one hand, Jesus is solving a problem at a wedding: They have no wine. On the other hand, the story means more. Jesus is filling a vessel for ritual use with new contents. He is supplying “wine” to a setting that is without. He is replacing ritual washing water with his own gift to Judaism. The same double meaning comes up at the end Jn 2. When Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple and its rebuilding, he is not just talking about the stone structure in Jerusalem. He’s talking about his own body — which, as John makes clear, is the Temple of God.

What other work have you done with the Gospel of John?

I guess the Gospel of John has been an interest of mine for a long time. In 1987 I published a book on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in John called The Anointed Community. After this I wrote a seminary/college textbook on John (Interpreting the Gospel of John, 1992), a commentary on John’s letters (The NIV Application Commentary: Letters of John, 1996), and a full length commentary on John’s Gospel (The NIV Application Commentary: The Gospel of John, 2000). In between I’ve published various articles here and there on John’s writings. Presently I’m fascinated by the new discovery of the Pool of Siloam, its use as a ritual bath, and what this means for John (who refers to it).

All right, what does the Pool of Siloam mean for John?

If the pool of Siloam in south Jerusalem refers to ritual washing — and not just water collection either for private or ritual temple use — then it symbolizes something important for John. Water appears in Jn 1 in Jesus’ baptism, in Jn 2 in the jars containing ritual washing water, in Jn 3 as the prerequisite cleansing offered to Nicodemus, in Jn 4 as living water — which refers to ritual cleansing water (every Jewish ritual bath had to have “living water” in it), Jn 5 has a man trying to get into water for healing, etc. You can see the pattern. John is concerned to probe how it is one might be made clean — not hygienically, but in relation to God. This is an enormous Jewish concept in the first century. Now we can add Jn 9 to this list. The healed man is told to wash in Siloam, and now we see that it is a ritual bath he is told to go to. And John’s spin on the story is that since Siloam means "sent" in Hebrew, and Jesus is the "sent one" from God, so he is told to bathe, to be cleansed in the bath whose only analogue is Christ. Jesus is either presenting people with new water or replacing old water throughout this gospel.

What is the most important thing that people should learn from studying John?

John’s gospel helps to shape a Christian worldview. Just the first 18 verses of the gospel sets the stage. John shows us how the world is in desperate darkness and incapable of extricating itself from the desperate situation it is in. And the only hope is for God to intervene unilaterally — like light piercing the darkness — to reveal who God is and what our true circumstances have become. Light both judges (by showing the truth) and saves (by showing us the way out). In John’s Gospel, these themes are played out like a drama and characters either retreat to the darkness or embrace the light. Here’s a hint: notice how often a crowd watches something Jesus has said or done. And then the crowd splits. Choices are made. Honesty is required. John hopes that we (the audience) will see ourself in those crowds and make the right choices.

Do you have any other suggestions for people as they undertake the study of John?

When reading John, pretend you don’t know much about Matthew, Mark and Luke! Let it stand on its own terms. For example, no miracle is called a “miracle” in John, they are called “signs.” John wants you to ask why. But to call them “miracles” is to rob them of the mystery John is infusing into the story. Here’s another example: throughout the gospel we’re told that “the hour” is coming. This is the “hour of glorification” when Jesus goes to the cross. But wait. John wants us to see that this hour is not a time of crisis (he leaves that theme to the other gospels). The hour of the cross is a time of glory when Jesus “lifted up” for all to see his glory and he begins his ascent to the Father. John is like a great artist, highlighting nuances of Jesus’ life and its meaning in ways we’d miss otherwise.

How does John’s calling miracles “signs” infuse the story with mystery? Or, what is the significance of that for John?

The word “sign” means that something lies beneath the surface. Something has to be explored and interpreted. On its own, the world is incapable of seeing the light for what it is. In fact, the world prefers darkness. So while the word “miracle” points to a sheer act of power, “sign” implies that the miracle has a veiled meaning which can only be discerned with great care. This permits John to lend mystery to the story in matters such as foreshadowing and veiled allusions. There are seven signs in John and each of them have this veiled quality. Jesus feeds 5,000 in chapter 6, but it is more than a nice meal. It is a return to Moses’ miracle of manna in the wilderness. And more, it is a foreshadowing of Jesus himself — the Bread of Life — who will give his life on the cross and so feed the world.

What other projects have you worked on recently?

A strong interest of mine has also been the Middle East and the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. This came about because I was a student once in the Mideast and have returned now over 20 times to all the countries between Iraq and Libya. In 2003 I wrote Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians are not being told about Israel and the Palestinians. This was received very well both here and internationally and won two awards. This has been very gratifying. Currently I’ve just finished a massive (500 page) introduction to the New Testament (The New Testament in Antiquity) with two colleagues, two smaller books on how the Bible’s culture shaped a particular spirituality lost to us today (The Bible and the Land, 2009; Jesus the Middle Eastern Story Teller, 2009), and I’m in the process of writing a book on how the New Testament views “holy land.” Here I ask some tough questions of Christian Zionism and wonder aloud how the New Testament might speak to us today about some who are eager to make divine claims to territory (“holy land”). It has been a fascinating journey this year and I hope it will provoke many of us to revisit the scriptures on this important subject.

Is one of them particularly meaningful to you?

The textbook was a huge 5 year project that it is inevitable to feel invested in it. But I’d have to say that my work in 2003 (Whose Land? Whose Promise?) on Israel and my current effort (The Land in the New Testament) are very close to my heart. So many of us in the western church do not have an accurate read on what is happening in these countries. And worse yet, we use our Bibles to answer questions in ways that have never been done before in Christian history. And frequently the answers we provide are simply wrong. Many of us have contributed to the suffering of Jews and Arabs in Israel/Palestine because of our faith rather than being agents of hope and peace. It is very gratifying to feel as if you are speaking truth to a conflict and helping the church see things differently. I am regularly asked to speak publicly on this issue around the country thanks to these writings, and I do so eagerly. It is what I care about deeply.

Thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.

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Do you, our readers, have any further questions for Dr. Burge, especially in relation to his work on the NLT Study Bible?

How many people have said something like the following? “The NLT is good for reading, but I wouldn’t use it for serious study.” In fact, though, the NLT is an excellent translation for serious study. Here are some reasons:

• The NLT removes the barrier of archaic or difficult language, so people are able immediately to understand what the text is saying. The NLT Study Bible thus does not have to use space to explain the words of the English text. It uses that space for the more interesting work of going back into the world of the Bible and explaining what is not on the surface of the English text. Bible study becomes a more direct process with the NLT.


• Because the NLT is so readable, it is also a natural vehicle for focusing on the big-picture meaning of the text. Readers are less likely to get lost in the details and more likely to be able to see the big picture. The NLT Study Bible pushes readers even more in this direction by including study materials that address not just individual verses, but also the paragraph, the section, and the book. We have taken pains to provide notes that help readers understand the meaning of the trees and the forest, not just the leaves and bark.



• Because the NLT translation team crosses denominational boundaries, the translation does not play favorites with Christian doctrine. The NLT provides deep balance among the theological traditions in the church. It is thus an excellent translation to use in working out the theological meaning of Scripture, without the pressure of having a systematic theology imported into the text by the translators.



• Even word study, the traditional center for many study Bibles, is enhanced by the use of the NLT. In the NLT, a single Hebrew or Greek word is translated in a variety of ways. With appropriate prompting, readers will be able to see the range of meanings that can be conveyed by a single Hebrew or Greek term. In the NLT Study Bible, we have provided a chain-reference word-study system in the cross-reference column and NLT text, accompanied by a glossary at the back of the Bible.

Those are some of the reasons why I believe the NLT is an excellent translation for Bible study. What do you think?

One of the best ways to examine a study Bible is to see if it answers the questions you yourself are asking about the Bible. What questions do you have about the Bible? Go ahead, ask your questions, and then see what study Bible does the best job of answering them.

When I started the series of posts on the book of Ruth, I was setting out to address a number of questions that arise while reading Ruth. Let’s take a look at the questions that remain to be answered.

What was going on with Ruth uncovering Boaz’s feet and lying down (3:4, 7-14)?
According to the study notes, the idea was to make Boaz’s feet cold so that he would wake up.

3:4 Ruth was to uncover Boaz’s feet to ensure that he would waken.

Why did Boaz go to the town gate (4:1) to settle this business? Why did he call for "ten leaders from the town ... to sit as witnesses" (4:2)?
The study note on Ruth 4:1 addresses this question:

4:1 Most legal transactions, including property transfers, were carried out at the town gate.

What was the sandal transfer custom (4:7-8) all about?
Here is the study note on Ruth 4:7:

4:7 in those days: The book of Ruth was not written immediately after these events. By the time Ruth was written, most people had forgotten this custom of removing a sandal and what it meant. The transfer of a sandal symbolized transferring a right of purchase to redeem the land. See also Deut 25:9 for a similar (but not identical) custom in relation to levirate marriage; in both cases, the sandal apparently signified the right of redemption.

Why was the birth of Obed, Boaz’s and Ruth’s son, a source of blessing and redemption for Naomi?

4:14 This child replaced the family Naomi had lost when her own two sons died in Moab. The women of the town recognized that this child completed the circle of redemption for Naomi.

4:15 care for you in your old age (literally cause your old age to be full): With the birth of Obed, Naomi’s life was full again (cp. 1:21).

Why did Naomi nurse the baby as her own?
We don’t address this question in the notes of the NLT Study Bible. Naomi was adopting Obed as her own son, to be the heir of Elimelech’s estate.

Why does Ruth end with a genealogy? Kind of a strange way to end the story, isn’t it?

4:18-22 The book of Ruth ends with a genealogy of ten generations, from Perez, the son of Judah (Jacob’s son), to David, the grandson of Obed. Besides being one of the world’s great stories, this tale concerns the family history of David, Israel’s greatest king. That Ruth and Boaz were ancestors of Israel’s greatest king is a major reason for the inclusion of this small book in the OT.

Yes, it's a beautiful story, but what meaning does it have for me?
The “Meaning and Message” section in the book introduction addresses this question:

God usually works in the ordinary events of everyday life. Miracles do happen, but God regularly accomplishes his purposes and blesses his people through routine occurrences. If we learn faithfulness in the everyday, we are equipped to be faithful when crises come.

Ruth contains at least nine spoken blessings. God’s people have the privilege of blessing each other in God’s name. We often help fulfill those blessings, as Naomi and Boaz fulfilled the blessings they gave to Ruth.

Naomi felt abandoned by God; but God had not abandoned Naomi, and by the end of the book Naomi knew that God had restored more to her than she could have dreamed. God is trustworthy in our darkest hours.

Faith in God involves willingness to take risks. The unnamed family redeemer who wanted to preserve his good name through his own heirs lost an opportunity to be generously faithful. Boaz, by contrast, took the risk of faithfulness and generosity, and he was richly rewarded.

The everyday and the ordinary can have breathtaking eternal results. Ruth’s and Boaz’s daily faithfulness in the unremarkable rhythms of farming, marriage, childbirth, and parenthood resulted in eternal blessings that still multiply through King David and his descendant Jesus Christ.