Kenneth Taylor

From Textus Receptus

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Revision as of 08:28, 23 May 2009

Kenneth Nathaniel Taylor (May 8, 1917 - June 10, 2005) was an American publisher and author, better known as the creator of the Bible paraphase The Living Bible and the founder of Tyndale House, a major Christian publishing company.

Taylor was born in Portland, Oregon. His parents were George and Charlotte Taylor. His father was a Presbyterian minister. He graduated from high school in 1934 and enrolled in Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. He met his future wife, Margaret West, in high school. They were married in 1940 and had 10 children.

In 1940 Taylor also began to work on a Th. D. at Dallas Theological Seminary. During the course of his studies he was offered the position of editor for HIS Magazine, headquartered in Chicago. Taylor moved back to Wheaton, began working at the magazine, and finished his theological degree at Northern Baptist Seminary.

Taylor worked briefly with Clyde Dennis, founder of Good News Publishers, on translating Gospel tracts and distributing them overseas. In 1947 he moved to Moody Bible Institute, where he served as Director of Moody Press (now called Moody Publishing) until 1963. During that time he assisted a student named George Verwer in distributing Christian literature in Mexico. Verwer would later found Operation Mobilization, which, among other things, distributed Bibles and other books for Taylor. Because of Taylor's interest in worldwide distribution of literature, he formed a foundation called Evangelical Literature Overseas for the development and distribution of Christian literature to third world countries.

Taylor developed a series of Bible stories with pictures for his own children to read. They were eventually published in a book called The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes. He followed this volume with Stories for the Children's Hour and Devotions for the Children's Hour.

After these books were published Taylor began working on an ambitious project--the paraphrasing of the Bible in easy-to-read modern language. He published the New Testament epistles under the title Living Letters' at his own expense in 1962. He actually formed his own publishing firm, Tyndale House, to do so. His Bible paraphrase was successful enough to allow him to leave Moody Press and work exclusively at Tyndale. Taylor finished the entire Bible in contemporary language and published it as The Living Bible in 1971. Over 40 million copies of this paraphrase have been sold.

In his later years, Taylor served as a member of the Bible Translation Committee for the New Living Translation, a new translation that essentially replaced The Living Bible. Taylor died on June 10, 2005 from heart failure.

See also

• New Living Translation

External links

• Kenneth Taylor biography - biographical sketch from the Kenneth Taylor collection at Wheaton College
• My Life: A Guided Tour - Autobiography by Kenneth N. Taylor