The Recovery Version of the Bible is one of the fruits of the ministry of a Christian teacher named Witness Lee. He loved the Bible and studied it extensively so that eventually his personal library included about 70 versions in both English and Chinese. In his ministry he would often cite different translations and reference materials regarding the meaning of certain words of phrases in the text.
The actual work on the translation of the Recovery Version began in 1974 when brother Lee began a detailed "Life-Study" of the Bible book by book. He prepared 2 main materials for those Life-Study messages: message outlines and the Recovery Version of the book that was being covered. Brother Lee wrote the outlines, cross references and footnotes and enlisted a number of other brothers who had studied the biblical languages to help translate the text. As they gained experience the quality of the translations increased substantially. Once all the books of the New Testament had been covered in the Life-Studies then the translation team began a critical review of all the translation work that had been done. The second time through they still made improvements in their translation in almost every verse.
More details concerning the Recovery Version can be found at www.recoveryversion.org