Glad to see you guys go ESV. Our church switched over about a year ago. Odd enough we switched right before we taught through the book of Ruth. Crossway let us print the whole book of Ruth in booklets to give to everyone and then gave discounts for folks wanting to buy a new Bible.

Those black moleskin ESV Journaling Bibles are sweet if you can read little fonts. A few reviews here.

Reid Monaghan, Pastor, Inversion Fellowship
www.powerofchange.org

Thanks for being willing to post your study for others to read and consider. Let me chip in here as a linguist and a Bible translator, and a member of an Acts 29 church plant (Harambee Church). Your study, and subsequent conclusions, raise several important issues. I am not so much concerned over the choice of the ESV, as much as I am over the rationale that you give for choosing it in, Pastoral Reflections on Bible translation. Please bear with me for a moment:

Before anyone thinks that I am a postmodern who doesn’t believe that a text has any objective meaning, let me state that I thoroughly believe in the exegetical process, to gain the best understanding of what a word means, and that it is indeed possible to know much about what was written thousands of years ago. Greek and Hebrew scholarship has given us a good degree of confidence in what the words mean.

However, an additional scholarly approach that has only developed during the last 50 years or so has to do with our understanding about the act of communicating. God’s Word is more than just a string of individually defined words. The meaning of his words is most understood when connected with other words within larger units (sentence, paragraph, discourse). In addition, his OT and NT authors used various linguistic devices to communicate the meaning of those units (pragmatics) so that readers would understand it the way they intended it to be understood. A better understanding of that aspect of language and translation has improved our ability to produce translations that better capture the thoughts, themes, and important nuances that words communicate within their given context. That, too, is faithful translation. However, traditional translation methods, for the most part, only looked at words, and did not consider pragmatics, semantics, and thematic structure to any great extent. The translators simply transferred those functions from Greek and Hebrew into the English language translation. That practice obscured, or even produced incorrect meaning in the receiving language in so many translations, such as the RSV, NASB, NIV, and now the ESV.

But traditions are difficult things to over come. The outcome of the traditional approach to translation is that people assume a translation that sticks closer to the Greek structure, and provides only explicit meaning, and defines words individually, rather than as part of a communicative act, are known as faithful or accurate translations. And translations that communicate the very same meaning, but also focus on pragmatic and thematic content, through natural language use, are labeled as paraphrases, or worse.

Those translations are stigmatized mostly because they don’t follow traditional translation methods. The term paraphrase was first used by Ken Taylor when he translated the Living Bible because he knew that if he called it a translation, which it is, he would be criticized by those who espoused traditional translation methods. It is now called, The New Living Translation. Saying (p. 7) that the ESV upholds the very words of God, and not just the thoughts of God, is inaccurate and a little bit embarrassing, as if God only spoke in unconnected words, and not in thoughts. I’ve worked with nearly all of our mainstream English translations for years, and they all communicate God’s words and thoughts, using different methods, and they are all reliable. In fact, your theological reasons (1-6) for using the ESV could be said for the other translations, too, with minor exceptions here and there. Leland Ryken (Choosing a Bible) makes similar and debatable assertions.

One more point, then I’ll stop. The notion that we could label one translation as the best possible translation is a highly elusive goal. All translators have their biases, and those biases are often based on personal preferences as much as they are on handed down scholarship. Their biases reflect how they gloss a Greek or Hebrew word in English, what interpretation they will chose when more than one is possible, and how they chose to transfer Greek or Hebrew pragmatic devices (question, rebuke, irony, etc).

I’ve been using the ESV ever since I received a free copy (thanks) at the Resurge conference. I find that, while the ESV has made some improvements over the NIV with exegesis, they have retreated to a style that is less communicative than other modern literal translations. That does not make it better or more trustworthy. I sense that the translators and consultants, including our esteemed friend J.I. Packer, and others, are more comfortable with the traditional style of their generation, and so they want to regain ground that they believe has been lost during the last 25 years. And that at a time in history when truth and meaning needs to come through loud and clear to everyday readers, and not just Pastors who have extensive libraries.

In summary, there is a place for both types of translation, for sure. But one translation cannot honestly be treated as being more faithful than the other, because both literalistic and meaning-based translations follow a methodology that is equally valid and equally important. But let’s remember that the original Greek and Hebrew text is what preserves God’s word through generations. English translations are merely imperfect attempts to communicate what the original texts say. But with increased knowledge comes improved ways to communicate the meaning in those texts.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts on this very important issue during these postmodern times. And thanks to those who endured my response to the end!

Gilles Gravelle
Gilleswa@comcast.net