Ambassador Presbyterian Church

For the past ten years, I have preached from the New International Version (NIV) translation of the bible.  My reason for this was two fold.  First, since it came out in the late 70’s, the NIV has probably been the most widely read and memorized bible translation by evangelical Christians because of its easy readability.  It was the first bible I owned and used most during my early years of spiritual growth, and I knew it would likely be the one which most people in a young church like ours would be familiar with.  Secondly, the more literal translations (I’ll explain this in a moment) such as the New American Standard (NAS) or New King James (NKJ) which I often use in my study and preparation are at times awkward or even archaic in their expressions and thus come across to many as difficult to read or understand. 

Over the last couple of years, I’ve become more familiar with the English Standard Version (ESV) which came out a few years ago billed as more literal (than say the NIV) yet more readable (than say the NAS of NKJ), and over those years has received commendation from other pastors and theologians whose opinions I respect.   At the start of this new year, I am going to start using the ESV as opposed to the NIV on Sunday mornings.  
Why a different translation?  As most of you probably know, the bible was originally written in Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT), and the versions we have in our native languages (ie: English) are translations from the originals.  We who speak English are blessed to have many translations available to us, but that is also cause for greater understanding and discernment of the differences.  

Translations range from what we call formal equivalent or word-for-word translations which seek to adhere to the wording and order of the original documents, to dynamic equivalent or thought-for-thought translations which sometimes replace original words or phrases with more modern equivalents, to paraphrases which try to capture the essence of the originals using modern colloquial expressions.  All translations fall somewhere on that spectrum with the NAS being a good example of a formal equivalent translation, the NIV being a good example of a dynamic equivalent translation, and the Living Bible or the Message being an example of a more straight-forward paraphrase translation.   The first is optimal for in-depth study, the second seeks to blend the best of both and the third is more conducive to personal devotional use but would lack the needed correspondence with the originals for accurate study, teaching or preaching.   For a good overview and review of some different translations see this article.  
The ESV lies between the NIV and the NAS on that translation spectrum, favoring a more literal word-for-word translation like the NAS, while seeking to retain the readability of the NIV and capture the poetic beauty of the older versions such as the KJV.   For that reason, I hope a switch to the ESV in the coming year will further inspire our love for God’s word and satisfy our hunger for God’s truth.  

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.