ESV

I am a fan of the English Standard Version of the Bible. My reasons are pretty much the same as those of George Grant, who says:

The English Standard Version is the translation of the Bible I have been waiting for my entire Christian life. I trust you will find the same to be true for you. It is as precise and accurate as the New American Standard, but is far more literary. It is as readable and accessible as the New International Version, but is far more scholarly. The NAS has always fallen short because of its clunky, ungrammatical prose. The NIV has always fallen short because of its blatant inaccuracies.

There are many examples, but here is one from this past week. You may be familiar with the convention used in English translations to specially denote the covenant name for God, Yahweh, with the all caps LORD. Similarly, hesed is a significant Hebrew word for God's covenant love. Some English translations indicate hesed with the word "loving-kindness." Though it is good they have a word to alert us to hesed, "loving-kindness" is a little mushy for that purpose. The ESV's "steadfast love" better captures the "foreverness" of the covenant God of Israel's love, don't you think?

I say all of that to complain about how the NIV uses no such convention for hesed. It just says "love." Psalm 119 (which we studied in SS on Easter) is packed with references to hesed, but if you use the NIV you will never know it. Aren't translations supposed to help illuminate the Bible text, not obscure it? I think the ESV is the best choice for individual or group study and for the public reading of God's Word.

And one more thing. I hope we are reaching the end of the explosion of translations we've had for the last couple of decades. We have enough already. The last thing we need is for every group to have its own translation. (In case you missed it, that's a dig at the Southern Baptists who now have their own official translation, the Holman Christian Standard Bible.)

So, what translation do you use?