My Journey Through Translations
I began my initial draft of this mini-series on Bible translations last summer. As I was finishing the article, I began to see the ESV pop up in online discussions because of changes being made (again) and now more people are walking away from the ESV as a result. My reasoning for my decision to change away from the ESV differs from why others are doing the same, and I officially transitioned away from the ESV back in August of last year. I do think the textual changes are a significant issue, but I believe what I will discuss in these posts may be even more significant.
I grew up on the NKJV, and I have to say, I still feel very at home when I open and read from it. Most of my memorization work was in the NKJV, and it remains an elegant translation (many of those currently abandoning the ESV are going with the NKJV, and understandably so). I still consider it a top 3 translation.
I started exploring other translations when I went off to college and professors predominately preferred the NASB95. I came across a "checkbook edition" of the NASB95 (tiny font, but extremely portable) and used that for school and now that Bible is my primary evangelism and pastoral visit Bible because of its portability. (I wish more translations were available in checkbook editions)
I can't say I remember when the ESV was first published (2001), but I do remember hearing many things about it during my college years (2009-2013). Crossway was heavily marketing this newer translation as being a faithful word-for-word translation, but still being an elegant and readable translation. According to the marketing, it was less wooden than the NASB95, but more faithful than the NIV. Thus the ESV was quickly becoming the translation of the conservative Christian world, especially in more reformed circles.
I'm not sure when I bought my first ESV bible, but it was a Thinline edition in bonded leather. As I started reading it, I thought it was a fine translation but I did not find it all that much easier to read than my NASB95 that I caried for school. Reading was not as pleasurable as the NKJV, and I found it difficult to plow through. I thought this was just because it wasn't what I grew up with and that I'd eventually get used to it, but I still haven't.
Toward the end of my college years, I picked up a copy of the Holman Christian Standard Bible. I had an HCSB rep explain to me the translation philosophy of "optimal equivalence" (marketing speak for finding the "ideal" middle ground between word-for-word and thought-for-thought), and I thought I'd give it a try. I was immediately hooked. I started carrying it with me to class, church, and when I had the opportunity to preach, I carried it into the pulpit. I absolutely loved my HCSB, and that was what I continued to use during my first pastoral position as the associate pastor of a small church plant. I thought I had found my translation of choice that I would use forever.
But it wasn't meant to be.
Holman decided to do an update on the HCSB to produce the CSB (2017), and I strongly disliked the reasoning behind nearly every change they made from the HCSB. The core of the translation was the same, but because of the changes I still preferred the HCSB. The problem was that the HCSB would begin to be phased out because of the presence of the CSB.
In addition to that, I started raising support to be sent out to plant another church. As I traveled around, preached in more churches, and interacted with more people, I realized what should have been more obvious to me sooner: almost no one in my circles carries an HCSB/CSB, and many had never even heard of the translation. Most in my circles people carried the NKJV, NASB, or ESV, and the ESV was continuing to rise in prominence.
Because of these two realities, I began giving careful thought to what translation I would use for preaching as we anticipated launching a new church plant.
And I made a pragmatic choice.
Because of how prevalent the ESV had become, and because of the issues I outlined about the HCSB/CSB, I decided to roll with the ESV, even though it wasn't my favorite translation. As I saw it, the ESV had gained so much Bible "market share" that using it would create the fewest hurdles as possible for people following along during a sermon.
Combine that with how many publishers were making their curricula available in the ESV, and how many options there were for quality ESV Bibles in virtually any format under the sun, and it just seemed like a no-brainer. I could swallow my personal ambivalence toward the ESV and seek to serve the church using what was seemingly becoming the most common translation.
But the more I used it, the less I liked it.
After years of regular use, I still do not believe that the ESV is as readable as its been marketed to be. I thought this was just because I was used to the NKJV, but I found the HCSB extremely enjoyable to read, which is not how I've ever felt with other more readable translations like the NIV. Even the KJV flows better, in my opinion, even with the older language.
A bigger issue than that, however are interpretive/translation issues I've discovered with the ESV.
I readily acknowledge that every translation has to make interpretive decisions when translating because translation is not a 1-to-1 process. There are many places, however, where the translators can leave things ambiguous and allow the reader to make an interpretive decision. While preaching through several books and studying other passages in depth I have discovered numerous places where the ESV makes interpretive decisions that it did not have to make. Sometimes I agree with these decisions, and other time I don't. Sometimes the difference in meaning is negligible and other times it is much more significant. It was two specific cases that I discovered that raised my concerns about the ESV and really got me considering if I could go another direction. In these two instances, there seems to be a theological bias at play in the interpretive translation and in these two particular texts it has a massive impact on hermeneutics and eschatology.
Over the next two blog posts I'll go in depth on two particular texts that really opened my eyes to the theological bias at play in the ESV and caused me to begin looking elsewhere for my primary reading and teaching translation, followed my one post on how I selected the translation to which I pivoted.
Until then,
Be Blessed; Be a Blessing
Soli Deo Gloria
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