He Leadeth Me Still
Posted by Webmaster (admin) on Sep 09 2007 at 10:19 PM
The Elder's Call >>

    When I began attending Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, one of the first things I had to do was come to terms with yet another Bible translation.
    At first, I thought the shift to the English Standard Version was simply a trend, much like the widths of men's neckties go from fat to thin and back to fat again, or the rise and fall of hemlines for women.
    Before I was going to plunk down some cash for a new Bible, I searched the LCMS Web site for some explanations.
    I became convinced that the church's move to the ESV for the new hymnal was not made without a lot of careful deliberation by the church's theologians and leaders. I should mention here that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod does not endorse any particular English translation of the Bible. The church's Commission on Worship wanted to select a translation for use with the new Lutheran Service Book. After much study and thought, it chose the ESV.
So I bought an ESV Bible and began using it for Bible study and devotions.
    Still, a simmering resentment smoldered inside. It flared up each time I noticed the Thompson Chain-Reference NIV Bible, the Concordia Self-Study Bible and a couple of other NIV Bibles on my bookshelf, along with a Living Bible (which is actually a paraphrase), a Beck Bible, an NASB and several copies of the venerable King James Version.
    "Why are there so many translations," I asked myself. "And how do I know which one is best?"
    In June I bought a book to help me further understand some of the issues surrounding Bible translation. The book, "The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation," is published by Crossway, the same folks who publish the ESV Bible. Its principal author is Leland Ryken, who was on the advisory board for the translation committee. Naturally, he is biased toward the ESV, but he makes a number of very good points.
    Ryken explains that the essential difference between the NIV and the ESV is that the NIV's translators subscribed to the "dynamic equivalence" theory of Bible translation. That is, the translators aimed to translate the Bible from its original language into English "thought for thought" rather than "word for word." The ESV, Ryken says, is an essentially literal translation.
    I never thought I would understand why so many Christians were stuck on the King James Version until I read this book. The KJV was essentially a literal, word for word, translation, like the ESV. Those folks who clung to the KJV were clinging to the integrity of scripture.
    And for 300 years or so, the KJV was THE Bible. Ryken makes the point that a downside to having so many English translations to choose from is that the authority of the Bible is undermined, especially in the eyes of unbelievers.
Multiple translations hinders memorization, too, he says.
    A good test for the accuracy of a Bible translation is that a preacher should not have to interrupt his preaching to tell his listeners what the original language says in a given passage, Ryken says. This is avoided or minimized when the translation in the pew Bibles is essentially literal.
    Undoubtedly many believers have come to faith over these past 20 years or so after hearing or reading God's word in the NIV or other translations. And some will say the NIV is more readable than the ESV, but for the sake of our children and future believers, we would do well to embrace the ESV, to use it not only in our worship but in our devotions and for Bible memorization.
God's Blessings,
        David MacDougall