Those following the ESV/KJV debate might be interested in this post by Suzanne McCarthy, explaining why she prefers the KJV as her literal translation. I don’t find the language of the KJV nearly as attractive as she does, but that’s a matter of taste in my view.
I always love to find the occasional comments by “anonymous”–clearly the same “anonymous” every time on Better Bibles–who has a love affair with pretending that subjective factors are actually objective beauty. Weird that . . .
While I don’t mind being seen as a critic of the ESV, I feel that lately my posting has gotten a bit out of balance because I have largely been responding to the ESV proponents, who appear to be pretty much critics of everything else. I want to comment on the “critics of everything else” position a bit later, but right now I want to look specifically at how I see the ESV in terms of value and appropriate use.
At the end of this post I will append some links to things I have said about the ESV previously and to some of my more general comments about Bible translation for those who want to look. Note that all links on the abbreviations of Bible versions are to that version’s page in the Bible Version Selection Tool.
I do not advocate a single Bible version myself. I am an advocate of the CEV as an excellent Bible for use in outreach and general ministry. I personally use a variety of Bibles in my own study time. My primary study Bibles are texts in the source languages. My first Bible to put alongside such study is the REB, followed closely by the NRSV and the JPS Tanakh. For me personally, the ESV is well down the list, though I do consult it occasionally aside from when I’m busy criticizing it.
What do I see as positive elements of the ESV?
In language, I regard it as better than the NASB, even the 1995 edition, and definitely better than the NKJV. I would be very happy to see someone move from the KJV to the ESV. Amongst generally literal versions, I prefer the NRSV to the ESV for a number of reasons, which should become clear as I list my negatives.
Here’s what I don’t like about the ESV:
Where would I recommend its use?
I do not recommend the ESV for the following:
Now these negatives and positives apply with equal and sometimes greater force to other versions in the same tradition and translation style. The only reason I’m doing this extensive of a comment on the ESV in particular is that I’ve been drawn into the debate by the proponents of the ESV who are setting themselves up as critics of all other versions. I regard this as a dangerous approach to Bible translation. Certainly we will all have positive and negative things to say about various versions. But ESV proponents have generally joined in a war against dynamic equivalence versions and any version that seeks gender accuracy in translation. This places the ESV front and center in debates in which it would otherwise simply be one of several versions used to illustrate a point.
I have not expounded much on the reasons behind each of these points. After all, this is a blog entry rather than a book, but I would like to link to some of my previous comments for those who are interested in pursuing this some more.
Have fun!
Update (3/7/07 6:40 PM CST): I stand here with egg on my face. The trackback appeared on the ESV blog. I apologize for my insinuation that they would not do so. I was wrong.
The folks over at the ESV Blog say that “[a]s always, we appreciate everyone who blogs about the ESV.” They were responding to the palmertree endorsement concerning which I blogged yesterday. Shall I hold my breath waiting for my link from them? 🙂
Public pressure is sometimes a good thing, as shown by this story on Rep. Jefferson. See my previous comment.
I found this Washington Post article interesting. GM has a reputation for producing gas guzzlers here, but as a leader in fuel economy over in Europe. Why is this?
“We could sell the OPC here and make money because gasoline is near $6 a gallon,” Lutz said. “If we had $6 gasoline in the United States, we could sell it there at a profit, too,” he said. But he said it is unlikely that Americans would buy a little car at $30,000 “when they’re paying $2.50 for gasoline.” “We need $6 gasoline” in America to make sense of the Corsa OPC in that market, Lutz said. [Lutz is GM’s vice chairman for global product development]
Auto manufacturers can do it with the proper motivation. In this country we seem to have an imperative to force fuel prices lower any time they threaten to rise. Then we simultaneously try to force companies to produce more fuel efficient cars. Neither the consumers nor the manufacturers have the motivation.
One of my least popular personal ideas is simply that gas prices should be higher in this country. Frankly, it would inconvenience me if they were, but it would be good for our economy and for the environment in the long run. One of the reasons we do not have the type of efficient mass transit that folks have in Europe is simply that it is not economical, even when subsidized.
Two things would serve to appropriately raise the price of gas. First, don’t react with panic to rising prices with such politically expedient but stupid ideas as releasing petroleum reserves. Second, cover a reasonable amount of the environmental impact through gas taxes. I know I’m bound to hear about gas taxes being too high already, but I don’t agree.
I’ve written a considerable amount of negative stuff, not about the ESV itself, though I do have a few complaints, but about its supporters. Thus when a friend e-mailed me a new endorsement, I thought I’d take a look at why these endorsers regard the ESV so highly. The latest endorsement is ESV: the long-awaited Palmertree endorsement. The key thing about this endorsement is that, well, there is no key thing. It’s sort of an “I waited a long time and then got comfortable with it” kind of endorsement.
He does, however, cite three other endorsements: John Piper, Philip Ryken, and Mark Driscoll. I’ve dealt with Mark Driscoll’s comments before (more recently here), though he has revised the material a bit, but the bottom line is still the same. After reading the other two, I have to say that they have added little, so I’m not going to go over them point by point.
There are three elements in these endorsements of the ESV:
Nostalgia was something that drove the KJV only movment for years. Now many people who might earlier have been sort of gentle KJV advocates are realizing they need some modern version, and the ESV has proven the least shocking option. I actually have little problem with someone using a Bible for reasons of nostalgia. If you understand the ESV, and you enjoy it, go ahead and use it. The same thing goes for the KJV.
Where I have a problem with nostalgia is in churches when its used for public reading and especially outreach. Too often church people regard something as obvious, clear, enjoyable, and downright cuddly and loveable, when most of the people who come through the door find it anything but. Consider your audience when choosing a Bible translation for use in the pews.
First, I do not mean that one must not hold any theological positions, nor do I mean a position that holds the Bible to be inspired and accurate translation to be important. I have never run into anyone who doesn’t think the Bible should be translated accurately. Disagreements are about precisely what constitutes accuracy, and how one goes about achieving it.
What I mean here, however, is selecting a Bible based on how well your favorite texts support your favorite theological positions. If you have carefully examined the source languages, and tested how the English expression would be understood, and you then regard the expression used as the best expression of the meaning (pause for breath!)–then that’s fine. But that’s not what I see argued. People simply announce that the Bible in question, especially the ESV, supports their conclusion. How about some linguistic arguments, assuming you endorsers are capable of presenting them.
I put accuracy in quotes because I think this is the great failing of this entire school of Bible translating. It’s an example of the one ended telephone cord approach to meaning. In communication, there is no “accuracy” except in terms of what the receiver actually receives. You may think “propitiation” is a wonderful word, which accurately conveys the meaning of the Greek word hilasterion, but if the hearer hears “blablabla” instead, no meaning is accurately conveyed.
Of course, ESV advocates will announce that they can explain the word propitiation, and then the congregation will understand it. Well, so can the Bible translators, by translating hilasterion into something the readers understand in the first place. You complain that those using dynamic equivalence deny the readers the chance to decide for themselves. Well, all your process does is deny them the same choice by passing it on to their pastor, who has likely determined what “propitiation” means based on his church’s doctrinal statement.
Accurate translation has to convey meaning accurately from the source language to the reader or hearer in the receptor language. I repeat what has become nearly a mantra for me: There is no accuracy in a vacuum. It’s only accurate communication if the hearer accurately hears it.
Quite frequently I receive appeals for funds from various ministries. This is probably because I head an all-volunteer ministry, Pacesetters Bible School, Inc. and thus am readily connection with Christianity, non-profits, and thus charitable contributions. Now I have no problem with charitable organizations making appeals for funds, though my group limits appeals to people who have attended an event we sponsor or in some way asked to be on the mailing list.
I got one of these appeals today, and the thing that bother me about it, and triggered this post, was that the pledge card inside invited me to pledge some tithe to go to support pastors in this group’s various mission locations. The question comes to mind immediately as to just why I should send tithe to them, and since I have no personal or business connection with them, other than their mailout, why I should regard them as trustworthy. In fact, reading their magazine I’m pretty sure I would not support them were I to make a full investigation. Since my default is to support things I know about, I won’t bother with that lengthier investigation.
Now I’m not a really strict person about tithe. I do believe it’s a good general standard of stewardship, but I believe each person must deal with their own conscience on charitable giving and service. But I also think that the local church is potentially a wonderful institution for giving and carrying out charity. Here’s a group of people you meet with every week (hopefully), and get to know (ideally), and trust (possibly). You can get the idea over a period of time of how they will spend your money.
In principle, it seems to be that a great way to do your basic charitable giving is through a congregation or local group. Taking that principle and asking you to apply it to essentially random people far away, without accountability is questionable at best. I’m assuming that most people who receive such solicitations treat them as I do. But inevitably, just as a few people get caught by “African dictator” scams in e-mail, so some people get caught by various ministries asking for money.
But as a follow-up thought, I have to ask just how accountable your local church is. Do they, in fact, spend your money in a way that you would regard as good stewardship? I’ve written recently about authority and accountability (Why Authority Issues are Important), and like many, I spoke more of accountability from above. But I think the focus needs to be a general accountability to the members–the people who produce the cash and suffer through failures of leadership.
In Christian churches we have too long lived with the idea that the pastor and the elders are above the rest, and should not be questioned. Even in churches with very democratic structures you will generally find a group of people in leadership who are informally considered above reproach and questioning. I believe that there should be no such time. Everyone should be accountable in what they do, whether they have served the church for 5 minutes or 5 decades.
This is true of financial accountability, of one’s moral life as a church leader, and of teaching and doctrine. In one church I attended I found that people were running around passing on things that I had said about the Bible. Now the fact was that I did have the strongest credentials in Biblical studies in the church, and I had often been able to provide answers and references. I was criticized for giving too carefully qualified of answers (people don’t want all that detail, just give them the answer). Some people even misquoted me back at myself, so that I was the authority behind something I never said.
I would regularly say, “Don’t take my word for it. Study it out and come to your own conclusions.” Some people in the church leadership told me I was unreasonable. Why shouldn’t folks depend on the Bible “expert” among them? Well, there is a simple problem there–accountability. There was nobody else in the church who knew Biblical languages, or who had studied the history of the ancient near east, or Biblical exegesis, or a number of other fields as I did. If I was in a seminary setting, there would be someone questioning what I said all the time, and justly so. I should be prepared to defend what I say. But in that local congregation, it was just one man–me–and my errors were getting perpetuated. I might correct them later, but they were already a tradition for some people.
The same thing happens with the finance committee. It’s too complicated and time consuming to check up on what they’re doing and to see how my money is being spent, so I just assume it’s being done well. But I think that’s irresponsible, and it denies accountability to those leaders.
Check your chuch budget. Find out, for example, how much is being spent on service to the community, and how much on maintaining the church structure. Consider whether those are appropriate numbers and what might be done about it. Consider how much is spent on children and youth, the future of the church, and how much is spent entertaining the older members. (As a grandfather approaching age 50, I think I can say that!) Don’t forget that taking care of the church facility and existing members does cost money, but consider how the church can maximize outreach and service.
One last thing–this isn’t a call for whiners and complainers. Quite the opposite! Whiners and complainers don’t hold people accountable, they just have fun complaining and gossiping. The difference is in who you talk to and how you do it. If you go to your finance committee to talk about the budget with some specific point in mind and a suggestion for positive action, that’s accountability. It’s still accountability if you go to them with a specific problem, along with evidence to support your claim. If you go to them just to say, “I hate this budget,” but don’t have anything concrete to suggest, that’s just complaining. No matter what you have, if you gossip about it around the table at Wednesday night dinner, that’s whining and complaining. Don’t do it. If you hear it happening, hold people accountable. Say, “I don’t think we should talk about this here and in this way. Let’s take any issues we have to the right people.”
That’s enough time on the soapbox for me today.
Of course, if I reversed the numbers, I could say, “found not guilty.” He was found guilty of 4 of 5 counts, according to the Washington Post. I would hate to second-guess the jury, even though I have grave doubts on the average IQ of a jury that could survive voir dire under the circumstances.
But what made me want to comment was this (from the same story):
Libby, 56, was the only person charged in a three-year federal investigation that reached the highest echelons of the Bush White House. The central question in the probe was whether anyone in the administration illegally disclosed classified information during the late spring and early summer of 2003, when they told several journalists that an early critic of the Iraq war was married to undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.
No one was ever charged with the leak, but the results of the investigation, led by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, ultimately tarnished both the administration and the Washington press corps.
So we can’t actually prove that a crime was committed by any specific person, but we can get someone for lying about it. This kind of investigation and its result disgusts me. I think Cheney is not a very good public official. I think there are plenty of liars in Washington, but too many special prosecutor probes end up simply chasing round and round, and finally charging people with something else. Once you have an investigation such as this in progress, it’s likely you’ll catch somebody lying about something, and the resulting conviction helps make the whole exercise seem worthwhile.
At least in this case there was a crime to investigate. And make no mistake–leaking classified information is and should be a serious crime. Nonetheless, you have to convict someone of it before you can throw them in jail, and in Washington DC, leaks are the order of the day. But a special prosecutor should, in my view, be able to charge someone with a crime before he can charge someone with lying about it. After all, if you have enough evidence to prove someone was lying, that should mean you have a good idea what did happen.
This time it’s a conservative who is likely going to jail. Another time this happened, it was Bill Clinton. In that case he was lying about his sex life. A different set of people was talking of witch hunts then, but I find both cases troubling. I do regard marital fidelity as a factor in how I regard a candidate’s character. I do consider it ethically questionable, at a minimum, for a person in authority to have any kind of sexual contact with a young aide. But the proper people to enforce that are the voters. In the end, he agreed to a plea bargain because of the perjury.
I dislike both of these results. The voters can act in both cases, but convicting people of lying about their sex life, or of having faulty memory (as I’m characterising it) is hardly a worthwhile close to years of investigation. I suspect that these special prosecutors are simply a fine way to keep a scandal alive so the politicians can do some more lying about it.
A young man in one of my classes once told me that he didn’t want to depend on scholars. His aim in attending my class on Bible study was to know for himself.
Now this young man has an admirable goal, provided that you use “goal” in the same sense as one uses “north star” in navigating toward the north. One will never reach Polaris, but one will continue traveling something close to north while using that star as a guide.
The problem for the average student of the Bible is that you can’t know everything related to your study, so you will always be dependent, in some way, on the scholarship of others. For those who think that taking Greek and Hebrew removes that problem, let me tell you that it does not. After learning Biblical languages, I am still constantly depending on the work of others, and I’m much more aware of it now than I used to be. Once you get to reading the text in the original languages, for example, you then have to ask which text to read. This introduces textual criticism. While I have studied textual criticism to some extent, I am not nearly at the point where I would edit the text of a New Testament book for public use.
The same thing is true of word studies and finding the definitions of words. If you will first accept the fact that you are going to be basing some of what you do on the work of others, it will help you more intelligently choose where to depend on someone else and where to try to do original research. You will want to consider just how objective the scholarship involved is, and how qualified you are to check the work.
Let’s consider an example. My knowledge of textual criticism allows me to read an edition of the New Testament and understand the textual footnotes. I’m acquainted with the major manuscripts, so that when I look at a footnote I can quickly see the range of dates involved in the manuscripts, and I often know something about the specific manuscripts involved–not a massive amount, but enough to follow the note and understand in general why the editors chose the variant they did for the text. I could ask to reduce my dependence on other scholars by getting a look at a high quality photograph of each manuscript for myself, or even by trying to visit the library or museum in which the manuscript itself is kept, so I can check a reading for myself.
But this would be a foolish thing for me to do. First, the process of transcribing a manuscript and collating it (cataloging its variants) is a substantially objective process. In a small number of cases in which letters are partial, or correctors have gotten involved, there may be a dispute, but in that case you will generally have an indication in the edition itself or in the literature. Thus I can put a good deal of trust into the data provided to me in my edition of the New Testament in Greek. Second, my qualifications for deciphering the ancient manuscripts directly are definitely not first rate. I can read such manuscripts, but I have no exprience trying to fill in gaps, or judge disputed letters based on the copyists hand, and so forth. It is therefore not a good use of my resources to go check individual manuscripts for myself.
If you take a step back from that, and consider someone who does not know Greek or Hebrew, then you may see the need to ask, “Is it a good use of my time to do a word study?” To answer that question, let me look at some of your alternatives.
Each of these options will provide you with a substantial amount of information about a particular word or passage, and will give you many options to choose from in your study. In this way you can depend on scholars, but do so intelligently.
