It's been two months since I declared my intention to choose (from a plethora of options) a primary translation from which to read, teach, and preach on a (fairly) consistent basis. And, having spent time with a number of those options, I have narrowed my search down to four, listed here in no particular order:
1) Holman Christian Standard Bible
2) New Living Translation
3) New Revised Standard Version
4) New International Version
To be honest, I'm really not that happy with the last one; I would much rather have put the Today's New International Version in its place, but it fails to meet one of my criteria (availability/publisher support--Zondervan has discontinued the translation in favor of a top-to-bottom revision of the NIV in 2011. We'll see how that goes). Because of that, I didn't think it fair to put it on a list of modern, up-to-date translations that do at least address the criteria, with varying degrees of success. That said, I may have to reserve judgment on it until 2011, because as the NIV stands right now, it comes up shorter than the other translations with regard to some of those criteria (I'll explain later, but know that I believe that the TNIV made some important and much-needed improvements over its 25-year-old cousin, and was a better translation for those improvements).
I should offer a proviso here, because I don't want anyone to think that I am on the search for the perfect translation. Such a beast does not exist, and to search for it would undoubtedly prove to be both frustrating and futile. What I am searching for is the translation that, in my opinion and for my purposes, meets the criteria that I listed in my last post on this topic. There are many, many wonderful translations that I have not included in my top four, and my reasons for doing so are varied; however, their exclusion from this smaller list should not be misconstrued in any way as a statement on my part that those translations are not good, accurate, and valid translations. They just didn't "tickle my fancy," as it were, with regard to this project. Just so you know.
Continue to pray for me!
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3 comments:
Chad,
I fancy the NLT myself. I went through the same debates and I have many translations, but I really enjoy the NLT.
God Bless Brother
Jimmy
www.jimmycalhoun.com
TO keep on in the quest, that I share with you.. The ESV is great as well.. It is compared to the NASB.
God Bless
Jimmy
Jimmy,
Thanks for the suggestions. I am currently using the NLT as my primary Bible, just to see how it feels. I like it so far, for the most part. There are still certain things that I wish were different, but I love the simplicity of the readings, especially when I use it for teaching/preaching.
I did consider the ESV, but part of my goal was to find a Bible that I could use as my primary Bible both for personal reading and for teaching and preaching. The ESV would work well for the former, but the language is still a bit...complex for the latter. Also, the NLT leans more toward gender-accurate language (e.g. "brothers and sisters" in places where both men and women would have been addressed), which is an important feature for me. The ESV preserves the literal masculine-only language in such places. I just found the language of the NASB too stilted.
That said, I use both the ESV and the NASB as comparison translations when I'm preparing for Wednesday night talks. I find their word-for-word insights very useful!
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