The ESV thread brought to mind something I have been thinking about off and on for the past few months (and perhaps this has been discussed on the PB in the past?): Why don't churches (or groups of like-minded churches, like NAPARC) produce their own translation(s)? I have a problem with the text-critical work being done in cooperation with liberals and/or Roman Catholics, but also with publishing companies each vying to get their own respective translations to market. If a church or churches produce (and authorize?) a translation, at the very least it could not be accused of being "bottom line"-driven, and traces of unbelieving scholarship (textually and in the translation itself) could be carefully abandoned. I understand we already have a plethora of translations, but it would be nice to have the Bible back in the hands of the Church instead of in the hands (and control) of companies or Bible societies. Thoughts?

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Casey Bessette
Westminster OPC • West Suburbs of Chicago

"It is part of the calling of the ekklesia to learn to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge and also to make known within the world of science 'the manifold wisdom of God' in order that the final end of theology, as of all things, may be that the name of the Lord is glorified. Theology and dogmatics, too, exist for the Lord's sake." — Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, p. 46