OK, as most of ya' know I am a King Jimmy Man! BUT, I am going to be doing some Lay Studies (probably through Whitfield) in any event it has been recommended that I chose a good CT translation as my secondary translation at the least. I am "leaning ESV" at the moment. There are some things I still like about the NASBU. Now I have a lot of translations, so you need not give me the old "You need to compare renderings!" Yes. I know. That said there are many reasons to become familiar with a translation or two too the point that you can remember text without the actual Bible being always open. That said:Feedback Time! What say ye?

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~etexas~

i dont know what "CT" means.

But i do use an ESV and NASB (both wide margin of course!) In my personal opinion the NASB is good for more in depth study. I use the ESV for casual reading.

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Brian E
Attending Christ Reformed Baptist Church
Milwaukee, WI

ESV or HCSB

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Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

CT = Critical Text, which is the basis for all major modern translations other than the NKJV.

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Chris Poe
Mandeville, LA

"There are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it--the lunatic fringe in all reform movements." Theodore Roosevelt

Critical Text.

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~etexas~

Thank you gentlemen for your replies. As you can see that is something that i dont know a whole lot about

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Brian E
Attending Christ Reformed Baptist Church
Milwaukee, WI

Dennis, I have not looked at the HCSB too much, do you use and like it?

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~etexas~

Choose ESV; forget the Yoda Version (NASB).

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

LOL! I thought Fred would be first in with the Yoda thing!

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~etexas~

No prob! I don't know what 90% of the people here are talking about 90% of the time!

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~etexas~

Al Mohler says that the only Bibles worthy of study (you can tell he is a CT man) are the NASB, HCSB, and ESV. They all attempt to be essentially literal. The HCSB reads more like American English. In direct discourse, for example, you will find contractions. The ESV is VERY much like the NRSV, except without the feminist chip on the shoulder.

So, here is my take . . .

NASB - Yoda-esque. "Happy am I that you asked."
ESV - Stately and elegant (not all that dialectically American)
HCSB - Essentially literal, "Optimal Equivalence" is what they call an attempt to be more "literal" than the NIV and less wooden than the NASB

Actually, (Daniel) you guys are having an impact on me in many areas. After some of the erudite arguments on PB regarding the MT/TR, I have become open to that option for the first time in more than 35 years! Iron sharpens iron and all that, I guess.

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Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

OK, Dennis. Given that my primary Bible is the King James, would you say as far as the 3 Bibles you listed, I might overall like the "elegance" of the ESV?

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~etexas~

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

Yes

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Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

The bandwagon popularity of the ESV notwithstanding my vote still goes to the NASB, which is the version I cut my teeth on. Some of the "yodaesque" qualities have been lessened with the 1995 update, and despite the hype the ESV has plenty of yodaisms as well, especially in the OT, where I have found passages that are more "wooden" than the NASB. Actually the vast majority of the ESV is identical to the 1972 RSV and thus it is much more similar to that than it is to the NRSV, which is a good thing. The controversial payment to the apostate National Council of Churches for the rights to the RSV text so the ESV committee could revise it has been discussed at length on previous threads. The payment was a tremendous boon to that organization, which was reportedly in dire financial straits prior to that. The ESV folks basically cleaned up some of the more glaring theological problems with the RSV, rebadged it as the ESV and put it out for sale. There was a slight revision in 2007 but to my knowledge they have never issued a list of the changes that were made.

I like the fact that the NASB is still better for study than the ESV and not as much worse for reading aloud as has been claimed. I like that the practice of italicizing words not in the original but supplied for clarity by the translators have been retained in the NASB and I like the OT quotes being set off in bold. The NKJV has similar features. (I believe the italics started with the Geneva but were abandoned by the RSV.) What the ESV does have going for it is that the publishers have been very internet friendly and they have issued it in a wide number of editions to meet almost any conceivable felt need.

I actually got rid of my copy of the ESV a few months ago (along with a lot of other books) and unless I change my mind about it and make it my primary version, it will probably be some time before I invest in another one unless some new study bible comes out that I think I have to have and it is only available in the ESV.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think the ESV is a terrible translation. Arguably it is one of the best. I do think it goes without saying that the move of so many from the NIV to the ESV is a move in the right direction, but I prefer the NASB or NKJV and maybe even the KJV. I just think the ESV's popularity is due to its internet campaign, the fact that a lot of big name Reformed and evangelical leaders have endorsed it and the fact that it is "new" even though it is basically a warmed over RSV, something that most evangelicals rejected in the 1950's. The RSV's rejection was not solely due to the fact that it substituted "young woman" for virgin, expiation for propitiation and evinced an antisupernatural bias in many of the messianic passages. (Although arguably if it had not done those things it would likely have been much more widely accepted.) Reading O.T. Allis' negative assessment of the RSV is instructive. Before the full RSV was even published Allis sharply criticized the NT (which IIRC was largely considered unobjectionable theologically other than the aforementioned abandonment of the term propitiation and some issues in John) for abandoning the literal method found in the KJV and ASV, the latter of which it was supposed to be a revision of. That basically the same translation today is hailed as "essentially literal" and a return to the "Tyndale-King James tradition" tells us how far we have gone down the road of dynamic equivalence.

I haven't checked out the HCSB, probably for two reasons. One is that it has been pigeonholed as a Baptist translation (probably somewhat unfairly--given up the makeup of the cmte it's probably no more a Baptist translation than the NIV was a CRC translation or the KJV an Anglican translation for that matter) and another is that it has been largely ignored because it is not a formal equivalence or "essentially literal" translation.

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Chris Poe
Mandeville, LA

"There are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it--the lunatic fringe in all reform movements." Theodore Roosevelt

Cool! Anymore thought from the rest of "ya's"?

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~etexas~

Having Owned and often compared the ESV and the HSCB, I like the ESV much better. There are far less places in it where it takes the liberty of replacing the literal translation with a dynamic one. The ESV does do it on occassion, but at the bottom of nearly every page in the HSCB you will the note saying Lit. then whatever it says.

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Bryan Riddle
1689 London Baptist Confession
Bethel Baptist Church Owasso, Oklahoma

I like that about the HCSB though! Wherever they have to make it more dynamic (based on their translation philosophy) they include a Lit. footnote at the bottom given the literal translation of the passage. I also like the setup of the HCSB, the bullet notes, bolding of the OT text in the NT, etc compared to the ESV.

OP: If you are one of those "majesty of the language" folks, then I think the ESV wins in that department. So if you lean any way towards KJV rendering (which you said you do), you will probably feel most at home with the ESV. Though I think the HCSB is the better translation of the CT.

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Mark Maney
Kwanglim Korean Methodist Church - 1689'er Baptist Pastor (read profile for more info)
Master of Theological Studies emphasis Biblical Studies
Trinity Western University, ACTS Seminaries
Surrey, BC. (Vancouver), Canada

ESV all the way!

This should have been a poll.

Here's what Dr. Vern S. Poythress has to say about it...
About the ESV

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Larry Bray
Training for Elder - Reformed Presbyterian Church of Boothwyn, PCA
Boothwyn, PA - http://www.rpcb.org/

Free Online Reformed Seminary - http://www.tnars.net

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"The best Christian is still a poor Christian" - R.B. Kuiper

Thank you for the link Larry, that is a good article. My CT Bible tilt is moving more to the ESV than ever. Any challengers!

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~etexas~

This is but I am sure there are people here who can answer so I'll ask. Where can I find a list of the differences between the CT and TR?

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Bryan Riddle
1689 London Baptist Confession
Bethel Baptist Church Owasso, Oklahoma

Check out the Translations and Manuscripts section, there are a number of threads there. Pax.

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~etexas~

This is the fourth time I have tried writing this post . It is now a lot shorter and not in depth at all, just stating my conclusions.

If you are looking for the best translation of the CT than I would go for the HCSB with footnotes. If you are looking for a translation of the CT that would be most at home with a KJV reader because of how it sounds, than I would go for the ESV.

Here is an interview with Ed Blum general editor of the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Maybe it will answer some of your questions:

Interview with Dr. Ed Blum, General Editor for the HCSB « Anwoth

And here are two reviews of the HCSB one more glowing than the other though both are pretty positive:

The Holman Christian Standard Bible (Top 10 Bible Versions #1) | Faith & Reason | THIS LAMP...and that's all I need

This on by Michael Marlowe is more critical, though he feels that any shortcomings of the HCSB are solved by its many many Lit. footnotes at the bottom.

Holman Christian Standard Bible

Finally, I feel that the HCSB surpasses the ESV in most of the areas where Dr. Poythress says the ESV excels in.

__________________
Mark Maney
Kwanglim Korean Methodist Church - 1689'er Baptist Pastor (read profile for more info)
Master of Theological Studies emphasis Biblical Studies
Trinity Western University, ACTS Seminaries
Surrey, BC. (Vancouver), Canada