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December 05, 2005
ESV
So I switched to the ESV translation of the Bible. Picked up my first burgandy bonded leather red-letter version today, it's only immediate draw back was the color but the store I went to, didn't have any other colors. :( You can thank partial influence from Matt Heerema (http://www.mattandnancy.org/) but also from a staff meeting we had last Tuesday with regard to calendar stuff, but we got off on a tagent discussing the merits of ESV versus NIV and NAS.
Two things while reading this afternooon caught my attention: "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." (Matthew 6:24 ESV) But it had an attached footnote, "Greek mammon, a Semitic word for money or possessions." [NIV lacks the footnote, though the meaning can be derived from context.] (This is one of the formative life changing versus that God hit me over the head with.)
"And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" (Matthew 6:28-30 ESV) I loved the word 'arrayed'. It made me smile and think of "int alpha[26][26]" or something of that nature.
From our brief staff discussion, ESV is more literal like NAS, but easier to read, and does a better job than NIV or NAS at preserving the original intent of the author with regard to literature and stylistic writing. So, in some ways, it does read more artsey, but has been good. I'm hoping to finish Matthew today.
But in a lot of the well known versus in NIV, ESV has read almost identical [for what I have read so far]. I've not been bumped by switching translations, yet, though I am assuming (based on discussion) the prophets, psalms and proverbs might pose an interesting challenge since they are not narratives like the Gospels. The Epistiles should be interesting too. I wonder how Ephesians (my favorite book) will come out as?
And for those who are dying to know:
Favorite Book: Ephesians
Favorite Chapter: John 17
Favorite Verse: Genesis 2:18
:)
Posted by mtriley at 01:09 PM | Comments (4)