This post offers a few more Bible passages to compare the four translations: NIV 2011, ESV, HCSB, GW. I offer no comments on each instance.
Note that * indicates a preferred translation of the underlying original language text.
“believe, teach, and confess”
biblical, theological, personal reflections
Welcome to “believe, teach, and confess”
Believe, teach, and confess by Richard P Shields is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at exegete77.wordpress.com.
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Sep 03, 2012 @ 11:35:16
Not sure why you prefer the paraphrastic to the literal in psalm 147:10. In my view, the literal better preserves the poetic imagery.
Sep 03, 2012 @ 11:39:45
Howdy, Phillip. “Taking pleasure in the legs of a man” carries more freight than we want in today’s language. By preserving “the poetic imagery” we inadvertently suggest something far different (and not positive) than the text intends. Thus, for those steeped in the language of the Bible, preserving the literalness might be helpful. But for the average person with little or no background in the Bible or church, such imagery fails to communicate clearly.
Sep 03, 2012 @ 11:58:43
Not sure I can agree with Rom. 8:37 choice either. Most literally: “But in these things we are winning an overwhelming victory through the one having loved us.”
Sep 03, 2012 @ 12:13:00
Your literal translation illustrates my point actually. “Overwhelming victory” is better than “more than conquerors” and that was my point.
Sep 03, 2012 @ 12:49:45
Ok, but GW restructures the sentence in a way that I’m not comfortable with.
Sep 03, 2012 @ 12:57:04
Granted. But it is still better than the other three. Obviously you might be comfortable with NAS 95: “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” But the premise of this whole series is to see how the four translations compare to one another relative to the original language text. So for many of those passages we might find a better translation in that specific verse, but not necessarily better overall. And there is no such Bible as the:
NAS/NKJV/GW/NLT/NIV/HCSB/NABRE/NJB/REB/NET combined mash up translation. LOL
I appreciate your comments, Phillip. And bottom line, it is difficult to find one translation that works in most environments.