There is a new book out on the market comparing and contrasting four popular recent translations Evangelicals tend to use— the NIV, the NLT, the ESV, and the HCSB. The book is entitled Which Bible Translation Should I Use? A Comparison of Four Recent Versions, and its introducers and editors are Andrew Kostenberger and David Croteau (B+H, 2012, 204 actual pages). Each of the four versions are essentially presented or defended by four individuals who were involved in the translation work themselves— ESV (Wayne Grudem), NIV (Doug Moo), HCSB (Ray Clendenen), and NLT (Philip Comfort). In this particular post I want to address only one issue, that of literalism.
Let it be noted first that none of these four translations really deserve to be called ‘literal’ translations in the strict sense. They are not. They do not follow, for example the word order of the Hebrew or Greek sentences again and again and again for the sake of making good sense in English. In other words, comprehension trumps literalism. Sometimes you will hear one or another of the defenders of the ESV or HCSB or the NKJV claim that their translation is ‘essentially literal’ but not ‘woodenly literal’ (with the latter meaning following word for word the word order in the original language).
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