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<\/a>Scot McKnight has a nice blog post<\/a> in which he describes why\u00a0the Bible translation you prefer\u00a0says something about your personal politics. While I think bible scholars and teachers\u00a0overestimate the amount of \u201cuse\u201d these bible translations actually get (it\u2019s been my experience that most Christians\u00a0don\u2019t read their bibles much at all), Scot makes an interesting point. He says that\u00a0all bible translations are good, so the only reason to prefer one English translation over another is to identify with a Christian subset, sect, or sub-culture which\u00a0has chosen allegiance to that version as a kind of boundary marker<\/em>.<\/p>\nHere\u2019s the list he drew up:<\/p>\n
The NIV 2011 is the Bible of white conservative evangelicals.
\nThe NLT is the Bible of white conservative evangelicals.
\nThe TNIV is the Bible of white egalitarian evangelicals.
\nThe ESV is the Bible of white complementarian conservative evangelicals.
\nThe NASB is the Bible of white conservative evangelical serious Bible students.
\nThe NRSV is the Bible of white Protestant mainliners.
\nThe RSV is the Bible of aged white Protestant mainliners.
\nThe CEB is the Bible of not as white Protestant mainliners.
\nThe KJV is the Bible of African Americans.
\nThe Message is the Bible of those who are tired of the politics (and like something fresh).<\/p><\/blockquote>\nApart from\u00a0the obvious observation that white people have a lot\u00a0of translations, McKnight\u2019s post\u00a0got me wondering:\u00a0if\u00a0allegiance<\/em> to one translation is a political act\u2013and I am with McKnight here, I think it is\u2013then was the act of\u00a0translating<\/em>\u00a0a political act as well? If so, then\u00a0might we need to be aware of the political\u00a0agenda behind each translation?<\/p>\n
All English translations are equally good, but are they equal? Do some English translations have an agenda (or I guess more accurately did the editorial board have an agenda), to which leaders of these subsets have responded with an allegiance?\u00a0Are there times that this agenda can obscure the meaning of a text and confuse the reader? Might there be real reasons members of Christian subsets tend\u00a0toward one translation or another that do not have to do with the quality<\/em> of the translation\u2013its relative \u201cgood\u201d-ness\u2013but\u00a0the underlying agenda of the editorial board?<\/p>\n
Filling in the gaps between the original language and contemporary English involves thousands of choices, each of which shapes the meaning of a text in ways that cannot be easily accounted for by a typical reader. To read a translation is to put your trust in a bunch of scholars about which you know very little. If every translation editorial board has an agenda. Are all of those agendas equally good? It\u2019s an important question, because that\u00a0agenda has shaped\u00a0their translation.<\/p>\n
For instance, in order to produce the ESV (English Standard Version),\u00a0the publisher assembled a team of translators, translation review scholars, and a translation oversight committee. All in all we\u2019re talking about close to 150 scholars. Among this list there are exactly zero women<\/em>. That the ESV is the bible of white complementarian conservatives is not by design. This version was constructed by men to serve the purposes of complementarian\u00a0views. It\u2019s hard not to view the ESV as a boundary marker, when it seems to have been\u00a0created intentionally as a boundary marker.<\/p>\n
In his book Justification<\/em>, N.T. Wright takes the NIV to task for its\u00a0translation of Paul\u2019s writings.<\/p>\n
Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said\u2026 if a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about.\u201d \u2013 N.T. Wright, Justification<\/em>, p. 52.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Wright is saying that the NIV editorial agenda renders the translation\u00a0suspect\u00a0with regard to Paul.\u00a0We know<\/em> that\u00a0N.T. Wright has an agenda. So, how does the reader who is not<\/em> a world class bible scholar respond? Might it be a legitimate approach to say, for instance, when it comes to reading the Pauline corpus, we shouldn\u2019t rely on the NIV in any material way?<\/p>\n
Although I agree with McKnight that all translations are equally good, and that we should not limit ourselves to a single translation, I think we must allow that all translations\u00a0are not equally\u00a0equal<\/em>.\u00a0Each version has strengths and\u00a0weaknesses. Some versions hold allegiance to agendas, be they theological or quasi-political, that should be accounted for. The\u00a0reader benefits when they understand those agendas.<\/p>\n
I want to support\u00a0McKnight\u2019s overall recommendation that we should use all of the modern translations, and talk about them in such a way that they can no longer be used as a boundary markers, with this one exception. I think we must recognize that it is a legitimate stance for a man or woman to say, \u201cI don\u2019t read the ESV, because women were intentionally excluded from the process of its construction.\u201d It is legitimate to say, \u201cI don\u2019t read Paul\u2019s writing in the NIV, because the editors played games with the original language that borders on an attempt to deceive readers,\u201d which is the point N.T. Wright makes (Justification, p. 53).\u00a0In other words, although I think we ought to read across many translations, leading our congregations to do the same, we need to tell the truth about the agendas that come into play.<\/p>\n
McKnight\u2019s argument makes sense to me, I think, because I benefit from this approach. Over the course of the past year I have used\u00a0at least ten different translations while preaching: NRSV, NIV, ESV, TNIV, CEB, NASB, KJV, NET Bible, NLT, AMP, and The Message. I will often reference more than one translation, highlighting accents and differences. The Bible that sits on my desk at work is an ESV journal bible. On my desk at home is an NIV bible. On the altar at church sits an NRSV\u00a0which\u00a0is used during communion each week. (If any bible publishers are reading here,\u00a0I\u2019m happy to receive free copies of your version:-) ).<\/p>\n
I wonder if it\u2019s not enough to say that all of the major modern translations are equally good. We also ought to know the ways in which they\u00a0are not equally equal\u00a0at times (something McKnight has done well in his writings and speaking), even as we are using all of them liberally. We also ought to accept that some can be ignore or rejected out of conscience. More than anything, we must remember that\u00a0interpretation is an ongoing conversation that can ever be settled by any one definitive translation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
**NOTE: Scot McKnight wrote the foreword to my new book Shrink: Faithful Ministry in a Church-Growth Culture.<\/em><\/a> Scot\u2019s book Blue Parakeet<\/em> <\/a>is a wonderful primer on biblical interpretation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scot McKnight has a nice blog post in which he describes why\u00a0the Bible translation you prefer\u00a0says something about your personal politics. While I think bible scholars and teachers\u00a0overestimate the amount of \u201cuse\u201d these bible translations actually get (it\u2019s been my experience that most Christians\u00a0don\u2019t read their bibles much at all), Scot makes an interesting point. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1166,1168,31,1167,38,296],"class_list":["post-3611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bible-translations","tag-esv","tag-n-t-wright","tag-niv","tag-politics","tag-scot-mcknight"],"yoast_head":"\n
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