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Featured If You or Your Church Switched from NIV to ESV....Why?

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by InTheLight, Oct 23, 2013.

  1. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    Thread title says it all. If you or your church has changed from the NIV to the ESV, why? By church change I mean that they now use ESV from the pulpit, use it when projecting verses on video screens, use it in sermon outlines/note taking sheets, etc.

    Why would someone prefer the ESV over the NIV?
     
  2. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    We did. I think it was simply for the convenience of following along with our pastor as he uses the ESV. I downloaded it on my kindle for the same reason. Its the new "in" translation, especially amongst the reformed / determinists.
     
  3. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Here is a good reason to switch:


    http://www.ligonier.org/reformation-study-bible/about/why-esv/
     
  4. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    I've recently gone back to attending a church that I attended about five years ago and was surprised that the pastor had shifted from the NIV to the ESV. I have also noted that the ESV is the preferred translation of reformed theology. I'm hoping this is NOT the reason my church has made the change.
     
  5. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    So is your church Reformed then WD? I know a few years ago you had said your pastor was a Calvinist.
     
  6. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    It sounds almost that Dr.Ryken must have penned that.

    There are so many errors I don't know where to begin.

    First,the ESV is not a word-for-word translation. That's their professed ideal but the real deal is far from former. Aside from the awkward and stilted language of the ESV it's not that different from the NIV --just compare the two in the book of Hebrews for instance.

    Second the TNIV (the article is aged) was not dynamic-equivalence version,but a mediating translation like the NET Bible,NAB,HCSB etc.
     
  7. thisnumbersdisconnected

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    Our church switched to the ESV nearly six years ago when our pastor was first hired. Up to that point, we used the NASB.

    Why the switch? I don't know. Pastor's preference?

    I don't like the ESV as well as I like the NASB, but I can't complain too much about it. The ESV doesn't always use the best translation of a word or phrase, in my opinion, and sometimes that misses the meaning of the passage. But not seriously, and not often enough I mind that much. I still use my NASB, and read the passages in both adult Bible study and in church from that.

    As someone has said, I don't mind the NIV, but it isn't as good a translation, given it is a dynamic (thought-for-thought) translation vs. the literal word-for-word, or in some cases, by necessity, phrase for word translation, of both the ESV and the NASB. For that reason, I can see a church making that change. I am more for a literal interpretation than any other.
     
    #7 thisnumbersdisconnected, Oct 23, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 23, 2013
  8. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    No, but the pastor still is. Working on him :D
     
  9. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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  10. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Uh no their not.
     
  11. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    Uh, yeah they are based on the translation from Greek and Hebrew to English sentence structure.. At least present an argument if you are going to make a claim
    :BangHead:
     
  12. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    You don't seem to know what the difference.

     
    #12 Revmitchell, Oct 23, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 23, 2013
  13. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    So what there refutes what I said? Something 'essentially' being anything proves nothing. All translators use some form of personal opinion from one language to the next. There is no true 'word for word' translation, and if there were, it would not make sense.
     
  14. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Just wow. I will leave you with it.
     
  15. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    We used the NIV84 and it was a decent version, easy to read and readily available. Then the TNIV came out and we were not going to go that way and stuck with the NIV but were clear to people that the TNIV is a different version. Then they came out with the NIV11 but didn't change the name - and it was different enough and had some issues we just were not comfortable with. So we looked at what else was available and while the NASB is probably the best translation out there, the ESV is excellent as well and many of us had already switched to it. The senior pastor often still preaches from the KJV but we have the ESV as our pew Bibles now.
     
  16. Siberian

    Siberian New Member

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    Webdog is essentially correct; No English translation is truly literal. However, translations fall somewhere on a scale of more formal to more dynamic. The NIV is far more dynamic in its approach than the ESV. So there is, in fact, a clear difference between the two.

    Having a linguistic background, I strongly prefer a more formal (or more literal) approach, and that is why I preach and teach from the ESV (usually). I think it is better for the translator to make the least interpretive decisions as possible when it comes to figures of speech, etc.. The NIV, for the sake of readability, makes more of those interpretive decisions than the ESV does (or NASB, NKJV, etc.). The more formal translations leave more of those decisions to the reader to sort out.

    But no translation is actually literal. If such a purist project were attempted the end product would not be very readable.
     
    #16 Siberian, Oct 23, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 23, 2013
  17. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    No he isn't that is not what he argued. His argument was that all translations are basically dynamic simply because they are all translated from the Greek and Hebrew. Showing he did not have an understanding of just what either of them are.

    The idea that no translations is truly literal is irrelevant. I do not know anyone who made that claim.
     
  18. Siberian

    Siberian New Member

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    Hmm. Maybe you missed what he said...

     
  19. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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  20. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    Correct, for if one desired to be "literal" as possible, grab and use either Interlinear, or else Asv 1901 edition!

    there is a place for versions such as the Niv/Hcsb/Nlt, especially for newly saved, but for serious studies, would much prefer Nasb/Nkjv/ or Esv!
     
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