Apprentice 2 Jesus

There are a handful of blogs I have been reading to help me evaluate the TNIV and ESV. After listening to an old debate on the TNIV, I wrote some more as a response on one site. Here are my thoughts:

I have been drawn to these blogs consistently because I am trying to decide as a pastor if I should shift to the ESV or the TNIV as a main text for our church. Before the TNIV, it would have been a no-brainer because I was not a fan of the NIV.

I had enough Biblical Greek in college to qualify for a minor, but I am not an expert in Greek. It was enough for me to love the NASB and really grit my teeth with the NIV.

Hearing Gordon Fee speak on translation drew me to examine the TNIV. He is a great Evangelical (and Pentecostal) biblical scholar and one of the finest text critics in North America. He also worked on the TNIV and spoke of the updates they made beyond the gender issue passages. Examining the TNIV after that, I found it was a bit more literal than before.

Listening to an old debate between Mark Strauss and Wayne Grudem has really swayed me to the TNIV. I realized the gender issue was important theologically. The ESV translators had the theological stance that women could not be in ministry. That became clear in the debate. I do not believe that from the biblical text. The other thing that became clear was the ESV was a committee of MALE translators. I know a few women who are amazing textual critics. Don’t they know any female text critics? Do they not trust women to be good translators?

Those things gave me a window into the theological bent of the ESV. Now, I LIKE the ESV because I like more formal translations. Yet, theologically, I am understanding more about the importance of the TNIV. I am committed to both translations for comparisons. But I am far more supportive of the TNIV than before, and will probably use it in my church.