I have the Common English Bible with Apocrypha on my Nook and use it for reading when I don’t have my NIV with me. It’s a good way for me to test the readability of the text. I am also slipping the CEB from time to time in our public readings at our worship services.

The renderings are refreshing and while it is geared for very “common” reading (lower reading levels) it doesn’t have the same feel for me as the NLT. I know it falls more to the “dynamic equivalent” side, but how they handle some phrases have a sense to me that they really wanted to communicate well.

But that use of “human one” is still getting me. They explain their usage here.

It may be something I can get used to instead of “Son of Man,” but at this point I’m still unconvinced. This week I am preparing out of Matthew 13, the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. I am using D.A. Carson’s commentary from the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, and his expositions on “Son of Man” keep convincing me that “Son of Man” is still the better translation.

It is interesting that Darrell Bock and Carson both use Daniel 7:13-14 as reasons for why each particular phrasing is used. (I honestly don’t know Carson’s take on the CEB’s use of “Human One.” He may actually like it as well.)

But in the Matthew narrative, Carson shows that “Son of Man” is important because it has a reference back to the Daniel passage. The other reason is it is intentionally ambiguous. It could conceal as well as reveal. (Of course, “Human One” has that capability as well. It just falls too much to the human side of things.) Yet, the phrase is meant to describe not only a Messianic hope but also a frail human. The use of “Son of Man” in Daniel is to contrast an actual figure of a man standing in the midst of the horrifying beasts being pictured. HUMAN is part of the equation.

But “Son of Man” as a phrase, in Carson’s view, is also part of Jesus’ teaching tools, just like parables. If people wanted to understand parables, they would pursue him further. If they didn’t want to, they could leave. “Son of Man” was ambiguous enough to leave people scratching their heads. Yet, if they were clued into the Messianic hope, they might pursue what Jesus meant when he used the term.

At any rate, while I am still wrestling with “Human One” in the CEB, I am enjoying just about everything else the translation offers. (And I truly am thrilled they are using the Apocrypha.)