Part One of this three-part article reviewed the background pages for the English Standard Version (ESV). Part Two began an evaluation of verses from the New Testament of the ESV. This third and final part will conclude this discussion.

Comparison will be made of the ESV to my own version, the Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament, Second Edition (ALT).

1Corinthians 1:10

This passage is mainly be quoted to show the ESV’s handling of the word "brothers." It uses the literal translation in the text, but then has a very good explanatory note. In fact, I say just about the same thing in the Glossary for the ALT, contained in my eBook *Companion Volume to the ALT.

Since the ALT does not have footnotes, I used "brothers [and sisters]" as explained above. But the ESV’s practice of using the literal "brothers" then adding the explanatory footnote is a very good way of handing the situation as well.

1Corinthians 7:1-5

First, a minor point on this passage is the different paragraphing breaking. This is a point that most probably wouldn’t even notice. But I really struggled with over where to put paragraph breaks. So I notice when a version differs from mine in this regard.

Second, and much more importantly, in a couple of places the ESV deviates from a literal translation and basically paraphrases the text.

This can first been seen in the second clause in verse 1. The ESV has "not to have sexual relations" while the ALT has "not to be touching a woman [sexually]." There is a big difference between touching someone and having sexual relations with someone.

However, the ESV, as with many versions, is taking "to touch a woman" as an idiom for having sex. And this is possible. The phrase could have been used at the time much as our idiom "do it" today. The phrase "do it" can refer to a lot of things. An athletic shoe company even uses the phrase "Just do it" as their slogan. And when hearing their ads, no one thinks of sex.

But in the context of male/ female relationships, "do it" clearly is referring to sex. And in the context of this passage, "to touch a woman" also seems to be referring to sex. So the ESV’s interpretation is probably correct. But it is just that, an interpretation, not a translation. For the ALT, I decided the best approach would be to translate the passage literally, but then to add "sexually" in brackets to indicate the probable intended meaning.

If the ESV had at least put the literal translation in a footnote, then readers would know the text was being interpreted for them. But as it is, they have no clue this has happened.

Also interesting (or disturbing) is the interpretation the ESV inserts into the text by putting quotes around this phrase. This is to indicate Paul was quoting something the Corinthians wrote to him, meaning the words are not original with Paul. But this interpretation is very debatable. Most versions do not put this phrase in quotes.

Verse 2 then begins in the ESV, "But because of the temptation to sexual immorality" while the ALT has, "But because of such sexual sins." The words "the temptation to" in the ESV are added, but once again, without indicating they are added.

Now, this is one possible interpretation of what Paul is saying, but not the only one. Another possibility would be "because of such widespread sexual sins." In other words, Paul could be saying that because the Corinthian culture was so saturated with sexual immorality, it would be best to be married so as to better able to avoid sexual sin. The idea of "temptation" is still here, but the emphasis would be on the temptation to the single Christian by the sex-saturated surrounding culture.

But the main point here is that the ESV’s added words are interpreting the text. If they were offset this would be okay, but they are not. So readers again have no idea the text is being interpreted for them.

Similar is when the ESV says in verse 3, "The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights." The Greek word rendered "conjugal" simply means "good will, affection, favor" (BibleWorks). The idea of sex really is not implied by the word. The wider context gives the word this meaning, but the word itself does not.

Second on this phrase is the ESV has introduced the idea of "rights" into the text. The Greek text simply talks about being "owed." The ideas are similar, but not identical. The word "rights" includes connotations that go beyond someone being "owed" something. Moreover, "owed" is a participle, while the ESV has changed it into a noun.

So in the first three verses of this passage, the ESV has significantly deviated from a literal translation. It has instead paraphrased the text.

By way of comparison, the New American Standard Bible (NASB) is also a literal version based on the Critical Text. The NASB has the following for the first three verses:

So it can be seen the NASB sticks with a literal translation in this passage. So there simply was no reason for the ESV to deviate so much. As a side note, the NASB italicizes words added for clarity. So it would have been nice if the ESV followed the NASB in this regard as well.

One final point on this passage, the difference in the rendering of commands is again seen in verse 5. The ESV has "Do not deprive" while the ALT has "Stop depriving." The more accurate rendering of the ALT tells us that there were some married couples in Corinth who had stopped having sex, apparently believing it was "unchristian" to do so. But Paul tells them in no uncertain terms that it is not wrong for married couples to engage in sex.

Hebrews 1:1-4

First, the ESV has moved the words "long ago" ("in time past" in the ALT) from the end of the first clause to the beginning. It is common for Greek word order to be different than the standard English word order. So it is often necessary to rearrange words. But for the ALT, I tried to follow the Greek word order as much as possible. But it would seem the ESV alters the word order more often than is absolutely necessary.

Second, it will be noted that verse 2 starts at a different location in each version. It begins after "prophets" in the ESV but not until after "Son" in the ALT. This is due to the verses being numbered differently in the CT versus the MT. But the verse divisions were added long after the text was written, so neither could be said to be "wrong."

Third, but more important, the "his" before "Son" in the ESV is added, but once again, this is not indicated. By contrast, the ALT brackets and capitalizes the "His."

Fourth, the last word in verse 2 is the plural word aionas. This word is usually translated as "age" or "forever." It occurs frequently in The Revelation as part of the phrase "forever and ever" (literally, "to the ages of the ages"). But for some reason, most versions render it as the singular "world" here, although some version have "universe." The ESV in fact translates the same word as "universe" in Hebrews 11:3, but then as "forever" in Hebrews 13:8.

For consistency sake, the ALT translates the word literally as "ages" all three times it appears in Hebrews. But here and in 11:3, the "figurative" meaning of "the universe" is bracketed, and in 13:8, the figurative meaning of "forever."

Remember from Part One, the ESV background pages said the ESV would render the same Greek word with the same English word as much as possible. But the ESV does not appear to be real consistent in this regard.

Fifth, all four verses of this passage are most logically one long sentence in the Greek. But the ESV has broken up the text into three sentences. This has required it to change the indefinite pronoun "who" at the beginning of verse 3 to personal pronoun "He."

The ESV has also started a new sentence in the middle of verse 3. The rendering here is possible. So this is not necessarily a change of the text on the ESV’s part. But it seemed more likely to me when rendering this passage that one long sentence was meant here.

Sixth, the first half of verse 3 is very important. This verse is a strong proof-text of the deity of Christ. But, unfortunately, some versions weaken this through poor translation.

The phrase the "radiance of the glory of God" is very important. The question here is, does the word "radiance" mean Christ "shines out " the glory of God from His own inner being, like the sun shine out its own light, or does the Son just "reflect" the glory of God, like the moon reflects the light of the sun?

Needless to say, the New World Translation, the "Bible" of Jehovah’s Witnesses, has "reflection" here. But the more accurate rendering is to make it clear that Christ is like the sun, shining out His own glory. To make this clear, I used "outshining" here. The ESV’s "radiance" is good, but not quite as clear.

Also in this phrase, the ESV has "the glory of God." The words "of God" are not in the text. For my version, I took the article as functioning as a pronoun (a legitimate usage of the article), hence "His glory." But there is no legitimacy in adding words without indicating it as such.

Next is "exact imprint" or "exact expression." The important point here is that the text is saying everything God has, the Son has. They are identical. Both of these renderings bring this idea across.

Finally, on this passage, note that the words "by Himself" appear in the ALT but not in the ESV. This is due to a textual variant. The MT and TR have these words but the ESV does not. These words are important. They emphasize that Jesus alone, with no help from anyone else, fully secured our redemption. But despite this importance of these words, the ESV does not provide a footnote indicating the textual variant. This variant, however, is indicated in the "Important Textual Variants" appendix to the ALT.

To further emphasis that Jesus alone secured our redemption, the participle is in the middle voice, hence why the ALT has "having Himself made by Himself." But the ESV renders the middle voice as if it is in the much more common active voice. Thus both by following the CT and by not being as exact as possible in its rendering of Greek voices, the ESV has lost a very important emphasis of this passage.

Conclusion

The ESV is very readable version that is mostly a literal translation. Its handling of the inclusive language issue is done in an accurate manner. Its explanatory footnotes are mostly helpful and accurate. However, there are a few problems with this translation.

First, the ESV does not offset words added for clarity. As a result, readers do not know if a particular word is a translation of an original God-inspired word or if it is a word added by the translators.

Second, the ESV deviates from a literal translation at times. And when it does, this deviation is not indicated in a footnote. So readers have no idea when they are reading a literal translation or when they are reading a paraphrase.

Third is the use of the Critical Text. I detail in my Bible versions book why I strongly believe the MT is to be preferred. Moreover, the textual variant footnotes in the ESV are misleading. And at times, important variants are not even indicated.

But that all said, overall the ESV is a very good version, at least for a version based on the CT. It is far better than most other versions out there. So I would say, if the reader wants a version based on the CT, the ESV would be a good choice. But personally, if I had to pick a CT-based version, I would still prefer the New American Standard Bible. It is somewhat more literal than the ESV, and it offsets words added for clarity. I review the NASB in my book Differences Between Bible Versions.

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, New World Bible Translation Committee, 1985.

BibleWorks™ Copyright © 1992-2003 BibleWorks, LLC. All rights reserved. BibleWorks was programmed by Michael S. Bushell and Michael D. Tan. Verses from the following taken from BibleWorks.

The New American Standard Bible (NAS[1977] and NAU[1995]), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1988, 1995, and La Biblia de Las Americas, Copyright © 1986, both by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.

Differences Between Bible Versions
Discusses translation principles, Greek text-types, and KJV Onlyism.
Advocates a literal or formal equivalence translation method.
Advocates  the use of the Textus Receptus or Majority Greek Text for translating the New Testament.
Over thirty Bible versions are compared and evaluated.

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10/23/06