The NRSV and TNIV are gender inclusive, using "brothers and sisters" instead of "brethren" and "person" instead of man when this is the intent of the biblical authors. The ESV unfortunately relegates many of these inclusive terms to the footnotes, but at least they are there.
The NRSV annoyingly translates "son of man" in Ezekiel and many other places as "mortal", which then loses its obvious connection to Jesus calling himself the "Son of Man." TNIV and ESV stay with the word for word translation.
The TNIV translates "flesh" in Romans 8 as "sin nature" to avoid the mistake of thinking the term refers to the body as such. But this is too narrow a limitation on the rich term "flesh"; an explanatory footnote or glossary would have been better. At least it indicates the term "flesh" in the notes. NRSV and ESV keep the literal meaning in all its complex ambiguity.
The language of the TNIV is quite contemporary, that of the NRSV and ESV a little less so in places.
2 comments:
Different translations used to irritate me but now they intrigue me. I would like to know more about your thoughts on some of the translations that convey the message well even if they are not as easy flowing as NIV.
The one that I keep coming back to is the English Standard Version (ESV). It successfully combines the tension between literal translation and readability. Its Classic Reference edition, with its cross-references and concordance, is my preferred tool for Bible study. See all editions at
http://www.crossway.org/catalog/bibles
A helpful, brief book on how the Bible's message is conveyed is N.T. Wright's The Last Word.
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