Last one was great, beginning life for me in 2007. A little worn out, travelled quite a way but always good to have one that references can be found easily… it is ‘on the right side of the page half way down’ kind of finding it. That one was the New Revised Standard Version… the new one, and I have been waiting a little while for this – the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (once the word ‘revised’ has been used in the title I guess a new title is a challenge… imagine if they continue to revise / update this one a few times!). Got it while in the USA so a few funny spelling quirks there – armor, not armour, Savior not Saviour… and what goes with the numbers: one hundred seventy five thousand – where did the ‘and’ disappear?
Translations. Never easy, but I like it as it is not always biased in my direction (NIV, a great translation is biased in an evangelical direction). Still not happy that they add the word ‘though’ in Philippians 2 ‘though he existed in the form of God… emptied himself’. A not unexpected translation but justifiable? Not from the text itself, and only justifiable if that behaviour of self-emptying is unlike God! But what if that behaviour is totally because Jesus is in the form of God? What would God do? (At least in the edition I have it has a wide margin so I can put a big note in there!)
Romans 3:25 – expiation or propitiation? The translators opt for ‘a sacrifice of atonement in his blood’ with a footnote (the one I prefer as the word is the word for the ‘mercy seat’ in the OT) ‘a place of atonement’.
A new version for me to read and get acquainted with – I look forward to that. Choosing a version? Almost as hard as being one of the translators (a job way beyond me). We probably bend the words a bit to suit ourselves, and squeeze texts in to agree with us just too much. Glad to have a Bible, and glad that on my best days I can acknowledge that it does not agree with me at every point. I simply seek to pretend that my theology is almost water-tight and leaks less than other theologies.
NRSV = Psalm 22:16 “They have bound my hands and feet…”
– Unhappy with this as NIV & ESV & NLT say “They have pierced my hands and feet.”
Thanks Kevin, for this. I am not a Hebrew reader and am aware that Youngs / Strongs have their limitations (I consider that meaning is more to do with usage than with etymology)… however, as I understand it, and particularly with the Dead Sea Scrolls, ‘pierced’ would seem to be the better translation. Important of course if Ps. 22 is understood to contain prophecy and not simply be the Psalm that Jesus was meditating on while on the cross.
What you raise is one of the reasons why a dependence on a translation should be balanced by referencing others. None are perfect!