Five Reasons Why I Believe The English Standard Version Is The Best Translation!

1. The ESV is an "essentially literal" translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer. As such, it s emphasis is on "word-for-word" correspondence, at the same time taking into account differences of grammar, syntax, and idiom between current literary English and the original language

2. It retains theological words- such as grace, faith, justification, sanctification, redemption, regeneration, reconciliation and propitiation. This is so important, because these biblical terms are profoundly important to the "Gospel".

3. The ESV is similar to the New American Standard Bible (NASB) in that it seeks to translate a word for word rendering from the original. The key difference is that the ESV is not as choppy as the NASB. It uses sentence structures that we use, whereas the NASB keeps the sentence structures of the original language. We just don't talk that way and the ESV puts sentence structures that are easier to follow in our modern vernacular.

4. The ESV is the best solution to the New International Version (NIV). My concern with the NIV, the translation that I grew up on, is principle on which it is translated. The NIV translation is based on a "dynamic equivalence" which translates a "thought for thought" correspondence. The issue is that God promised to bless His "Words" and the significance is that God never inspired thoughts. Words have their place. Have you ever been in an argument and your words were misconstrued and how it aggravated you? The same is with the Word of God. Translations need to focus on the Words that God used. The Bible is verbally inspired. That means that God did not just pick concepts, but that He chose specific words to get across His heart. For over 2,000 years people translated the Bible into different languages with one primary agenda: accuracy. Proverbs 30:5 states, "Every word of God proves true." The main concern with a "dynamic equivalence" is that its highest priority in translation is not accuracy.

5. The ESV has an incredible literary value! What is literary value? Literary value focuses on precision such as parable, proverb, vision, song, gospel, apocalypse, showing that the biblical writers wrote being cognisant of literary dynamics. The biblical authors had to be literary craftsmen. They needed to engage you with the narrative (story-line). They had to draw you into the plot and paint a crystal clear picture of the characters in the Bible. The poets had to clearly understand the elements of using metaphor and simile. High literary quality communicates the multi-faceted power of the Holy Spirit to engage the biblical authors to recreate the beauty of the narrative in the Bible. Just a footnote: the usage of a good literary value draws the believer into the major Protagonist of the Bible-Jesus Christ. He is the happy ending to all the literary values, so that the different literary style are used cohesively to draw an array of different types of readers to the Person and Work of Jesus Christ!

* All Scripture in my blog is from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise indicated.

**I am not against the NIV, and I grew up with it. However, the ESV is a much more crisp, accurate, theological and literary translation.