The first time I heard Winnie Banov talk about her different translations, I'll admit that I was skeptical. It seemed to me that by examining different translations of verses, you would eventually just settle on the one you liked best, which might distort the meaning of the actual verse. People do this all the time to bible verses because it's very easy to do.
After going to Nicaragua with Georgian and Winnie, I've changed my mind. On the trip, Winnie spoke about how different translations often provide different lenses for viewing scriptures. You might find one translation of a verse that's particularly touching, but you can use the rest of the translations to verify your interpretation of the verse. Having more reference material is always good, so I've recently started doing some cross-referencing of my own.
I currently have an NIV bible (from my mother), an HCSB bible (which I bought because I like the HCSB), and a NKJV bible (from a friend who I haven't seen in quite some time). The NKJV bible has some notes from Strong's concordance, which I re-discovered this morning when comparing Psalm 130 in each of the three.
Two interesting notes. The NIV and NKJV both translate verse 4 along the lines of "there is forgiveness in You, therefore You are feared". This makes no sense to me. The HCSB has a much more helpful translation "But with You there is forgiveness, so that You may be revered".
I'm out of time for the other interesting note, so it will have to wait. It's too long for this post anyway.
You should get a NVSV Bible.
ReplyDelete"But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered. "
This is basically what the HCSB says. It's good to have another agreeing with it. I'll see if I can add an NVSV to my digital bibles first. I'm planning on adding to the hard copy collection very slowly.
DeleteOkay, wait. Typo in version? NRSV?
Delete