ETS Paper Stirs a Debate Over the ESV

Mark Strauss, professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary, read a paper on "Why the English Standard Version Should Not Become the Standard English Version: How to Make a Good Translation Much Better." You can find it here. The paper has created a bit of a controversy with Bill Mounce promising to respond at next year's ETS meeting. While I have been reading the ESV since it first came out I found some of Strauss' comments insightful while others seemed to miss the point of what the ESV was trying to do. To give one example Strauss points out how often the ESV uses the word "behold" and says that "virtually no one speaking English uses the word this way." After a discussion on the difficulty of translating the word he says his "counsel would be for literal versions to retain 'behold' and for standard English versions to either drop it or use 'look' or 'see' when appropriate." So why bring this up? Since he includes it in his discussion of "archaisms," is this an archaism that is OK to use but the others are not? Strauss talks a lot about the ESV not using "contemporary English." But I don't look at the ESV as a "contemporary" translation but one that seeks to maintain a literary level that sometimes elevates the language above the common use. I don't want my Bible to sound like the chit chat of my workplace break room. If I want that I'll read The Message.

Finally, I don't understand when Strauss says, "I need to say first of all that I like the English Standard Version (ESV). After all, the ESV is a moderate revision (about 6% I believe) of the Revised Standard Version (RSV; 1952), which itself was done by very competent scholars." But he then describes the translation as "overly literal—full of archaisms, awkward language, obscure idioms, irregular word order, and a great deal of 'Biblish.' Biblish is produced when the translator tries to reproduce the form of the Greek or Hebrew without due consideration for how people actually write or speak." With that said what's there to like? He says it's a "good supplement to versions that use normal English." Why? How is a translation so plagued with problems a good supplement?

I will watch with great interest to see how this plays out. Also, there was a paper read on another translation which has not had enough visibility--The Holman Christian Standard Bible. You can find that here.