The ESV and I Are Not Friends... Here's Why
Same with the 1984 NIV Version
The title of my publication is “Gracious Tension,” and I regret to inform you that there won’t be a whole lot of grace today for this translation. I hope it will be interesting, and I promise that I won’t demand you change the translation you’re reading.
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Bible translation history is as fun, and strange, as any other type of history. Yep, I just said history was fun, and I stand by my statement!
If you’re interested…
Here’s a post I previously shared having fun with history. It was part of an assignment that had students asking… “What if?” We picked an event in history, and reimagined what could have happened if one small thing was changed.
Before I begin, I want to share that I learned a lot from Marg Mowckzo1, Beth Allison Barr2, and Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE)3. I also took part in a class about Women and Men in Ministry while working on my Master’s. Fun fact, it’s the reason I ended up doing a Master of Divinity (3 years), instead of a Master of Theological Studies (2 years). Not only that, a lot of what I came through in my research of spiritual abuse, and healthy church cultures, had to do with women in the church. I’ll share some more books and resources at the bottom of this post for those interested.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk suffrage.
The women’s suffrage movement began in the 1890’s throughout the world. However, I’m going to focus on North America because that’s my context, and it’s the context of translators of the ESV. So, we need to jump ahead to the 1910’s when women were more vocal on this side of the pond.
What does the suffragette movement have to do with a Bible translation?
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