Faster Unto Thee

Ryken's "Choosing a Bible" for Free

Today I stumbled across a free online copy of Leland Ryken's Choosing a Bible: Understanding Bible Translation Differences at the ESV Blog. I own a print copy that I purchased several years ago and have pointed others to it as well.

Formerly titled Bible Translation Differences, the little booklet is adapted from Ryken's larger book The Word of God in English. The booklet argues for an essentially literal approach in Bible translation, against the dynamic equivalent approach. Obviously, it is in support of the ESV, but the points he makes are part of why I prefer to use an essentially literal translation like the ESV over the NIV or the more extreme The Message.

This booklet is worth reading, arguing with, and gleaning much gold from.

Language Study and Seminary

I came across this very interesting blog called Ancient Hebrew Poetry today and spent some time reading several posts. John Hobbins is a biblical languages scholar with a specialty in Hebrew poetry, as the blog title indicates. Here is a quote from one interesting post on language study in American seminaries. Read the whole post here.

The situation is the following: seminaries and theological schools in North America, more often than not, do not require students to learn the languages of the Bible and of the core literature of the tradition they are charged to uphold. In those that do – e.g., evangelical seminaries that require Greek and Hebrew, conservative Lutheran seminaries that require Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and German, Catholic seminaries that require Latin - students nowadays come to the seminaries with little or no background in said languages. The result is inevitable. Overwhelmed by many other claims on time and mind, students end up with a merely cursory and superficial preparation in the literature that is supposed to be compass, mirror, and anchor of the ministry they will carry out.

Many students finish seminary with a semblance of familiarity with critical methods, and a few memorable anecdotes to tell about their OT profs, who, by all accounts, are cooler than their NT colleagues, but with no thorough knowledge of, or  “chapter by chapter” and “verse by verse” familiarity with, the contents of biblical literature. 

Seminaries that have kept language requirements in place, a laudable policy, are nevertheless failing to raise up priests and pastors with a love of biblical learning in the original languages. The vast majority of students, upon graduation and ordination, place their Nestle-Aland and BHS on a bookshelf of their study, where they collect dust forever and ever, amen.

Which way forward?

I particularly like his line that the literature of the Bible is "supposed to be compass, mirror, and anchor of the ministry they will carry out." What person with a high view of inspiration would argue with that? Read further into the post where he compares seminary education in Europe with American seminary education and you will be amazed at what we typically do not get here.