The Christian Standard
Bible is a new revision of the Holman Christian Standard Bible. They have made some changes, and it seems to
me that many of those changes are toward a more literal translation, which is a
good thing.
Here are some samples:
In Matthew 19:28 the
HCSB renders it:
"Jesus said to them, 'I assure you: in the
Messianic Age, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne…" This
new revision has it as, "Jesus said to
them, 'Truly I tell you, In the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits
on His glorious throne…'" - CSB
Not that I'm disputing that the renewal of all things
references the Messianic age, it's just that "the renewal of all
things" is a more literal rendition of what Christ said, more
toward a formal equivalence rather than a dynamic one - which I believe is a
safer route.
Daniel 9:25:"Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and
rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince will be seven weeks and 62
weeks…" HCSB
"Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and
rebuild Jerusalem until an Anointed One, the ruler, will be seven weeks and
sixty-two weeks" CSB
1 Peter 3:1-2: "In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to
your own husbands so that, even if some
disobey the Christian message, they may be won over without a message by the
way their wives live when they observe your pure, reverent lives." HCSB
"In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to
your own husbands so that, even if some disobey the word, they may be won over
without a word by the way their wives live when they observe your pure,
reverent lives." CSB
The translators also
switched "languages" in 1 Corinthians 14 to "tongues",
though I still think that Languages was a good translation.
There are also
noticeable changes in the way the translators interpret the text, for example,
in 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul is explaining that if a husband or a wife has an
unbelieving spouse who wants to leave them, that they should let them leave,
they then translate his next words as, "Wife,
for all you know, you might save your husband.
Husband, for all you know you might save your wife."
CSB Whereas the HCSB said, "For you, wife, how do you know whether you will
save your husband? Or you, husband, how
do you know whether you will save your wife?" - 1 Cor 7:16? Which is a rather significant change.
There were some things
that I did not like about this translation.
For instance, they seem to have caved a little bit more on the gender
inclusive language - 1 John 3:17 "If anyone has this worlds goods and sees a fellow
believer in need but withholds compassion from him -how does God's love reside
in him?" CSB
"If anyone has this world's goods and sees his
brother in need but closes his eyes to his need - how can God's love reside in
him?" HCSB
They do note that their goal is to translate the Bible faithfully, they
simply change some gender specific language to gender inclusive when the text
itself allows for it. I still don't think that that is necessary, but
okay.
And then there is a
problem that I had with the HCSB that I still have with this revision. One of which is that, despite saying in their
introduction that their "OT Textual notes
show IMPORTANT differences among Hebrew (HB) manuscripts and ancient OT
versions, such as the Septuagint…(emphasis mine)", they do not
include the LXX variant of Psalm 40:6, Sacrifice
and offering thou wouldest not; but a BODY hast thou prepared me: (Brenton-
Emphasis added), Whereas the Masoretic text (which only goes back to
about 900 A.D. [or CE]), the text the Majority of our Old Testaments are based
on, says, Sacrifice and offering thou didst not
desire; MINE EARS HAST THOU OPENED: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou
not required." (KJV - emphasis added).
The difference is extremely significant as the writer of Hebrews
quotation of that verse matches the Septuagint and not our Masoretic text in
that it says that God prepared a body for the speaker rather than opened his
ears. And yet they include a manuscript
variant of the number of the beast, 616 - which variant is quite suspect as
Irenaeus (a person who lived in the earlier days of the church who is thought
to have been a follower of Polycarp a follower of the Apostle John) said that
this variant was false, and that the older manuscripts did not contain it nor
did those who knew the Apostles support it.
If they included this variant of the number of the beast then I do
not understand how they did not give the
variant of Psalm 40 which is supported by the writer of Hebrews in the Bible!
One other thing that
confused me: The CSB is presented as
having been translated directly from the original languages rather than using
an existing translation as its basis. There is a chart on the website for this translation
showing many translations and separating them on the basis of whether or not
they are translated directly from the ancient languages as opposed to using an
existing English translation as the basis.
The CSB is shown to be a translation not based upon an existing
translation. But to me this seems to be contradicted by the admission that the
CSB is a revision of the HCSB. That
just struck me as rather deceptive.
Perhaps I simply didn't understand the chart….
Otherwise, this is
quite a nice translation Also, this
Bible is very nicely bound, with a LeatherTouch cover (it feels very
nice). The text is in two columns with a
center column cross reference. There is
also a concordance at the back as well as full color maps. All in all, very nice.
Many thanks to the folks at B&H publishers for sending me a free review copy of this book (My
review did not have to be favorable).
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
*****
Among other websites you may purchase this Bible at Christianbook.com and on Amazon.com
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