Preparing for the last teaching session in a study of Romans, I came to the book's final verses and relished finding there the same "obedience of faith" with which Paul began his epistle (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). At the start, I had understood this "obedience of faith" to be the necessary outgrowth of the gospel, although I had struggled with the multiple possibilities of meaning: the obedience that is faith … the obedience that grows out of faith … the obedience that is part of faith? Through the course of Paul's weighty argument in Romans, I had begun to grasp both the complexity and the necessity of the relationship between obedience and faith, so that, upon arriving at this phrase in the end, I could look back and celebrate what the whole book had taught me about "the obedience of faith." The significance of the phrase continues to grow in my understanding, as I connect it with other parts of scripture.

It was the English Standard Version which allowed me to learn from the Bible in this way. According to the preface, the ESV team from Crossway aimed for "an 'essentially literal' translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer." They have done well in accomplishing this aim. Committing themselves to the great "Standard Bible" tradition growing out of Tyndale and the King James Version, using the 1971 Revised Standard Version as their starting point, those working on the ESV compared every word of the RSV with the earliest Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts, making changes throughout for the sake of a more literal and accurate English translation.

The great strength of the ESV is first and foremost that it allows readers to trust the words to be the Word of God. Any translation will be reliable according to the measure of its faithfulness to the original words—whether those words be political negotiations, love letters, directions, novels, or books of the Bible. Many contemporary versions of Scripture have moved toward a philosophy of "dynamic" or "functional" equivalence, translating "thought for thought" more than "word for word," elucidating the text for modern readers. The huge, historical, amazing claim of Christians, however, is that God inspired not just thoughts but words.

While respecting and indeed regularly enjoying the interpretive light offered by functional equivalency versions, I delight to find a translation which allows me to get as close as possible to the actual words God inspired. The perspective another version offers on Romans 1:5 and 16:26 is helpful, as I read "the obedience that comes from faith" and "so that that all nations might believe and obey him" (NIV). But those English phrases do not as accurately tell me Paul's words; they do not tell me that he said exactly the same words both times; and they do not allow me to discover all the levels of meaning that Paul's complex argument develops for those words through the course of the epistle.

As an English reader limited by my ignorance of the original languages, I want to be able to trust that the words in front of me are close to the ones God "breathed out" through the amazing minds and pens of those who wrote them down (2 Tim. 3:16). Paul claimed that he wrote "in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:13); he thanked the Thessalonians for accepting his words "not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God" (1 Thess. 2:13). Scripture consistently points to its words; what a privilege to be enabled to follow that pointing with great confidence. Granted, any translation must do more than move literally from word to word, but, within the necessary framework of communication and readability in the English language, the ESV has sought "not to try to improve on the original."

Trusting the words enables a reader to study the words effectively. The ESV will prove, I believe, to be an effective and helpful translation for those many individuals and groups whose goal is to study the Scriptures. Studying a text means paying close attention to the words; there is no other way in to the heart of it. The Book of Romans solidly sets forth a whole series of theologically weighty words like righteousness, propitiation, justification, predestination, and glorification. Why do we need these words? Why shouldn't we restate their meanings in simpler words? Righteousness, for example, is a key word throughout Romans, and Paul takes great care to open up just what it means. Righteousness constitutes the foundational ingredient of his theme, the gospel, in which "the righteousness of God is revealed" (1:17). Another version puts it that the "Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight" (New Living Translation). The more literal ESV here keeps the focus solely on God and, rather than pinning down right off just what God does for us in the gospel, it makes us—Paul makes us—lean forward to see just how the gospel will reveal the righteousness of God.

At the heart of the how is the word propitiation (3:25), which means the appeasing of wrath. After Paul has explained in the first chapters why human beings are deserving of God's wrath, propitiation becomes a beautiful word, as we see the blood sacrifice of Christ perfectly satisfying the wrath and judgment of a righteous God. Many versions change "propitiation" to "sacrifice of atonement," capturing the sense of payment or redemption, but eliminating the more direct and difficult picture of an angry God whose wrath is turned away.

Difficult is perhaps an important word in the context of this discussion. In one sense, the ESV might be accused of being more difficult than some other contemporary versions. Two responses come quickly to mind. First, this accusation of difficulty is not a problem with the translation; it is a problem with the Bible and with taking the time to read and study it. I remember the first time I taught Shakespeare. The play was King Lear, and one of the first questions from my first-year college students was: "Couldn't we read this in a modernized version?" My answer was no, because I wanted them to read the words Shakespeare wrote, to understand them, learn from them, and delight in their beauty. By the end of that class, most of those students had taken in that play wholeheartedly, memorized parts of it, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

The process did require a bit of work. Anything worthwhile does. For good reason the church has developed teachers and preachers and theologians, to help us dig into the riches of the inspired word of God. The ESV is certainly not difficult to the degree that Shakespeare is! It does, however, respect readers enough to give them the biblical text in all its demanding beauty.

The second response to those who worry over the difficulty of translations like the ESV has to do with Scripture's perspicuity—another large but indispensable word. The main meaning of what God inspired can be plainly understood by just about any reader who wants to understand it. I have seen this truth lived out repeatedly, as people in our church and women in my studies take up the Bible for the first time and find truth breaking in on them. They don't understand the nuances of every passage; no one does, completely. But understanding comes, through reading and studying and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

Such enlightenment occurred through the King James Version for centuries. The Word of God has always been and always will be "living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword" (Heb. 4:12). Instead of refashioning that sword to make it sharper, we need only release it, unsheathe it. It seems that the ESV translators understand the principle of the Bible's perspicuity. Working confidently on the basis of this principle, they have done well in releasing and unsheathing the Word of God.

Kathleen Nielson has taught in the English departments of Vanderbilt University, Bethel College, and Wheaton College. She is the author of numerous Bible studies and has published two books on biblical poetry.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
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