QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION Robert R. Taylor, Jr. have received a number of inquiries created problem. Users of the ESV do! relative to the English Standard We likely would not suspect the IVersion (ESV), a twenty-first century genealogy section of Matthew 1 to find Bible version. name changes. If you have memorized the I did not buy this version when it first list of kings over Judah during the Divided came out in 2001 but did purchase a copy in Kingdom period of some four hundred years, April of 2007. I have not read all it has in the do you remember including Asaph as son of Old Testament but have read and studied Abijah and this same Asaph as father of closely what it has in the New Testament. Jehoshaphat? Asa fits; Asaph does not fit. With one exception, all my questions will Yet the ESV has Asaph in the text and Asa pertain to the New Testament. in the footnote. In 1 Kings 15, they have Asa Just because it is a new version does not consistently and not Asaph at all. Why this insure it is better than the KJV (King James name change? Truth, even with names, Version) or the ASV (American Standard belongs in the text and not just the footnote. Version) — versions which have brought the Not content with one name change in church to us in our lifetime. The NRSV (New Matthew 1, they have Amos as the son of Revised Standard Version) is not a superior Manasseh and Amos the father of Josiah. version, but flawed in many places. The NIV Yet this version has Amon in a footnote. (New International Version) has “new” in its Amon is used by the ESV in 2 Kings 22. name but that does not make it superior. Amon and Asa we know from Scripture, Brother Guy N. Woods told me in the 1970s but who are Asaph and Amos in this lineage that “as little as I think of the RSV, I prefer line of Matthew 1? You may be thinking, it over the NIV. The NIV is shot through why all this ado over name changes? We do with error!” His assessment is the same as not want our names changed nor names of mine has been for over thirty years. our ancestors changed. Names mean some- In Genesis 49:10, why did the ESV thing and should not have tampering hands (English Standard Version) change “Shiloh” on them! Even Kenneth Taylor in The in the text to “tribute” and yet injects into a Living Bible (TLB) did not tamper with footnote “until Shiloh comes?” Why put into these names. The NIV has Asa and Amon. a footnote what its translators did not allow Its translators did not opt for name changes. in the text? The KJV, ASV and the NKJV Like so many of its translational (New King James Version) do not tamper colleagues, the ESV leaves Matthew 5:17, with this text. Jacob, in this prophecy, does Ephesians 2:15 and Hebrews 10:9 in not have tribute or Shiloh the city in mind, translational shambles and contradictions. It but a person “and unto him shall the has Jesus to say in Matthew 5:17, “I have gathering of the people be.” “Him” refers to a not come to abolish them (Law and Prophets) person. Had it been a city under but to fulfill them.” Yet in Ephesians 2:15, consideration it would have been an “it!” The the ESV has “by abolishing the law of ESV does not do well with Genesis 49:10. commandments and ordinances....” Accord- With my KJV, I do not have to deal with this ing to the ESV, who is right — Christ in the “Questions About the English Standard Version” by Robert R. Taylor, Jr. Page 1 This appeared in the February, March & April 2013 issues of “Seek The Old Paths.” www.seektheoldpaths.com Sermon on the Mount or Paul in the the Christian covenant, not patriarchal Ephesian epistle? In Hebrews 10:9 the ESV precepts or Mosaic mandates. There is not has, “He abolishes the first in order to an iota of justification for producing a establish the second.” Who is right — Christ glaring contradiction among these three in Matthew 5:17 or Paul in Hebrews 10:9? passages. Paul’s counsel in 2 Timothy 2:15 Christ did not come to shatter or destroy relative to dividing truth in a right way is Mosaic law and make it void of fulfillment. lost on people like this! He came to fulfill it or fill it full and then remove, annul, abolish or take it out of the WEAK RENDERINGS OF way in order to establish the second — His PORNEIA AND MOICHEIA covenant. The ESV translators were very inept in dealing with these crystal clear These Greek terms are used many times passages. Give me the task “any day” of in the Greek testament. In our older exegeting these passages from the KJV and versions, these are rendered fornication and ASV rather than the more difficult job of adultery. Has anybody across the years had trying to harmonize these three verses by that much trouble in understanding what usage of the ESV. Have its strong supporters fornication is and what adultery is? As a among us overlooked these three verses? If teenager, I knew what these terms meant. so, why? Yet so many of our modern versions opt for It is nothing short of inexcusable the way sexual immorality instead of precisely stated the ESV, plus so many of its predecessors, renderings like fornication and adultery. A makes shambles of this trio of verses. After man or woman may enjoy hearing sexy they finished Matthew 5:17 and arrived at stories, reading sexy stories or viewing porn- Ephesians 2:15 and later to Hebrews 10:9, ography which are sexually immoral and yet did it not occur to them that they had due to various constraints may never commit produced a contradiction between Christ and overt fornication or adultery. The ESV favors Paul? They have Christ to deny abolishing sexual immorality in Matthew 5:32; 19:9; the Mosaic law (covenant) only to have Paul Mark 7:21; Acts 15:20; 21:25; 1 Corinth- affirm His doing that very thing. The fault is ians 5:1; 6:9; 6:13; 6:18; 7:2; 10:8; 2 Corin- not to be laid in Christ’s speech and Paul’s thians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians written statement for they breathe perfect 5:3,5; Colossians 3:5; Hebrews 12:16; harmony. The fault lies with inept and Jude 7 and Revelation 2:20ff. Why use a incompetent translators who fail utterly to term that is not nearly as precise as are handle aright the word of truth or divide it fornication and adultery? The man in 1 aright. The old had to be removed before the Corinthians 5:1 was not just reading a filthy new could become operative. Hebrews 10:9 novel or viewing images of a woman makes this positively plain. If Mosaic law is immodestly arrayed. He was committing still in effect, as many religious leaders overt fornication with his own father’s wife. contend it is, and Christianity is now valid, We do not need to soften these atrocious and we are under two lawgivers, Moses and widely practiced sins with words less precise Christ. Yet Jehovah at the transfiguration than fornication and adultery. The world scene in Matthew 17:1ff said to hear Christ does this by calling such “affairs” instead of — not Moses and Christ, not Elijah and adultery or “meaningful relations” (of the Christ. James, the Lord’s half brother in the unmarried) instead of fornication. flesh and His full brother in the faith, affirmed one lawgiver (James 4:12). Children in my Sunday evening class prior to service time know that we are under “Questions About the English Standard Version” by Robert R. Taylor, Jr. Page 2 This appeared in the February, March & April 2013 issues of “Seek The Old Paths.” www.seektheoldpaths.com TAMPERING WITH MATTHEW 19:28 denominations recognized him as such as well. He had these scholarly comments in his The ESV has “Truly, I say to you, in the Gospel Advocate Commentary On Matthew, new world, when the Son of Man will sit on “The baptism is to be done ‘into the name of his throne, you who have followed me will the Father and of the Son and of the Holy also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve Spirit.’ The name of the Father and of the tribes of Israel.” Why is “new world” in the Son and of the Holy Spirit means the text and in a footnote “Greek, in the combined authority of the Godhead. To be regeneration?” The 148 men who translated baptized into this is to be brought by the KJV (47) and the ASV (101) used baptism into actual subjection to the com- “regeneration,” not “new world.” The NKJV bined authority of heaven. To be baptized has regeneration. The RSV that came out in into the name of these three brings one into 1952 has “new world.” Were I a patron of covenant relationship with the Godhead. premillennialism, I would be happy with the Baptism is, therefore, not only a sacred act of “new world” rendering and would shy away obedience, but it brings one into the fullness totally from versions that use regeneration. of the blessings of the Father, Son and Holy Regeneration is a synonym for the “Gospel Spirit” (pp.564-565).