Which, Wert, or Was?

Ever feel overwhelmed by the Bible section of the bookstore?  It’s worse than the military with its litany of acronyms: NIV, NLT, NKJV…how is a girl to choose?  Here’s my brief grouping of translations that will, I hope, simplify the array of options for you.

Think of a spectrum, or a timeline.  On one end, we have translations that are as literal as possible.  It is no small task to achieve literal wording when sentence structure and word order in original languages are often the opposite of English structures.  The upshot of these translations is that they are the most technically accurate.  Examples: KJV, ESV, NASB.

Of these, I prefer the ESV study Bible for its readability and excellent notes.  The Wife of Leisure defaults to ESV.  You might like the KJV for its familiarity if you grew up with it (I still read Luke 2 in KJV to my kids at Christmas), but some of its antiquated language may hinder understanding.

In the middle is a range of translations that attempt to better convey the meaning when a word-for-word expression is less clear.  Some call this “thought-for-thought” translating.  Basically, it avoids the “lost in translation” issue.  My mom notes that, for instance, that in Genesis 43:33, the ESV’s literal wording does not make obvious that Joseph seats his brothers in age order.  The NIV wording, while less literal, communicates this plot twist more clearly.  These may be the easiest to read and understand.  Examples: NIV, NLT. 

I use NIV a lot because it is familiar to me, true to the original, and I’m lazy: it’s the closest copy on hand in my office.

On the far end, we find the paraphrase version.  These try to get the general idea of a phrase or passage and put it into current vernacular.  I would not recommend this as your primary source because they are pretty low on accuracy in some places.  (I’m sure they leave the genealogies alone!)  I know people who like to reference them for fresh perspective while studying a passage in another translation.  Personally, I find it a little gimmicky.  Examples: The Living Bible, The Message.

Sources and Further Reading:

 

Several comparison charts and examples: http://www.apbrown2.net/web/TranslationComparisonChart.htm

Site for passage-lookup in many versions and languages:

http://www.biblegateway.com/

In-depth explanation of Bible translation, comparison of form/function, with charts:

http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/Bible/Translations/About+Bible+Translations.htm?QueryStringSite=Zondervan

Special thanks to my Dad, who knows lots of stuff.

True Passion

And now... a bit about the REAL Passion Week!

Ever notice how Easter gets a day and Christmas gets a whole month?  I know we can’t debate the comparative importance of the two; chicken, egg, chicken, egg.  But a man lived.  The man died.  The man lived again.  My mind is boggled.  And yet there is as much fanfare for St. Patrick’s Day.  MORE for Mardi Gras.  What’s a mom to do?

Here are some off-the-top-of-my-head ideas I'd like to incorporate in the years to come in the hopes that my kids will enjoy Easter as much as they do Christmas (assuming that the fluttery holiday excitement offers not only memories but a good segue into understanding the magnitude of these days).

1. Decorate!  If we have lights up in November, we can usher Easter in visually, too.  I like to do an Easter tree: I spray-paint branches white, put them in a huge vase, and hang painted wooden eggs from the branches.  This is just a launching point if I ever hope to rival the wreathes and holly...
2. Anticipate!  Think Advent calendars.  Some Christian denominations do a better job creating hoopla about the Easter timeline than do others.  Catholics have the Stations of the Cross (Here’s a website that gives you language to simplify these for kids).  http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/child/stations/index.html  Many Christians wind up for Easter with Lent.  I’ve no experience with either of those, but next year I might try making an countdown calendar of my own that highlights the events preceding Easter: the triumphal entry, good Friday, the stuff your pastor highlights, but with little doors and of necessity, chocolate.  Memorize a passage in the preceding weeks; we started Luke 2 in October this past fall; each of the gospels has a passion passage, too.
3. Make Traditions!  My friend hides a bunny toy around her house each day for weeks, and the kid who finds it gets a prize.  You can tweak this kind of stuff to make it more Jesus, less pastel rodent.
4. Eat!  Food is the cement that bonds people in holiday joy.  We bake for weeks leading up to Christmas.  There’s plenty to do for Easter, too, and lots of it comes with built-in teaching analogies.  Melt chocolate and peanut butter into bunny and cross-shaped molds for little kids.  Do coconut and chocolate eggs, or those resurrection meringue cookies that come out hollow.  Talk about new life as you dye eggs; just don’t eat the ones that have been sitting out for weeks.
5. Start at home!  On Christmases of old, my anticipation centered on the gifts more than the church service (although candlelight and cookie exchanges after Christmas Eve services did amp up the fun factor).  For Easter, make a big thing of the baskets.  Even bunnies and chicks, like snowmen and elves, create an atmosphere of festivity appropriate to a celebration.  Sing hymns that will become as heartwarming over the years as Nat King Cole trolling about chestnuts.

What are the things you do to make this day as large in your kids’ minds as it is in yours? 

The End of Passion: Part 2 of 2

If you’re very, very clever, you might have deduced that The Wife of Leisure is one result of my theorizing on gifts and passions. 

Dropping my acting agent, having babies who sleep very well during the day, and finishing grad school in a terrible job market left me with a lot of NCIS reruns to watch.  Cookie and I concluded that my eternal purpose was, possibly, not best achieved through mind-numbing Mark Harmon marathons. 

“Write! Sing!” cried Cookie.  And thus a website was born.  (Yes, it’ll hold my music too one fine day.)

What, then, is the end of this pursuit?  If I’ve identified my passions (simple) and found outside corroboration that there is a corresponding talent (less simple), then where does it lead?

This is best addressed in the negative, in what its aim is not.  Its aim is not financial gain, although such is never unappreciated.  Its aim is not success in a worldly sense, or acclaim, which are nice, but have their own ego-pitfalls.  Any of these may be in God’s design to His own end, but I can safely assume God is not interested in me owning Manolo Blahniks or becoming a household name for my own sake.

Most importantly in my field, it’s not about being right.

If you write opinion, you have to substantiate your claims.  You have to sound rational.  You have to have evidence.  But if you write about Bibley stuff, you have to provide evidence not to win the argument or beat down your opponent, but to point to God.

This doesn’t stop me from thinking in terms of money or reputation or self-righteousness.  It means that when I do think this way, it must lead me to pray over my argument.  It should lead us to pray over all our areas of gift/passion convergence—that in their development we should keep our goals on track.

In the end, fulfillment comes when our strategically allotted gifts and desires are polished into a platform on which God is made glorious.