Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Common English Bible

I received a free copy of the New Testament of the CEB yesterday, the Common English Bible.  You can see more about the project at http://www.commonenglishbible.com/.  It's very readable, so somewhat dynamic.  I haven't looked at it in too much detail yet, but I did enjoy Romans 3:21-26, the only translation as yet I know to have the courage to translate this way:

"But now God’s righteousness has been revealed apart from the Law, which is confirmed by the Law and the prophets. 22 God’s righteousness comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in him. There’s no distinction. 23 All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, 24 but all are treated as righteous freely by his grace because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus. 25 Through his faithfulness, God displayed Jesus as the place of sacrifice where mercy is found by means of his blood. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness in passing over sins that happened before, 26 during the time of God’s patient tolerance. He also did this to demonstrate that he is righteous in the present time, and to treat the one who has faith in Jesus as righteous."

I don't like 3:23 but I think this has to be the best English translation of the passage ever... other than, of course, mine ;-)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great to hear your positive take on this passage from Romans. You might be interested to know that verses from the Common English Bible are tweeted daily @commonengbible. Also, The Common English Bible facebook group is an excellent place for dialog about the translation.