Note On The Advent Postings

If you follow the links to Scripture passages in the Advent postings,you'll find it brings you to Bible Gateway.   I've been wondering which of the myriad of English translations you can access there to post to get you there.  I, more or less at random, chose, first the New International Version and, other times the Revised Standard Version.  I wouldn't normally rely on either of those, I think the reason I started with the NIV was because I thought the language was closer to what Brueggemann used in the first verse I looked up to link to.   I don't know which version he'd suggest, if he would recommend one.   I'd suggest looking at several different translations, preferably from different theological traditions.   Every translation will inevitably be influenced by the orientation of the translators, that is true of every reader, we can't possibly escape from our own experience, point of view and habits when we read something.  Two readers reading the same translation will have somewhat different understandings of it.  

That's something that should have been cleared up when I started this.  

Knowing the people who troll me aren't great readers, I was tempted to post the Easy To Read version*, though that is definitely a translation I don't agree with in many points.  I like the idea of making the language of the translation as transparent as possible but that one distorted one of the most important passages in Matthew to change the meaning in a way I can't accept.   I think there are bad translations, not on the basis of whether a "dynamic translation" or "formal equivalence" or the such are used.  The really bad ones are done by those who try to limit who grace is to be extended to, I can't accept that theological orientation as authentic. 

*  I used the Spanish version of it when I was learning Spanish, I wouldn't endorse it as a reliable translation, either.  I have used the American Bible Society,  Dios Llegra al Hombre translation that was recommended by Ernesto Cardenal in The Gospel in Solentiname as the best one he had found because it was a poetic translation in the language of the peasants of Latin America.  I was thinking of posting from The Gospel in Solentiname after Advent and if I do I'll probably use the Good News For Modern Man translation as being close to the one he recommends.  My print copy of DLH has the GNT on the facing page.