It’s not about whether you buy bonded leather or genuine leather binding. We believe that the Bible is the inspired (or as 2 Timothy 3:16 would say- expired) Words of God. It’s the text before us that matters, and specifically how that text is translated. With so many translations today most Christians have no idea why one version might be better than another. As Dr. Ryken suggests, we typically decide on a translation based on its readability, not its accuracy.

Choosing a Bible is a 30-page booklet adapted from Dr. Ryken’s The Word of God in English. The basic purpose of the booklet is to argue against dynamic equivalence (hereafter DE) translations and for essentially literal (EL) translations. DE is based on the idea that whenever the original text may be unclear to the average reader, the text “should be translated in terms of an equivalent rather than literally.” (7) This is usually referred to as “thought-for-thought” as opposed to “word-for-word.”

Dr. Ryken offers five reasons why DE is not a good method for translation. 1) Translators take liberties with the text that we would not usually take with other documents. 2) DE destabilizes the text by bringing into question the reliability of the translation. 3) DE gives us what the Bible “means” to the translator instead of what the Bible says. 4) We expect to read what the author intended us to read when we read a translation; however, DE often fails to meet this expectation. 5) It is logically and linguistically impossible to separate the thoughts in the Bible from the words in the Bible.

In contrast, 10 reasons why EL can be trusted are offered. These are mostly the opposite of why DE can’t be trusted. Additionally, EL doesn’t mix commentary with translation, it preserves theological precision, and it preserves the dignity and beauty of the original text.

Being only 30 pages, this is not an exhaustive treatment of the translation debate. However, Dr. Ryken’s concise writing is clear, precise, and persuasive. Naturally much of the arguments could be expanded, but for it’s size I don’t know of any other resource of this excellent quality. I can think of a few theologically liberal friends I’d like to give this to for them to chew on.