Featured Legacy Standard Bible

From a blog by Mark Ward at the website, Evangelical Textual Criticism
Evangelical Textual Criticism: Ward: A Rising Tide Sinks All Boats: The Legacy Standard Bible and Stewarding the Church’s Trust



The “centrist” translations are the ones that go from about the NASB on the left to the NIV on the right. These are the translations that in my unscientific experience actually get used as the main translation in doctrinally sound evangelical churches. (I could be generous and include the NLT, too.)

Any further toward the left than the NASB and you cross into translations that are designed to be Bible study tools for those who know the original languages (the NASB itself is also often used this way). My own employer’s Lexham English Bible, born as a set of interlinear glosses, is an example. I see room for more translations that are hyper-literal like the LEB, because no one sees them as competing with the centrist ones to be used in churches. They are tools for study.

Any further to the right than the NIV and you cross into translations that, for all their genuine usefulness, are generally perceived to do “too much interpreting” to be useful for all the varied needs of the average church. Some people take what I’ve just said to be a criticism; I don’t. Not infrequently, I need the help the NLT’s—and even The Message’s—interpretation provides. These are useful Bible study tools, if you know what they’re aiming at. But careful preachers of the kind ETC serves have voted with their feet: they generally stick to the centrist translations unless they are serving people without high school educations—which is precisely what I did very happily with the New International Reader’s Version (NIrV) for almost six years in a weekly outreach ministry.

Quite a few English Bibles exist that aren’t on that chart, because they just aren’t popular enough to warrant mention or can’t realistically hope to be used in actual churches. ...

 

This one surprised me!

Luke 2:7 (AV 1873)
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7 (NASB2020)
And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

NOTICE THE CHANGE IN THE LSB!

Luke 2:7 (Legacy Standard Bible)
And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guest room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let me introduce you to a recent feature available to those who use the LEB.
The Legacy Standard Bible Translation Notes [LINK]

The notes are similar to the NET Bible 'translation notes'.
The feature is currently being developed and as of now is only available for the Gospels, Acts and Romans.

LSB NOTES [LINK]
guest room
This term is rendered as “guest room” rather than “inn” to give the best sense of the Greek word κατάλυμα (katalyma) used here. Of the terms for “inn” that are employed in the New Testament, κατάλυμα (katalyma) is less specific than its alternative πανδοχεῖον (pandocheion [cf. Luke 10:34]). Thus, to differentiate between the two words and align with the specific meaning, “guest room” is the translation here (see BDAG on κατάλυμα* [*see indentation below]).
[LSB notes in Bolded Light Blue]

*κατάλυμα, ατος, τό (Polyb. 2, 36, 1; 32, 19, 2; Diod S 14, 93, 5; IG V/1, 869; SIG 609, 1; UPZ 120, 5 [II b.c.] al. in pap; LXX; TestLevi 3:4 v.l.; s. B-D-F §109, 2; Rob. 151) lodging place. The sense inn is possible in Lk 2:7, but in 10:34 Lk uses πανδοχεῖον, the more specific term for inn. κ. is therefore best understood here as lodging (PSI 341, 8 [256 b.c.]; EpArist 181) or guest-room, as in 22:11; Mk 14:14, where the contexts also permit the sense dining-room (cp. 1 Km 1:18; 9:22; Sir 14:25). In further favor of this rendering is the contrast between two quarters: a φάτνη and a κατάλυμα. The latter could be a space in various types of structures. Cp. also the use of the cognate καταλύω (s. κ.4) Lk 19:7 in ref. to hospitality.—PBenoit, BRigaux Festschr., ’70, 173–86 (Lk 2:7); EPax, Bibel und Leben 6, ’65, 285–98. DELG s.v. λύω. M-M. TW.
William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 521.​

For Rippon ...and the NIV also got this one right too!

Luke 2:7 (NIV)
and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Rob