Hey everybody I was wondering are there other people that use the NASV [New american Standard version or bible](77) ? I am now using it and I kinda like it. Also how does it compare to ESV and New King James?
I used the original NASB (1971) in seminary for Old Testament Survey and Divided Monarchy.
The NASB was much more literal (to the point of being "wooden" according to my professor) but did result in better understanding than the KJV which was the most common bible used at that time.
Now that I am retired and do some pulpit supply and teach adult sunday school classes as a fill-in teacher, choosing a version has been a similar problem to me.
Our church has the NKJV as pew bible, but the pastor preaches from the ESV and my adult sunday school teacher teaches from the NIV but most of the people in the class (it is a senior adult class) carry the KJV.
So, when I teach/preach I generally use the NKJV as that is available in the pew. That way if there is some confusion the people can use the pew bible to follow along.
Also it is an unfortunate decision made by the (original) NASB committee to include the statement that the "Thee" and "Thou" pronouns were retained to maintain the majesty of language when referring to deity.
I'm sorry but that is simply idiot! In the older English bibles the older pronouns were not used to reference deity! They were used to differentiate between the singular and plural, and nominative and objective, use of pronouns, as the original languages do.
The same is true of the verb forms such as "have," "hast," and "hath." Those forms were used to differentiate between the first person "have" second person "hast" and third person "hath."
That differentiation between the verb forms is not really necessary as context can usually identify the person of the verb. But English (especially written English) needs a mechanism to identify whether pronouns are singular or plural, nominative or objective. That is much more difficult to determine from context and can have a significant effect on the meaning of the passage.
Of course we could adopt the Texan method: You = singular, You all (or y'all) = plural. But that wouldn't help with the nominative - objective dilemma.