And the winner is...

Well, I got a hold of the ESV today and have spent some time with it (mostly in 1Cor 12-14, since I'm preaching on spiritual gifts in a few weeks.) Overall, it seems a very nice translation. I like that the fact that it is very literal without being totally idiomatic (like, for example, the NASB.) However, I find myself drawn in another direction: the NET Bible manages to get a lot of the translational issues I care about right. They translate "pistews Christou" (pardon my erratic transliteration) as "faithfulness of Christ" (e.g. in Gal 2.16). Since I find the arguments for this presented by e.g. Richard Hays convincing, this makes me happy. Of course, they still render YHWH as "The LORD", so it's not perfect. However, they also get right 1Cor 13:3, translating as "if I give up my body so that I may boast", following the NRSV and the UBS4.

This bears some explanation, which I will mostly draw from my reading of the NET notes. It turns out that there is a significant textual question here. The earliest manuscripts seem to have "if I give up my body so that I may boast", while later ones say "to be burned." This all hinges on two Greek letters. Metzger argues (and I tend to agree) that (1) boast makes more sense with the tense of the Greek verb (2) boast makes more sense in context and (3) given the Roman habit (in later years) of burning Christians at the stake, it would be a very easy mistake for a later scribe to make. However, it is hard to see how a later scribe would come to change "to burn" into "to boast." So, the reading of "to boast" makes more sense, and is what is used by the NRSV, as well as the NET. Dissenting are the KJV, NIV, and ESV.

But let's get real here. Does it really matter? If we read the whole chapter and base our interpretation on the whole chapter rather than trying to divide it up into tiny pieces and base our interpretation on those pieces, it really doesn't matter which word is more accurate. So, this particular difference does not matter. However, I have always maintained and will continue to maintain that the best way to use translations is to use a LOT of them. Don't depend on one, human, fallible translation for your faith.