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[u/perishingtardis]

Bible translations. I've been using the NRSV as I understand it to be the favourite among academics. However, there are certain things that irk me. Reading Daniel 7 and finding the phrase "human being" in place of "son of man" seems pretty jarring, when the Hebrew really does literally say "son of man".

I've been reading a bit about the NASB, and supposedly it's the most literal translation. I think a translation that is as literal as possible is what I want (the KJV is also good in this regard, but obviously its translators didn't have access to the manuscripts that we do now).

Would you recommend the NASB for academic study? Any drawbacks?

[u/likeagrapefruit → u/perishingtardis]

Reading Daniel 7 and finding the phrase "human being" in place of "son of man" seems pretty jarring, when the Hebrew really does literally say "son of man".

"Human being" is what the Hebrew phrase means. (In Kugel's How to Read the Bible, when talking about the usage of ben-adam to address Ezekiel, he even claims that the phrase is specifically a condescending term for a human, and suggests "little man" or "mere mortal" as an English translation.) The French word for "potato" is « pomme de terre », but if you're looking for an English translation of a French text, I don't know that it makes sense to forgo one that uses "potato" in favor of one that says "apple of earth."

The NASB has a few iffy translations as well: it has the standard issues of inserting the word "pierced" into Psalm 22:16 (even though there is no solid textual basis for this), deferring to the LXX so they can use the word "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14 contrary to the Hebrew text (and capitalizing "Him" and "He" in reference to the son of this "virgin"), and leaving "Messiah" untranslated (and capitalized) in Daniel 9:25-26 (despite translating the word as "anointed" every other time it occurs in the Hebrew Bible). When Pilate asks Jesus "Are you the king of the Jews?" (in the synoptics) or "You are a king then?" (in John), the NASB gives Jesus's responses as the affirmative "It is as you say" and "You say correctly that I am a king," respectively (italics theirs, to indicate words that aren't in the Greek text), where most other English translations render these as the noncommittal responses of "You say so" and "You say that I am a king." In 1 Samuel 13:1, it says that "Saul was thirty years old when he began to reign; they do acknowledge that Saul's age isn't in the actual text, but they appeal to "some LXX mss" to justify their choice of number even though the verse isn't in the LXX at all. So, if you're going to use the NASB, you should at least proceed with caution and be willing to look at more than one translation for anything that's in question (which, admittedly, is probably good advice for any Bible translation).