# Thoughts Regarding The ESV And Gal. 2:21



## moral necessity (Jan 4, 2009)

As I've generally liked and have been using the ESV recently, the passage in Gal. 2:21 was referenced in today's sermon, and I noticed that something seemed odd. The text said, "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose." However, every version I read before said, "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died in vain." The ESV added a footnote, and at the bottom of the page, that said, "or righteousness", which sort of made me upset, because they were basically telling the reader that those two terms are synonomous, when they aren't. I thought this was supposed to be an essentially literal translation. I just don't see what one has to gain by substituting "justification" for "righteousness". The word in greek is "dikaiosune", which is translated as "righteousness" all 90 times that it appears in the New Testament. And yet, here liberty is taken to translate it as "justification", when it has it's own greek word, namely "dikaiosis". From my understanding, "dikaiosune" (the word used in this passage), denotes the character or quality of being righteous, formerly spelled rightwiseness, and refers to the quality of holiness or rightness of something, but "dikaiosis" denotes the act of pronouncing as righteous, pronouncing justification, or acquittal, the establishing of a person as just by acquittal from guilt. I mean, of course the law was never meant to do that, to acquit us from guilt and declare us as not guilty. That seems obvious already if one understands what laws are meant for. To me, it just seemed to alter the meaning of what the writer was trying to say. I thought the point was, that the law never made one righteous, not that the law never declared one righteous or acquitted them of guilt. In my mind, there's an ocean's worth of difference here. Does anybody else notice this an expression of too much liberty in translation? Or, does anybody see something more positive to gain by translating this passage in a way that it never has been translated in the past? I mean, even the NIV doesn't do this. Hmmmmm. I'm open to viewing this differently. Thanks for your thoughts. 

Blessings!


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Jan 4, 2009)

Very interesting...


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## fredtgreco (Jan 4, 2009)

Charles,

The new ESV update has righteousness, with a footnote "or justification." The RSV has "justification" so I am guess that this was a verse that did not get greater scrutiny the first time around.

FYI the NET Bible has righteousness with a footnote for justification as well.


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## JohnGill (Jan 4, 2009)

Buy the AV or Geneva. There is no footnote for justification. And the other problems of basing a translation off the RSV are resolved.


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## Whitefield (Jan 4, 2009)

The ESV follows the RSV down a pathway of interpretation rather than translation in 1 Corinthians 7:36-38.


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