Grudem on ESV, Commentators, & Commentaries

Adrian Warnock has a cool set of interviews cited on his blog regarding the question that I don't understand why it was asked, "Does the ESV minimize the necessity of commentary use?"

I think that Grudem does an excellent job in this interview basically showing that the question may be the wrong one. Basically a Bible translation can never be perfectly literal. There are always decisions to be made and these will be affected by the translator's reading of the text. But an essentially literal translation should set out to do what the ESV guys intended, to reveal as best as possible the actual text so that we are reliant on nothing but the Word and the Spirit to be able to discern the meaning. Nevertheless, as people find the glorious truths in God's word set out before them in an understandable and faithful translation, they will be moved to desire to know God more. One way that God has given us to better know Him is through the exposition of Scripture performed by Godly men. So commentaries may be less necessary with an essentially literal translation, but the hope is that as people fall see God in His Word, their appetites may be whetted for more and the wise use of good commentaries will only help in that matter. Anyway, go read for yourself.

Poor kid, Another Helpless Victim of NPD

I just read a real but tragic story of Brian Blackwell, 19-year old, straight-A student who is just yet another victim of NPD. NPD has caused him to lose both of his parents to a gruesome death which he witnessed and it has caused him to virtually lose any chance of living a normal life. The poor boy, Brian Blackwell, suffers from a disease called "Narcissistic Personality Disorder." According to the BBC News story (and a subsequent one here), this means that he "fantasised about unlimited success, power and brilliance." And just like all of us--none of us are God--these fantasies were not true. So there was only one possible solution to help him get a little bit closer to this "unlimited success, power, and brilliance" about which he fantasised: Credit Cards. But he's only a 19-year-old boy, how could he possibly qualify for that many credit cards? Our world is so non-understanding of those suffering from personality disorders. The credit card companies were too worried about debt-to-income ratios, credit scores, ability to pay, and things like that. So what is a victim of NPD to do? Fortunately he had parents (Sydney, 72 and Jacqueline, 61), and they had credit cards. But they were just as non-understanding as the credit card companies. So, in July of 2004 he stabbed them to death and applied for 13 credit cards in his dad's name. Things were finally going well, people believed he was a professional tennis player, he had all the money he needed, he was even staying in the Presidential Suite in the Plaza Hotel in New York...this was finally getting close to the life that every sufferer of narcissistic personality disorder (aka human nature) dreams of: fame, money, and comfort. Unfortunately in August, his neighbors began to wonder what the smell coming from his parents house was and called the police. When the bodies were found the police weren't very understanding of poor Brian and had him arrested. Fortunately the court was finally sympathetic to the personality disorder that had victimized him so long; they reduced the charges from murder to manslaughter. Speaking, I understand, of the boy, det chf insp Mike Keogh said, "We cannot begin to imagine the distress and pain that these terrible deaths have caused." Poor kid.