Rating: 
Summary: Accurate, modern, but a little bit lacking
Review: The Holman Christian Standard Bible stands at the crossroads of being a great achievement and a slight disappointment. The HCSB was a work of some of the best scholarship there is out there and it shows. The passages are very accurate to the scriptures for the most part (though see my remarks below on Matt. 23), there is little to dispute about that. Now, Holman wanted to make a translation that was both literally accurate and dynamic. This has been tried before by two translations: God's Word [to the Nations] and the International Standard Version. Where and how a translation maneuvers between the two types of translation technique often determines if it will ultimately be sucessful and these two were not. Happily, I am glad to say that the Holman Christian Standard Bible does pull off this translation style a great deal better that its two predecessors. I also must commend Broadman & Holman for the terrific helps they have incorperated into this version, such as plan of salvation and endless footnotes. Still, this grandiose effot quite often falls a bit short when everything is put together. The few slight problems in the HCSB come when this jumbled mixture of literalness and just-when-needed dynamic translation are then taken and formed into phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that the normal English-speaker will understand and appreciate. A lot of passages in the Holman bible seem very "contrived", going against the natural flow of the English language, and especially against the smooth poetry and prose normally given to the translation of scripture. This translation also is perhaps unnecessarily over-modernized, becoming almost chatty. It is littered with an overwhelming plethora of conjunctions, some light modern slang, and other such things, as well as grossly noticable over-usage of colons (check out the somewhat mangled and certainly un-familiarized John 3:16). I was taken aback by the abundance of American-style terminology, also. I was discontented, but not horrified, by the use of "pennies" as units of currency, and the change of the generally translated "fool" into "moron" I found a bit too American. One of the most disturbing renderings, however, is in the "Woes" (Matt. 23), I found it utterly disgraceful to translate "Temple" (referring specifically to Jerusalem's Temple where the sacrifices were given) as "sanctuary". This robs the statement of its original meaning, which is rooted in the practices of the Jews regarding swearing by the Temple or the alter in that period, going instead for a fuzzy attempt to try to make the verse apply to today's Christian.
In conclusion, I, for one, am sticking with the English Standard Verson, another highly conservative translation realeased by Crossway Publishers in 2001, for my majority use and especially for personal study, due to its unmatched literal accuracy and understandability. The Holman CSB will be used by myself as an occasional companion, when a more modern, casual-speech reading is called for, as it is very accurate, if certainly undignified. I just cannot help but be a bit disappointed that I cannot bring myself to use it for more. If this translation suits you, then use it. It is accurate and was a marvelous effort. It just saddens me that more translations today seem to loose a bit of that refreshingly smooth and powerful Biblical style when either trying to be highly literal or highly readable these days, and this one has followed suit.
Rating: 
Summary: Readable, Reliable, Religious
Review: The King James Version of the Bible is, as far as I am concerned, the standard against which all translations must be measured. Beautiful English couple with excellent scholarship to make for a piece of literature that has helped shape our culture in ways we don't even suspect. Unfortunately, the English language has changed somewhat over the past 400 years, and Biblical scholarship has advanced light years. We need a new standard. Although modern translations are thick as fleas on a dog's back, no one translation seems to stand out above the rest, and none compare to the KJV. Finding a translation to replace the KJV has been an itch I've been trying to scratch for decades without much satisfaction. I have tried almost every translation I can lay my hands on, from the Amplified Bible to the Simplified Bible, from the New American Bible to the New Jerusalem Bible. You can find at least thirty different translations of the Bible on my bookshelves, and they have all been weighed against the KJV and found wanting. Then I found the HCSB. It is as readable as any modern translation, and more readable than most. Its translation philosophy seems to be just the right mixture of "formal equivalence" versus "functional equivalence." It is not an unreadable word for word rendering, nor is it a paraphrase which plays havoc with the Greek and Hebrew sentence structure. The scholarship is excellent, and the text is heavily footnoted with manuscript references and variant readings. Sometimes it puts the variant I would prefer in the footnote. E.g. Genesis 37:3 speaks of Joseph's "robe of many colors" and puts "robe with long sleeves" in the footnote. Translators can't quite decide how to translate that term, with a plurality opting for "many colors" a minority rendering "long sleeves," and many opting for a middle ground such as "richly ornamented," which could cover either meaning. A long sleeved robe would be more likely to anger Joseph's brothers. It was unfit for manual labor, and Jacob's giving Joseph a long sleeved robe would mean he didn't expect him to work. The translation philosophy seems to lean toward the traditional. If there is a tie between a translation that conforms to the KJV and another translation, the KJV translation prevails. As much as I like the KJV, I'm not sure that's a good criterion for selection between competing translations. Most modern translations fumble the translation of technical words. Take "Sheol," for instance. You could translate it "Hell" or "the grave" or leave it at "Sheol" and footnote it.
No rendering of the term is 100% satisfactory. The HCSB has made the best of a bad situation. The translators devised an apparatus of bullets to place before such words. When you come across a bulleted word, you know you're dealing with a technical term, and you can find its definition (or an explanation of what scholars think it may mean) in a glossary in the back. So much for readability and reliability. The work also has religious emphasis. Translations can be readable and reliable without any hint of religion. Hugh Schonfield, the author of "The Passover Plot" and "Those Incredible Christians," has produced a translation of the New Testament that is readable and reliable. I prefer some of his translations to those any other Bible. E.g. Although almost every translation I've ever read (including the HCSB)renders the weapon Jesus spoke of in Luke 22:36 as "sword," Schonfield renders it "dagger." The Greek word is "Machairus," which Liddel & Scott's "Greek-English Lexicon" defines as "dagger." The Jesus Seminar, no bastion of evangelical emphasis, produced the "Scholars' Version" of the Gospels, which is both readable and reliable, but one could hardly classify it as religious. The HCSB, on the other hand, has some features that remind me of the Gideon's Bibles you can still find in most hotel rooms. It presents the plan of salvation at the very beginning of the book, and it has an appendix entitled "Where to Turn" that gives Bible references for all sorts of spiritual crises. On the last page, you find a collection of passages with instructions on how to pray. The HCSB is the perfect balm for my itch for a replacement for the KJV. I've worn out several KJV's over the years, and I plan to work my new HCSB just as hard as I have any of my previous KJV Bibles. Fortunately, it has an excellent, durable cover.
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