I am breaking the "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And 'Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible'?)" post up into shorter segments so that each verse (or two) gets it own post.
#23-24: Here are two from Deuteronomy. In Deut. 30:10, almost all of the older translations say something like the KJV does: "If you obey God and keep His commands and if you turn to the Lord ..." (paraphrased), but the ESV is one of the very few translations that says "when you" instead of "if you." Why? I'm guessing because "if" implies choice. It implies that they could choose to not do these things. And Calvinists don't think we have a choice about whether or not we obey God. And so saying "when" takes away free-will and choice (personal responsibility and decision), and it allows them to incorporate their idea that God causes the obedient to be obedient, in His timing.
And then there's Deut. 30:16. Here it is in the KJV: "In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that though mayest live and multiply; and the Lord thy God will bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it." Notice that in the translation (as well as in almost all the others), it basically says "I command you to love God, to walk in obedience, and to keep his commandments." Moses is commanding the people to do these things. And commands are meant to be obeyed. The people have to make the choice whether or not to obey these commands.
But here it is in the ESV: "If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments ..." This is very different.
In the other translations, loving God and keeping His commandments are commands meant to be obeyed. But in the ESV, they are the result of, evidence of, if they obey the commandments or not. They are characteristics of obedient people. In Calvinism, this verse could be understood more like this: "If you're obeying the commandments I give you today, as evidenced by loving Him, walking in His ways, and keeping His commandments, then you will live and multiply."
Yes, I know I just said "if" implies choice (and you may think this is nit-picking), but my concern here is this: Why would the ESV (and practically only the ESV) take away the "I command you to ..." from the "love God and keep his commandments"? Why would they essentially change "love God and keep His commandments" from commands meant to be obeyed to simply being evidence of whether they are obedient people or not?
The thing is - as I have seen time and time again in Calvinism - they have actually reversed the biblical order of things. It's a very subtle tactic of Satan's to take a biblical idea and invert it, using biblical words and ideas to sound accurate, but in reverse, so no one notices the deception. They do this with the biblical truth that if we believe in Jesus then we will get the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). They reverse it to say that if we get the Holy Spirit then we will believe (which, in Calvinism, happens only to the elect). Two biblical ideas, just inverted. And it totally changes truth into lies.
And in the Deuteronomy verse here, they invert loving God and obedience. Biblically, if we love God, we will obey Him. Our obedience is evidence of our love for Him (John 14:15,21,23, 1 John 5:3, 2 John 1:6). And loving Him is the choice we need to make. (Love that is forced is not love anymore. It has to be voluntary.) But in this verse, the ESV has inverted it, saying that if we obey God, we will show love for Him. In the ESV, love is the evidence that we are obeying Him. Same concepts, just inverted, leading to a different message. (When a theology is so full of nits, you have to nit-pick to get them all out. Any nits that are left will just reproduce.)
They have taken away the command to love God, a very "salvation" thing, a choice, and basically turned "love God" into evidence of obedient people ... which, in Calvinism, is determined by God and proves you are elect. If you take away the command to "love God," then you take away our ability/responsibility to make a choice about loving God.
A note about the ESV vs King James:
If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, read these articles about the men who wrote the Greek texts that the ESV is based on: "Westcott and Hort: Translator's Beliefs" and "Westcott and Hort and the Greek Text." The ESV is based on the RSV, which is based on the Greek Texts of these two men (who, it sounds like, rejected the infallibility of Scripture, despised evangelicals, questioned Jesus's divinity and an eternal hell, did not believe Genesis and the creation story was literal, affirmed Darwin and evolution, etc.), which is based on two corrupted manuscripts which differ from the majority of the more reliable manuscripts that the KJV is based on.
So when something says that the ESV has only made 6% changes, it means "from the RSV," meaning that it's 94% the same as the RSV it was based on, a translation which was based on two corrupted manuscripts that disagree with the majority of the manuscripts available. It would be like if a journalist interviewed 100 people about an event ... and 95 of them said the exact same thing, but 5 told a different story ... and the journalist decided to side with the 5 and print their story as fact. Raises some red flags, doesn't it?
In the course of researching this issue, and after not knowing for decades what to think of the whole "which translation is most accurate" debate, I now side with the King James. I mean, I have several other translations, and I think different ones are good for different reasons, such as readability, compare and contrast, to hear God's Word in a fresh way, etc. But when having to decide which one is more reliable and accurate, especially considering the significant differences like those above, I have to side with the KJV (not the New King James, just the King James). And I've never been more sure of it than now, after all this research.
