Literary excellence Bible version contest

It's contest time again! In this contest you get to deal, as best as you can, with the concept of "literary excellence." It is used in advertising about the ESV. We have had several posts on this blog about literary excellence. I suspect that literary excellence is, like beauty, largely in the eye of the beholder. For some people literary excellence in a Bible will mean that a Bible will have a classic, old-fashioned sound. For others literary excellence means that a Bible will sparkle with clarity. For others it will mean that a Bible version will be alive with metaphors.

Here are the rules for this contest:

1. Select your current favorite English Bible version. If you have more than one favorite, select one of them.
2. Find five passages from your version which exhibit literary excellence to you.
3. Put up a comment to this post, giving the name of your favorite version, the complete wording of each of the five passages, and your explanation of why each wording has literary excellence to you. (It will be normal for your explanation to be subjective. You are sharing how the translation impacts you in terms of literary excellence.)
4. Contest length: 48 hours from the time this post is published to the blog.
5. Winners: There will be two winners which I will randomly select (I'll be fair and close my eyes, not peeking!).
5. Prizes: The two remaining extra Bible versions in my collection:

a. hardback NLT
b. paperback large print HCSB with NT, Psalms, and Proverbs

6. I will pay the postage to mail your prize to you.

Have fun! And I hope this is educational for you. I expect it will be for me.

Categories: Bible versions, literary quality