Reading the Bible by Genre

I am continuing to read through my ESV Reformation Study Bible, using Michael Coley's 52 week bible reading plan, which divides the bible up into an epistle reading for Sunday, Law for Monday, History for Tuesday, Psalms on Wednesday, other Poetry on Thursday, Prophecy on Friday and Gospels and Acts on Saturday.

I'm doing it eclectically, and now on the second week I've read, 1 John, Hebrews, Galatians in the Epistles column, Genesis 1-7 from Law, Psalms 1-8, Proverbs 1-4, Matthew 1-4, but so far, no History or Prophecy.

The ESV Reformation Study Bible is nicely produced, has a clear typeface, larger than many bibles I've used, and usually has helpful notes. Having just read through the bible using the TNIV bible, it is interesting to compare the two.

At times the language in the TNIV is unnecessarily politically correct: the translators tried to avoid the use of masculine language, and where this language has been imposed on the bible, or where it obscures the meaning, I welcome the use of inclusive language. But, at times, the change to the plural or the rewording of the traditional English rendering is not needed.

I appreciate the way the RSV revisers [which is what you may more properly call the ESV translators] have reworded its masculine language where there is inclusive language in the original Hebrew, Aramiac and Greek. This is a common feature of the ESV and TNIV.

But certain words, such as ADELFOI, are consistently rendered as masculine, despite the revisers inserting footnotes to the effect that the word is intended to be inclusive. This should have come out in the text, perhaps with a footnote that the original word is masculine, but is intended to have an inclusive meaning.

At times the ESV sounds like biblish [biblical English, a throwback to the King James Version and even the versions which preceded it]. A few days ago I read through Hebrews and found some renderings quite awkward. So far I've found the Old Testament passages read more smoothly. But I admit that in looking up a couple of passages, they are difficult to read in many English versions. Hebrews 2:10 is one of those.