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Have you ever heard of it? I hadn’t until yesterday. My co-worker is in a very conservative church where the translation of choice, for most of their members, is the ESV. My co-worker is accepting of the ESV, but actually prefers the NKJV, or the NASB in a pinch. He was reading at Sharper Iron and came across this link. He gave it to me to look at, and I found this very interesting little article:
when will the esv cease evolving?
Are you aware that the ESV continues to evolve? When will it grow up? I was sent the link below by a friend today and it troubles me. The document lists nearly 300 changes and this group is only one in a series of revisions that have appeared (quietly) since its publication over a decade ago.
I think that the changes are mostly good, but that is not my point. With this series of almost annual revisions, my original hunch is being confirmed. I think that the ESV was only a slight revision of the old RSV and that it was rushed into publication because of the pending news about the TNIV, which was in the works at the time. It would be interesting to know if Crossway pushed for the new translation to scoop Zondervan and capitalize on the negative publicity about the TNIV. Can someone address that issue?
The NASB and the NIV have undergone only one or two revisions in their much longer lifetimes. Why so many changes? Isn’t Crossway embarrassed by the fact that their colossal ESV Study Bible is now outdated with its inferior readings?
Now here is the real irony. When I examined the changes, what surprised me was that a number of them bring the ESV into agreement with the (cursed) NIV 2011. How can these guys keep criticizing the NIV when their ESV is becoming more like it?
You should know that I have been a fan of the ESV for years, but my enthusiasm has started to cool. First it was because of the notes in the ESV Study Bible, which I reviewed critically a few years ago (e.g., the “Daniel” in Ezekiel was a pagan hero!), and now I am perplexed with this unending series of revisions! How do I use my old ESV in class when it differs now in over a thousand verses with the new ESVs in my students’ hands? Will this be a boon for the HCSB? Please don’t tell me it is being revised!!!
Are Piper and the other pastors who have promoted the ESV pleased with all these changes? Did we place our trust in an inferior product that is acknowledged to be so by its own translation team?
I told myself that I would no longer be controversial in my posts, but I am making an exception. Will someone from Crossway or the Grudem translation team (Bill Mounce?) please answer my questions? I will post any official responses here and call attention to them on my FB and Twitter posts.
Oh, yes, the link to those most recent changes: http://d3p91it5krop8m.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/misc/esv_2011_changes.html
Personally, I have a nice ESV single-column reference Bible, and have come to enjoy using it in spite of its rather clumsy and archaic translation. And I doubt that the changes I have seen so far are going to make a whole lot of difference in this translation. It’s still rather clumsy and archaic. But it’s still not bad. Will these changes affect the perceived stability and solid reputation of the ESV? Well, I guess that depends on how they are perceived.
As for me, I’m not going to worry about it.
The Sundry Times 
I own several ESVs (thinline, the original reference, and the study Bible). I really did try to give it a chance, mainly because I liked the RSV so much. But after using the NIV for over 30 years, it’s hard to go back to archaic words and sentence structure. I am not a scholar. I read the Bible to understand the message and conform my life to it. For me, the NIV does the best job for this. Plus I’m 2 ESV revisions behind now!
The only good thing to come from this latest revision is that I’m sure Crossway will sell more ESVs now, since they seem to have such a loyal following and probably don’t want to be left behind. I feel sorry for anyone who laid out the cash for a premium ESV.
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Thanks for responding, John. I agree that the NIV is good. I think it’s probably the best all-around translation for both ease of understanding and accuracy as well.
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Gary,
The author of the now archived New Leaven blog, TC, posted an article this year about the ESV marketing team essentially commercializing the ESV. Knowing his overall dislike for the ESV, I was very irritated with his “commercialization” conclusion. However, it seems to me he may have been right after all: rushing a Bible version to print just to beat out the competition, adjusting the text to gain a more politically “correct” audience – where will it stop.
I don’t buy into this modern mentality of “If a particular Bible version fits your preference, then that is the right version for you.” We need to get back to basics and stop making everything relative to personal taste, including Truth and Bible translations. Just because something reads well, just because something feels good to the mind and senses, that doesn’t make it accurate and certainly doesn’t make it true. We need to stop this smorgasbord of catering to the whims of our “Me First” society, and then once again fall in love with truth, just plain hardcore truth.
I’ll stick with my ESV 2002 and my NASB 95. And between the two, I’ll take the NASB 95 for serious Bible study any day of the week. Compare for instance the textual rendering of Job 40:1-8 [NASB] vs. Job 40:1-8 [ESV 2002]. Hands down, NASB gives better clarity, showing the real gravity of God’s charge against Job.
We really do need to stop simply “preferring” and instead start asking ourselves, “Is my preference truly good for me: Why; or why not? And, “Do I have the guts to change my preference based on what I find?”
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Todd, you make some very good points, and i agree wholeheartedly. Well said!
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Gary, your silence for the past few weeks was worth the wait. You know how much we love discussing Bible translations out here.
As an NASB guy this discussion is somewhat academic for me. Still, I looked through the list of changes, and for the most part, they seem pretty insignificant. For instance, 1 Samuel 2:11 is just a verb tense issue. One change I think is good is 1 Samuel 13:1. It is just plain bizarre the way it is currently in the ESV, so I think that will be an improvement. I wonder if the NKJV is a little more accurate in how this is rendered.
I also found it interesting that in many cases in the NT the word “slave” is being changed to “bondservant.” This has been a point of discussion among Christians lately, most notably John MacArthur, so I am somewhat surprised by it. I was especially surprised to see it in Philemon 1:16 because in that case it is in reference to an actual slave.
By the way, I like your new theme with the snow falling in the background.
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(Heh, the snow is automatic on WordPress this year. You can deactivate it . in the past you could activate it if you want. The difference? It used to be off automatically, now it’s on automatically.)
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1 Samuel 13:1 is just as bizarre, if not more so, in the NKJV. At least the notes say the Hebrew is difficult in that verse.
I guess the bondservant/slave discussion is ongoing. Even Mac seems to be undecided about it. But that’s the nature of the Bible translation process. They’re really learning more about the way the ancient Greek was used all the time.
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Well, I know I’m nearly two years late into this discussion, but my wife and I are in a Bible study right now, and the teacher just went through 1 Samuel 25. Verses 31-33 in the 2007 text edition of the ESV reads: “my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord taking vengeance himself”…”Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from avenging myself with my own hand!” But where it says “taking vengeance himself” in the 2007 text (my wife’s Bible) it says “working salvation for himself” in the 2011 text (my Bible). It tripped me out! How does this make sense? I can’t find ANY commentary on the difference anywhere.
Any insight here?
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A couple years late, but I certainly don’t mind revisiting a post when an interesting point is raised, as you have, Nathaniel.
As I’m sure you know, there are difficulties in the translation from an ancient language (Hebrew) into a contemporary language (English as we speak it today). I think in this case a comparison of translations serves us well. I went to Bible Gateway and entered the passage, and read how it has been translated into the many versions, and virtually all those I read referred to his taking physical vengeance for himself – very straightforward. But different translation teams come across things as they dig into the translation process, and while I also have found nothing in any commentary on this difference, it’s clear that the ESV team felt that “working salvation for himself” translated the actual meaning of the phrase better than the literal translation itself.
My own personal feeling, and that’s all it is, is that the ESV team is stretching this a bit, and the literal translation is probably more appropriate.
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I would also like to weigh in on this. Since I use the NASB, I looked up the word using Strong’s reference numbers (“yasha” in Heb.) to see how it is rendered elsewhere, and in almost every single case it is translated as “deliver” or “save.” The only two places it is translated as “avenge” is in the verse mentioned above and earlier in that same chapter in verse 26. However, the marginal notes in the NASB indicate that for both those verses the literal rendition is, in fact, “save,” which is how the ESV translates both of those verses. So it would seem that the ESV is actually the more literal translation in this case.
So why do the NASB and so many others translate it as “avenge”? Well, not knowing Hebrew my knowledge here is quite limited, but it probably has to do with contextual usage. A quick example from English might help demonstrate this. Suppose I said, “My car is running,” and then I said, “I’m going to run to the store.” The root word, run, is the same, but the meanings in each sentence are not the same. To someone who speaks English the difference is obvious, but suppose we wanted to translate that into another language. In that case, it might not make sense to use the same word for both sentences because that language might not be able to support those differences in meaning using the same word.
We see this in Hebrew all the time. Psalm 17:10 says, “They have closed their unfeeling heart.” But literally it says, “They have closed their fat.” The second sentence would not make any sense to an English speaker, but it makes perfect sense to someone who knows Hebrew. So what do the translators do? They pick the closest possible equivalent in English to convey the meaning, and in the NASB’s case, they indicate the literal rendering in a marginal note, for those who are curious.
I hope that helps shed some light on this. We love talking about Bible translations out here.
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I suppose, then, that it would be wrong to read this in a sotereological sense, when its actually a reference to something closer to physical salvation or “saving his name”: Nabal had just said, “who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?” And then denied giving David’s men supplies. David, then, was going in the show him just who David, the son of Jesse, was! Seems like Nabal touched a nerve there. 😛
I see now why translators are tempted to make translations more understandable, because this threw me for a loop!
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That’s why I like ASV to see the literal words, but use the NIV to see how the translators read it in context. They’ve spent so much more time than I ever will studying language, culture, context, etc.
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Yeah, I really enjoy talking translations, too. Glad you guys showed up to talk today. My response to Nathaniel this morning had to be quickly thought out and written, as I was getting ready to travel to a family reunion today.
It’s something that fascinates me, how the literal words often don’t convey the true meaning in the receptor language (English) and so the translator(s) have to actually change the wording in order to convey the meaning. That’s why the dynamic equivalence translations often give the true meaning while the literal ones may just confuse the issue. But we can’t give the dynamic ones carte blanche, because of the very real danger of the translators injecting their own interpretation into the scripture, which may be quite wrong. That’s why I’m quite comfortable (usually) with the NIV, but see theological problems with the NLT and others.
I don’t care if this discussion is two years old. This is worth talking about!
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