Many Bible translations have come and gotten lost with the flow of time. Rarely have new interpretations left a long-lasting impact on society. Some of them have been lost after a couple of years; others have been labelled as niche translations.
Things about ESV Bibles You can’t Miss
Only in some exceptional cases, a new translation has successfully grabbed the attention of the Christian world. Forty years ago, it happened for the last time when the New International Version was introduced. These days, another new interpretation has grabbed the attention of moderate Christians. The English Standard Version (ESV) has gained popularity and is suggested by some influential pastors.
The concept for the ESV Bibles emerged in the early 90s when Lane T. Dennis, leader of the non-profit book publishing ministry Crossway, explained the need for another literal interpretation of the Bible with different Christian researchers and pastors. Towards the end of the decade, the interpretation board of trustees started work. The ESV was launched in 2001, with minor updates being released in 2007, 2011, and 2016.
The initial point for the ESV interpretation was the 1971 release of the Revised Standard Version (RSV). Each word of the content was carefully checked against and dependent on the Masoretic content of the Hebrew Bible as found in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (second ed., 1983). Crossway further adds that in extraordinary, troublesome cases, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac Peshitta, the Latin Vulgate, and different sources were studied to put conceivable insight into the content, or, if required, to help a diversification from the Masoretic content.
The three general ways of Bible translation are formal equality, functional equality, and optimal equality. As Dave Croteau has clarified, formal equality (“word-for-word” interpretation) endeavours to interpret in literary terms keeping the sentence constructions and idioms the same if possible (such as NASB, KJV). Functional equality (“thought-for-thought” interpretation) tries to interpret the content keeping the sense intact (such as NLT), and optimal equality falls between the previous methodologies by adjusting the conflict between accuracy and ease of reading. Being a literal interpretation, the ESV most intently lines up with the formal equivalent translation method.
The interpretation was managed by a 15-member Translation Oversight Committee (including R. Kent Hughes, TGC Council member) and another team of more than 50 Translation Review Experts, including Ray Ortlund, TGC Council Member).
On the Christian Booksellers Association 2014 list of top-sold Bible interpretations, the ESV Bibles gained the fifth rank in dollar sales and fourth rank in unit sales. During the previous 15 years, the ESV has dispersed in more than 100 million print copies as well as 100 million electronic copies.
In 2013, Gideon’s International, a ministry that provides free Bibles to inns, hotels, clinics and other healthcare centres, improving homes, clinical workplaces, abusive behaviour at domestic violence centre, houses, medical offices, and prisons, reported it would transform its cutting edge English form from the New King James Version (NKJV) to the ESV. This change will make the ESV perhaps the most distributed versions on the planet.
The comprehensibility level of the text of the ESV Bibles is around eighth-grade (7.4 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and 74.9 on the Flesch Reading Ease). In contrast, the NIV is likewise at the seventh or eighth level, the KJV at the twelfth-grade level, and The Message at the fourth and fifth-grade level. Have you found these facts interesting? Then, it is high time you start reading an ESV Bible.
