During our investigation of the ESV several things will be revealed: a web of deceit sustains the modern day Bible publishing market; they all attack the King James Bible; they do not believe in any infallible English Word of God and truth is not their mission. And while this article deals with the ESV, the same indictment applies to virtually every new Bible. Over 300+ versions of the English Bible have been published since the King James Bible of 1611. And every new Bibles mantra is the same: its more accurate; its easier to understand and it updates the King James Bible. And every new Bible finds a few thousand (or million) gullible Christians blindly seeking for some miraculous illumination of the scriptures. As Brother Lester Roloff preached many times, We dont need to rewrite the Bible, we need to re-read it.
From Dr. Terry Watkins
Terry Watkins has a hateful imagination. The actual claims of the publisher of the ESV are found in the preface,
Preface to the English Standard Version The New Version
The Bible
This Book [is] the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; this is the royal Law; these are the lively Oracles of God. With these words the Moderator of the Church of Scotland hands a Bible to the new monarch in Britains coronation service. These words echo the King James Bible translators, who wrote in 1611: Gods sacred Word . . . is that inestimable treasure that excelleth all the riches of the earth. This assessment of the Bible is the motivating force behind the publication of the English Standard Version.
Translation Legacy
The English Standard Version (ESV) stands in the classic mainstream of English Bible translations over the past half-millennium. The fountainhead of that stream was William Tyndales New Testament of 1526; marking its course were the King James Version of 1611 (KJV), the English Revised Version of 1885 (RV), the American Standard Version of 1901 (ASV), and the Revised Standard Version of 1952 and 1971 (RSV). In that stream, faithfulness to the text and vigorous pursuit of accuracy were combined with simplicity, beauty, and dignity of expression. Our goal has been to carry forward this legacy for a new century.
To this end each word and phrase in the ESV has been carefully weighed against the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, to ensure the fullest accuracy and clarity and to avoid under-translating or overlooking any nuance of the original text. The words and phrases themselves grow out of the TyndaleKing James legacy, and most recently out of the RSV, with the 1971 RSV text providing the starting point for our work. Archaic language has been brought to current usage and significant corrections have been made in the translation of key texts. But throughout, our goal has been to retain the depth of meaning and enduring language that have made their indelible mark on the English-speaking world and have defined the life and doctrine of the church over the last four centuries.
Translation Philosophy
The ESV is an essentially literal translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer. As such, its emphasis is on word-for-word correspondence, at the same time taking into account differences of grammar, syntax, and idiom between current literary English and the original languages. Thus it seeks to be transparent to the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the structure and meaning of the original.
In contrast to the ESV, some Bible versions have followed a thought-for-thought rather than word-for-word translation philosophy, emphasizing dynamic equivalence rather than the essentially literal meaning of the original. A thought-for-thought translation is of necessity more inclined to reflect the interpretive opinions of the translator and the influences of contemporary culture.
Every translation is at many points a trade-off between literal precision and readability, between formal equivalence in expression and functional equivalence in communication, and the ESV is no exception. Within this framework we have sought to be as literal as possible while maintaining clarity of expression and literary excellence. Therefore, to the extent that plain English permits and the meaning in each case allows, we have sought to use the same English word for important recurring words in the original; and, as far as grammar and syntax allow, we have rendered Old Testament passages cited in the New in ways that show their correspondence. Thus in each of these areas, as well as throughout the Bible as a whole, we have sought to capture the echoes and overtones of meaning that are so abundantly present in the original texts.
As an essentially literal translation, then, the ESV seeks to carry over every possible nuance of meaning in the original words of Scripture into our own language. As such, the ESV is ideally suited for in-depth study of the Bible. Indeed, with its emphasis on literary excellence, the ESV is equally suited for public reading and preaching, for private read-ing and reflection, for both academic and devotional study, and for Scripture memor-ization.
Translation Principles and Style
The ESV also carries forward classic translation principles in its literary style. Accordingly it retains theological terminologywords such as grace, faith, justification, sanctification, redemption, regeneration, reconciliation, propitiationbecause of their central importance for Christian doctrine and also because the underlying Greek words were already becoming key words and technical terms in New Testament times.
The ESV lets the stylistic variety of the biblical writers fully express itselffrom the exalted prose that opens Genesis, to the flowing narratives of the historical books, to the rich metaphors and dramatic imagery of the poetic books, to the ringing rhetorical indictments in the prophetic books, to the smooth elegance of Luke, to the profound simplicities of John, and the closely reasoned logic of Paul.
In punctuating, paragraphing, dividing long sentences, and rendering connectives, the ESV follows the path that seems to make the ongoing flow of thought clearest in English. The biblical languages regularly connect sentences by frequent repetition of words such as and, but, and for, in a way that goes beyond the conventions of literary English. Effective translation, however, requires that these links in the original be reproduced so that the flow of the argument will be transparent to the reader. We have therefore normally translated these connectives, though occasionally we have varied the rendering by using alternatives (such as also, however, now, so, then, or thus) when they better capture the sense in specific instances.
In the area of gender language, the goal of the ESV is to render literally what is in the original. For example, anyone replaces any man where there is no word corresponding to man in the original languages, and people rather than men is regularly used where the original languages refer to both men and women. But the words man and men are retained where a male meaning component is part of the original Greek or Hebrew. Likewise, the word man has been retained where the original text intends to convey a clear contrast between God on the one hand and man on the other hand, with man being used in the collective sense of the whole human race (see Luke 2:52). Similarly, the English word brothers (translating the Greek word adelphoi) is retained as an important familial form of address between fellow-Jews and fellow-Christians in the first century. A recurring note is included to indicate that the term brothers (adelphoi) was often used in Greek to refer to both men and women, and to indicate the specific instances in the text where this is the case. In addition, the English word sons (translating the Greek word huioi) is retained in specific instances because the underlying Greek term usually includes a male meaning component and it was used as a legal term in the adoption and inheritance laws of first-century Rome. As used by the apostle Paul, this term refers to the status of all Christians, both men and women, who, having been adopted into Gods family, now enjoy all the privileges, obligations, and inheritance rights of Gods children.
The inclusive use of the generic he has also regularly been retained, because this is consistent with similar usage in the original languages and because an essentially literal translation would be impossible without it.
In each case the objective has been transparency to the original text, allowing the reader to understand the original on its own terms rather than on the terms of our present-day culture. (continued below)