Archive for August 2005

In April, blogger John Mark Reynolds praised the ESV (scroll down all the way to see the content if you click the link):
I have a new standard study Bible and can report that Torrey Honors at Biola is thinking of making the same switch…. It is accurate and unafraid to use theologically precise words…. It [...]

Today we’re sharing with you another example of how much thought can go into translating even part of a verse.
This post condenses a 9-page PDF by Charles Kuykendall and C. John Collins (the Old Testament Chair for the ESV). We encourage you to read the paper if you want a fuller discussion.
Here’s 1 Peter 3:15a:
but [...]

We’ll be sharing with you a number of radio spots sponsored by The Standard Bible Society. Each 60-second spot features someone reading a verse or two in the ESV and sharing some thoughts about it.
Today’s spot is from Mike Nawrocki, best known as the voice of Larry the Cucumber on VeggieTales. He talks about 2 [...]

“Styria” writes about the ESV: “But what I like best about the English Standard Version, which became clear as soon as I opened it, is that it is very good for properly dividing the Law and the Gospel.”
He then cites Acts 9:31 in two translations to illustrate his point and discusses why he thinks the [...]

Here’s Malachi 2:16 in the ESV:
“For the man who hates and divorces, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
Here’s Malachi 2:16 in the RSV:
“For I hate divorce, says the LORD the God of Israel, [...]

Crossway is reducing the retail price on the following ESV Bibles by 20% until December 31, 2005.

Compact BattleZone editions ($29.99 now $23.97)
Compact Thinline editions - with slide tab ($29.99 now $23.97) and without slide tab ($24.99 now $19.97)
Deluxe Reference editions - hardcover ($34.99 now $27.97), bonded leather ($54.99 now $43.97), and genuine leather ($69.99 now [...]

Shane Raynor, who blogs from a Methodist perspective, reviews several Bible translations in a recent entry. Of the ESV, he says:
There are several things I like about the ESV:
(1) It uses readable, modern English, yet still sounds dignified.
(2) Because of its RSV roots, people who have memorized scripture in the King James or RSV will [...]

At the ESV Online Edition, we’ve introduced a new option: you can now listen to verses from the New Testament in Windows Media format. Previously, only RealAudio was available.
We should caution that Windows Media Player is maddeningly imprecise in its start and stop times. If you’re listening to part of a chapter, you will often [...]

The ESV.org website (as well as the Crossway site) experienced a server upgrade earlier this week that left parts of the site inaccessible. In particular, some recent of the Verse of the Day podcasts haven’t included their MP3 files. We’ve also received sporadic reports about other audio files not working.
Most of the problems should be [...]

Here are the ESV’s overall readability statistics:

Flesch Reading Ease: 74.9
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 7.4

That’s why we say in marketing materials that the ESV reads at an eighth-grade level.
Below are readability statistics for each book in the ESV. Readability is tough to condense to a single number; many factors contribute to how easy or hard something is [...]