Crossway who produce the ESV are a not-for-profit organisation. Lane Dennis explains their mission and desire to make the Bible available for free in many electronic applications
All of this is to say, when any significant new technology becomes available, we want to be there with the ESV Bible – free from day one.In addition to listing several appliciations they have produced they indicate their ongoing intentions
We live in a unique moment of history. We live at the beginning of a global communications revolution that will change the world forever, beyond anything we can begin to imagine. For people who are committed to the Gospel and the Truth of God’s Word, this communications revolution provides an unprecedented moment in the history of the world. The amazing thing is that the massive technological infrastructure to accomplish this already exists! Our calling is simply to make the content accessible to everyone, everywhere, at all times, by means of “all technologies.”
- the free distribution of millions of ESV evangelistic New Testaments;
- free sharing of the ESV Bible text and audio on any church or Christian ministry website;
- free availability of the ESV Bible via “cloud technology,” everywhere in the world on every major form of mobile technology; and
- free essential Bible teaching resources for churches and individuals everywhere.
From the look of the graphic I would say you are in receipt of your iPhone now!!
ReplyDeleteI love having the ESV on my iPod touch and even paid the one off for the internet subscription as I had not purchased the study Bible and have all the internet resources available to me now as well.
I'm disappointed with some areas of translation in the ESV.
ReplyDeleteI'll give you a specific instance. Get your Greek NT then compare the words translated as divorce in the Matt. 5 and 19 passages. put away and divorce are two different Greek words yet the ESV translates them to mean the same thing.
True FT, but every version is going to have areas that people think are poorly translated. I have some issues with KJV based on archaic language (not a problem at the time, a problem now), textual choices, and translation decisions, even though I think it otherwise good. I don't mind the NKJV, and NASB at times, though I am less familiar with the NASB. I think there are some word choices in the NASB that make the flow difficult but with no benefit.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I don't mind the more dynamic NIV.
One of the things I think important is that while a formal translation is important for in-depth study, general reading to get the overall themes of Scripture is also important. Something I think the NIV gets right, though in places the translation is a little lacking. I haven't read the TNIV.
And there are some passages I think all the translations get incorrect.
Blair, not at the time, but now and have the app installed.
ReplyDeleteWhy the ESV? read the RSV, NASB, and the NKJV and tell me if there is any improvement over these.
ReplyDeletejeff, this post was not really to demonstrate the ESV is the best translation, rather Crossway's vision for making electronic ESVs free (they also seem to try and make print versions cheap).
ReplyDeleteThe ESV is similar to the RSV as it was based on it. It updates archaic words such as "thee" and "thou" and makes a various other changes. I would use the ESV over the RSV.
The NASB I believe is quite good, though stilted to read in places, and in ways that I do not think is necessary; that is, difficult phraseology that is not offset by a benefit such as improved accuracy. The updated version NASU may improve this?
NKJV uses a different text-type, the received text (similar to the majority text). It may be better to use if you think this text-type is more accurate.
Regards