The ESV and Calvinists

[DMcFadden]

Since I specialize in beating dead horses . . . one more time . . .

IF you want a formal correspondence and "readable" English translation of the Critical Text you only have ONE (or two if you count the HCSB) choice, the ESV.

It is not a case of being blindly ESV, ESV-only, or susceptible to financial motivations. It is simple arithmetic: 1 = 1.

Now, if you are open to a more thought-for-thought translation (I'm not), you multiply your options considerably.

And, if you accept the arguments for the TR/MT as compelling (and I find them more so all the time), you have the KJV and the NKJV.

But, given the scholarly commitments and theory they accept regarding textual transmission, the evangelical and Reformed leaders who have endorsed the ESV hardly have any other choice.

As Rodney King used to say: "Can't we just get along?" Poor Piper, Grudem, Frances Chan, MacArthur, Chapell, Driscoll, Ryken, Schreiner, Sproul, Wallace, and more. Can they help it that once you narrow the decision tree to a CT + formal correspondence + readable translation, there is only one choice left?

 

[Backwoods Presbyterian]

Here is a post by the old Puritanboard librarian that sheds some light on the RSV/ESV issue.

http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/KJV-only-versus-byzantine-superiority-20221/#post253815

 

[JM]

ESV Bible

The marketing on this translation is really astounding.

 

[Bad Organist]

Hi JM,

I don't know whether you mean that as good or bad, but to me the marketing of the ESV is somewhat disingenuous. Clever, and Madison Ave slickness, and half truths. You get the sense from reading the web-site that the English-speaking world has quite a few terrible translations based on inferior and outdated scholarship, and so a bunch of scholars got together and got it right, maybe for the first time. I wouldn't consider the ESV even as being any more in the line of the KJV than 3 or 4 others currently in print. In fact I would say the NKJV is much closer than the ESV to the KJV. There are passages in the ESV where the word order is different, the words themselves are different and where the meaning is quite different. The ESV claims to be essentially literal, but is it more essentially literal than the NKJV, or the NASB or the NRSV or even the Holman CSB.

The ESV is said to be a "standard" bible. On what basis is it a "standard" or "the standard"? Seems to me that the standard bibles are not best sellers, and typically not terrible long lived in the market place. The RSV was said to be such a great translation when it came out, and was gone in less than 40 years.

I understand that of late that the ESV is now published with the Apocrypha. Why? I thought the ESV was supposed to be an evangelical bible. Or is the Apocrypha now considered part of the bible by evangelicals?

Our church has switched over to the ESV, but increasingly I think it was done too quickly. The preaching has not improved, the bible knowledge has not increased, and curiously enough, after 3 or 4 years, I have not heard anyone quoting the ESV from memory. I find that many ESV renderings just do not lend themselves to memorization.

I think the ESV is pushed on those that want something new, different. Some of what I have read in the ESV Study Bible doesn't strike me as historic calvinism or reformed in the puritan sense.

Looking at the CBA sales listings and what is on store shelves, seems to me that the ESV is a long ways away from being the best selling bible in english. I think it is the marketing and the plugs given to it by high profile leaders that is keeping the ESV in the bible buying folks mind.

Bad Organist
Free Church of Scotland
Toronto, Canada

 

[Reformed Thomist]

I understand that of late that the ESV is now published with the Apocrypha. Why? I thought the ESV was supposed to be an evangelical bible. Or is the Apocrypha now considered part of the bible by evangelicals?

Why was the Geneva Bible (and the KJV) published with the Apocrypha?

 

[JM]

I was just pointing out the obvious.

 

[DMcFadden]

The ESV claims to be essentially literal, but is it more essentially literal than the NKJV, or the NASB or the NRSV or even the Holman CSB.

According to the guy who made this chart, Yes. No. Yes. And Yes.

If slick marketing is bothersome to you, don't listen to the new NIV ads. I had a 325 mi. drive to a conference today. When the NIV ad came on the radio, I almost wanted to go buy one myself. It sounds like it will make be smarter, wiser, richer, and a whole lot better looking [not to mention curing athletes foot, halitosis, and dandruff].

 

[TimV]

My goal is to be as wise in the way of the world as Dr. M without getting as cynical as me.