About a month ago the publisher of the ESV announced that it had made some changes in the version this year, and it provided a list of them. I have to give them credit for providing the list, because other Bible publishers typically make little changes like this without even announcing them. But unfortunately the list was presented on 27 pages in a macromedia flash container, which could not be downloaded and printed, or posted elsewhere. What's up with that? I can't think of any good reason for putting out information like this in such an incovenient form. It would have been much easier for them, and more convenient for everyone else, to put it in an html document, or a pdf. Anyway, I went and did a screenshot of each page of the list and assembled all the images in pdf file. Here it is. But be warned, it's a 4 MB file. Maybe someone else who has more time can make a text version of it for everyone.
I'm not going to comment on the changes right now. There's a discussion over at Justin Taylor's blog. I agree with the commenters who think the changes were not necessary or helpful, and especially with the point made by the last commenter: "repeatedly obsoleting a translation used in community contexts is problematic."
4 comments:
"Maybe someone else who has more time can make a text version of it for everyone."
Done:
List of changes to the Old Testament
List of changes to the New Testament
I agree about making a good version "obsolete".
One of the biggest reasons I stick with the KJV is because it's not going to be "obsoleted" anytime soon.
I like the ESV, but it sure would annoy me to have an "outdated" version.
I thought the whole idea in Bible translation was to do the job as well as possible the first time...
@P.S.H.: Thanks for putting up plain text versions of those files. I've made use of them in an application I'm working on.
@Unprofitable Servant: The KJV was revised many times and even still, the Cambridge and Oxford editions differ from each other.
The changes in the ESV are hardly worth mentioning. There are already many versions of the KJV and it is obsolete. Or at least the vernacular is. I would rather read the Genevan Bible or even the Tyndale New Testament and partial Old.
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