The So-called ESV

By Theodore P Letis

The English Standard Version was marketed as a translation for conservative Christians, but it is essentially just a revision of an earlier translation owned by an apostate organization. Crossway Books paid the National Council of Churches $625,000 for "special rights" to

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kept Pure Press
• Release date: Jun 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798218447199

Theodore P Letis

Theodore P. Letis (1951-2005) (PhD, Edinburgh University; MTS, Emory University) was director of the Institute for Renaissance and Reformation Biblical Studies, president of the University of Edinburgh Theological Society and a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Academy of Religion, and the American Society of Church History. He authored The Ecclesiastical Text: Text Criticism, Biblical Authority and the Popular Mind and was editor and contributor to The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate.

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Preface

The English Standard Version was published while I was a seminarian training for ministry in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. At the time, the two most popular translations (at least in Reformed churches) seemed to be the New International Version and the New King James Version. In fact, the NIV was the default translation in my denomination’s periodical New Horizons.

I will never forget the day one of my professors brought his brand-new ESV to class and led our devotion from it. He read Psalm 23, paused, and slowly re-read the first verse, The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. Visibly emotional, he explained, It feels so good to read those words once again. He formerly used the NIV, you see, and its rendition of the verse lacked that level of beauty and dignity. Nudging the classmate beside me, I smiled and pointed to my Authorized Version.

Personally speaking, I was pleased to see good men like that retire their NIV for a translation that employed more of a functional equivalence translation philosophy, but at the same time, I wondered, Why did you stop using the RSV in the first place?

That is all the ESV is—an update of the Revised Standard Version—but you would never know it based on the marketing that ensued. Notable men like Wayne Grudem, R. Kent Hughes, J. I. Packer, Vern Poythress, and Gordon Wenham were behind the project, so initial enthusiasm ran high. In due time, even bigger names like R. C. Sproul and John Piper were added to those who endorsed this new translation. But again, it was not really a new translation. It was a revision of a version that was well-known for its