Analysis of the ESV
In discussing a new UnSpun ranking of Bible translations, Steve Cook mentions that he was unfamiliar with the English Standard Version. I first heard about this translation at the November 2005 SBL meeting. I did a bit of work on it and posted a blog about the ESV on my old blog, Karamat. Since I have more readers now than when I first posted on the ESV, I thought I would repost what I had to say then.
— Beginning of original post —
I ran the ESV through the Logos Bible program using the Bible analysis tool. I compared the ESV against the King James (KJV), American Standard (ASV), New American Standard (NASB), New International (NIV), Revised Standard (RSV), and New Revised Standard (NRSV).
The graph on the right shows the results of the analysis on Logos Bible Software. It analyses the versions on a word for word basis. The more words the version has in common with another, the closer together the dots are plotted.
It is not surprising that the ESV is close to the RSV, because the translators use the RSV as the basic translation when they did their work. Although it is a new translation, the translation team used the RSV as a guide and updated the language. What is surprising, however, is that the ESV is closest to the NRSV, another update of the RSV. The literature on the ESV states that they wanted an updated RSV but without the inclusive language and other problems that they saw with the NRSV. Despite this, they seem to have produced a translation that is almost the same as the NRSV.
Interestingly, the ESV does not have a lot in common with the NIV, even though both were produced by conservative, evangelical scholars. This is due to the different translational philosophies. The ESV (along with the RSV and NRSV) employ a word for word translational approach (although not as strictly as the ASV and NASB). The NIV on the other hand uses a phrase by phrase approach (usually called a ‘dynamic’ approach).
This analysis confirms my first impression, which is that the ESV is a good translation that is very readable. It will be interesting to work with this translation for a while and see if this conclusion holds up.
— End of original post —
A few months ago, I had another experience with the ESV that was not as positive. I had written a plugin for WordPress that would allow ESV text to be automatically inserted into blog posts via their XML service. Unfortunately, I found I couldn’t use the plugin once I had written it, because the ESV publishers require you to subscribe to the idea of inerrancy in order to use their service. For the details, you can read the post on my ESV plugin.
On May 3rd, 2007 at 11:19 am
I haven’t been that impressed with the ESV.
I have a little list in my head of places where different translations are apt to fudge the text to fit their theology. The ESV make the usual evangelical mistranslations at Ps.2:12; 22:16; and Isa 8:14. At least they don’t go as far as the NIV in mistranslating Dan 9:25 (and making it into “the Messiah,” rather than “an anointed one”).
The text seems to be inerrant, unless it goes against their theology.
On May 3rd, 2007 at 11:33 am
Thanks for the posts on this, Kevin. I’m not a big fan of the inerrancy position or the conviction about gender inclusive language (”gender neutral” as the complementarians like to say), but I do appreciate the ESV. I’ve been doing more translation of the Greek NT than usual lately, and I’ve been checking it up against the NRSV and the ESV at grammatically confusing points. Going word by word, I have found the ESV generally to be truer to the text in many areas… I’ve been doing a lot of non-controversial narrative translation.
But if I had a theologically and linguistically untrained Christian friend looking for one primary translation, I don’t think I’d recommend it. I’d probably say the NRSV or maybe even the TNIV, which I think is much better than the NIV, even if it still has some of the same theological biases. Just my two cents.
On May 5th, 2007 at 10:08 am
[…] my thoughts on Bible translations this past week. The first was Kevin A. Wilson’s post Analysis of the ESV and the subsequent comment by Patrick George McCullough on that post. According to Wilson’s […]
On May 5th, 2007 at 11:24 am
I was surprised that you claimed a large difference between ESV and NIV and that that was because of a fundamentally different translation philosophy. In fact I am surprised how close they are, considering that NIV is a new translation, and ESV is an adaptation of ESV which is itself an adaptation of ASV - yet ESV is closer to NIV than to ASV!
In fact it is very misleading to claim that NIV uses a a phrase by phrase approach or a ‘dynamic’ approach. In fact the approach of NIV is only rather slightly different from that of ESV and NRSV, with the translation departing from the literal only where the translators consider that necessary. The difference is that the NIV translators depart from the literal a bit more than the ESV translators - but in fact not a lot more. For a real phrase by phrase or ‘dynamic’ translation, see NLT, TEV/GNT or CEV. In fact it would be interesting to see your graph redone with those translations added. I suspect that you would find NIV much nearer to ESV than to any of them - and that the three of them would be more widely spread than any of the more literal group.
On May 6th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
[…] Kirk posted a comment on my ESV post, and I thought I would take a second to address some of his […]
On May 8th, 2007 at 8:58 am
[…] is any important one to many people, given how many comments I have gotten on my two post on the Analysis of the ESV and More on the […]
On May 8th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Kevin, This is really interesting. I was under the impression that the ESV would be close to translations such as the NJPS and the NASB in that it would base itself first and foremost on the Hebrew MT text. From the above, I gather that it basis itself on a reconstructed eclectic text (mix of LXX, DSS, etc.), much as the NRSV does. Can you (or any of your readers) confirm this? —Stephen Cook
On May 8th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Steve,
According to the preface to the ESV, it is based primarily on the MT. In some cases, they did resort to other textual witnesses, and these are indicates in footnotes. I haven’t studied the ESV enough to know how often they used these other versions.
On May 14th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
[…] At this point I think I should point out that I quite like the ESV. It’s actually my translation of choice. I think they have balls (they are the only translation I know of, aside from the JPS, that was brave enough to put a period in Daniel 9.25 where there is an atnach. I say brave because such a choice of punctuation pretty much destroys the whole “69 weeks of Daniel, and then the 70th week is the tribulation” argument that is so often recited in the circles I walk. In addition they were willing to go with the reading of the LXX and DSS over the MT in some places - and in some instances that decision has brought up some interesting theological issues (the nations being divided according to the number of the sons of god, as opposed to the sons of Israel in Deuteronomy 32.8 is one such example). I also noticed, in my completely unscientific survey that they capitalize son and messiah less than the NASB. I’ve been told it is quite similar to the NRSV, and that seems to be an opinion that has some support. […]