A standard, maybe

Will evangelicals unite around a new Bible translation? | Joel Belz

If you are tempted, when you begin hearing a good bit in a few weeks about still another new translation of the Bible, to respond with a cavalier, Who needs it? I beg you to think again.

The formal launch a few days ago of the English Standard Version of the Bible will be seen a generation from now, I think, in either of two profoundly different ways.

Negatively, the ESV could strike the Bible-buying public as just one more in a long series of variations on what God might have meant when He gave us His word in written form. The broad diversity of English translations over the last half-century lets us all pretend we're biblical scholars, sitting at our desks surrounded by half a dozen versions and picking the rendition on any particular subject that we happen to like the best. The problem is that little by little, such Bibles become our word instead of God's word.