Why Read the ESV Translation of the Holy Bible
If you had recently visited a bookstore to purchase a Bible, you must have been overwhelmed by the variety of English Bible translations available in the market. It is ironic that while new Bible translations keep getting published in English year in and year out, there are still many languages out there, into which the Holy Bible is yet to be translated.
Which Bible translation should you choose?
For Catholics, the answer to this question is often simple. The best option is to purchase the Bible translation currently approved to be used in the lectionaries by the Catholic Bishops Conference of your location. Most Christians, who grew up reading a particular translation of the Bible, are likely to stick to the same. However, as language changes over time and with the latest research on the scriptures shedding more light on the Word, it makes sense to switch to a reliable and modern English translation.
A word or two on the translation philosophy
Some readers might be under the impression that you are getting an exact word-to-word translation of the scriptures from Greek or Hebrew into English. However, the language structure of Hebrew as well as Greek is much different from that of English. Thus a purely word-to-word translation into English will not be very readable. Therefore, the translator must be allowed to make some improvements to fit the text to the grammatical smoothness of modern English. This approach is often referred to as the Formal Equivalence approach.
On the other hand, a phrase-to-phrase translation approach allows the translator to simply focus on conveying the meaning of the verse instead of worrying about using the exact words in the original text. Of course, such a project depends heavily on the translator’s interpretation of the text and there is a higher chance of errors creeping into the translated text. They call this the Dynamic Equivalence approach. It is better to stay away from such translations unless you are planning to buy them for someone at a lower reading level, say your children or a second-language English reader.
About the ESV bible translation
You will be glad to know that the English Standard Version Bible falls into the first category of Bible translations and is very widely available in the market. In fact, the ESV Bible comes out of the great family of Bible translations going all the way back to the King James version. ESV is an updated revision of the Revised Standard Version which in turn was an attempt to update the King James Version.
It was felt that by incorporating gender-inclusive language in the New Revised Standard Version, it strayed away from the original meaning in some verses. The ESV Bible project was launched in response to this. The Translators retained the traditional interpretation throughout the text and did not incorporate any gender-inclusive language at all. As expected, once ESV was launched, it soon overtook RSV and NRSV in sales and became the go-to-bible for most parishioners.
The Catholic Edition of the ESV Bible was authorised and approved by the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India back in 2018 and you can order your copy of the ESV-CE bible today right here.
