I used the English Standard Version (ESV) for my personal Bible reading for almost 20 years. But I recently made the full switch to the NASB 1995. I had been preaching from the NASB 1995 because my church had used it for many years, but now it is also my personal reading Bible. My only hesitation was that the NASB did an update in 2020 (which I consider a downgrade), but the NASB 1995 is still in print and there is a promise to keep it that way. (The Legacy Standard Bible is also a new update to the NASB, but it uses “Yahweh” instead of “LORD” for God’s name in the Old Testament. Adopting the LSB would be a major change for public worship.)
Instead of debating the best English Bible translation, I want to explain why I am moving away from the ESV. It is not that the ESV is overall a bad translation (though I do have some criticisms). Rather, I am concerned about the regular updates to the text under the same name of ESV.
One example of the dangers of an updated English text under the same name is the New International Version (NIV). The NIV was released in 1978, with minor revisions in 1984. In 2005, the publisher (Zondervan) published a gender-neural language revision under a different name, “Today’s New International Version” (TNIV). But then in 2011, the 1984 NIV and TNIV were discontinued, and a major update was released under the name NIV. Though some of the gender-neutral language of the TNIV was dropped, this was still a way of sneaking some TNIV changes into the NIV.
As for the ESV, it was first published in 2001. They initially made minor changes (2002), then 360 changes (2007), then 275 changes (2011), then changed 29 verses (2016) in what was supposed to be the “permanent text” of the ESV so as to “stabilize” the translation. That would have been a good decision.
However, between August 2016 and September 2016, Crossway changed course and recommitted to updating the ESV text. Crossway issued a statement saying:
We have become convinced that this decision was a mistake… Our goal at Crossway remains as strong as ever to serve future generations with a stable ESV text. But the means to that goal, we now see, is not to establish a permanent text but rather to allow for ongoing periodic updating of the text to reflect the realities of biblical scholarship such as textual discoveries or changes in English over time.
I am not opposed to new versions of the English Bible. But I am opposed to English Bible versions changing their text under the same name. If they want to do updates, they should issue a new version under a different name.
As it stands right now, the ESV is subject to the whims of a publishing company (Crossway’s Board of Directors) and their translation committee. That is not sufficient accountability. The danger is that churches commit to the ESV (as many have), and then a small group of people can change the text in minor or major ways, with churches either not knowing changes were made or knowing but having already committed to the version. Instead of committing to an ever-changing English Bible text, we should commit to stable, permanent texts (such as the KJV, NKJV, or NASB 1995). That does not mean the preacher or teacher will have no disagreements with the English version that his church uses. But it leaves the text in the hands of churches, not translation committees.
