Some of y’all will recall that the publishers of the English Standard Version Bible announced a week or so ago that there would be no more tranlations.
Well … reset.
The publisher of the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible has reversed its controversial decision to finalize the text after tweaking 29 verses.
“We have become convinced that this decision was a mistake,” stated Crossway president and CEO Lane Dennis in an announcement released today.
[ … ]
But making a translation permanent ignores the need for updates that reflect scholars’ advances in their understanding of the text, as well as the continuing development of English as a living language, said Tremper Longman III, a member of the NLT translation committee. That’s especially true for a word-for-word approach, like the ESV uses.
Exactly the objections that I raised and, as I also pointed out, an egregious departure from the universally accepted premises of translating any ancient text. Even some moderns — Nietzsche, most dramatically — are difficult to translate for these reasons. (Idle digression: I’ve seriously considered learning to read German for that exact reason.)
But: ‘Nones’ are now 25% of the population, and amongst the young the number approaches 40%. I continue to speculate that perhaps they know there will be negligible demand for new translations in 20-years.