We mentioned Sunday that we've officially switched our bibles to the English Standard Version. For those of you who have been following along in your NIVs, we assure you that this wasn't a careless decision. Here are a few reasons we switched to the ESV:
- We had to purchase a new version anyway. With the release of a new translation, the translation we were using is being discontinued. With that being the case, we knew we had to purchase a new translation of some sort.
- We were concerned about the accuracy of the new NIV. The easiest transition would obviously to use the new version of the NIV. But in reading through it, some of the updates they made change the meaning of the passage being read, and we weren't huge fans of that.
- The ESV is a good translation. Every translation of the bible has its advantages and disadvantages, but we thought the ESV achieves the best balance of readability and biblical accuracy.
- The ESV was cheap. The bottom line is that our church still doesn't have endless pools of cash sitting around, and we found the ESV we purchased at a price that we could afford. Since we want to be able to give our bibles away for free to people who don't have them, price is a huge factor.
In the end, we think, hope, and pray the ESV will continue to help our church family to learn more about Jesus through the Bible. If you're wanting to buy an ESV, we've compiled a list of links to help out:
[button label="Buy an ESV from LifeWay" link="http://www.lifeway.com/Bibles/English-Standard/c/N-1z13x20Z1z141x5" shape="default"]
[button label="Buy an ESV from Crossway" link="http://www.crossway.org/bibles/choose/" shape="default"]
[button label="Buy an ESV from Amazon" link="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_six_brow_7?rh=n%3A283155%2Cn%3A%211000%2Cn%3A12290%2Cn%3A12059%2Ck%3Abibles%2Cp_n_feature_six_browse-bin%3A3069538011&bbn=12059&keywords=bibles&ie=UTF8&qid=1349193361&rnid=2235217011" shape="default"]