Home > Crossway Blog > Archive for September, 2005

Archive for September, 2005

Daily Light Now Available as RSS Feed

Chris Harrison emailed us a good question about why Crossway offers Bible reading plans as RSS feeds but not the ESV version of the devotional Daily Light on the Daily Path that’s also available on the site. The answer, it turns out, is that there wasn’t a good reason.

We’ll let Chris take it from here:

A couple of days ago, I emailed the webmaster over at Good News Publishers/Crossway Books about the availability of an RSS feed for the “Daily Light on the Daily Path” devotional they have available online (and in print). I’m happy to report that as of this morning, an RSS feed is now available.

The URLs

About Daily Light

For over a century, Daily Light on the Daily Path has been a favorite devotional book of those who realize the tremendous benefit of reading and praying Scripture. Originally printed in the mid-1800s, Daily Light was born out of the devout faith of Samuel Bagster, a British bookstore owner determined to share his faith with his twelve children.

The Bagsters’ daily practice of reading Scripture together, then connecting the day’s verses with other passages, inspired one of the children to compile their devotions for publication. The family discussed and prayed over the selection and arrangement of each verse until they were convinced that no further improvement could be made. After two years of prayer and consideration, the devotions were printed in two volumes for morning and evening reading.

September 30, 2005 | Posted in: ESV,General | Author: Crossway Staff @ 8:48 am | 1 Comment »

Posted in ESV, General | 1 Comment »

What Is Propitiation?

Adrian Ow has a good post explaining the definition of propitiation:

Simply spelt out, it speaks of mending the relationship with that someone who’s angry by something you did. This brings out a new dimension that someone, somewhere is angry. And in the context of the Bible, ‘propitiation’ paints a clear picture that God is angry with us. Why? Sin. Sin absolutely repulses God. Sin absolutely disgraces God’s holy name. In fact, from Rom 3:23 (look above), sin is to “fall short of God’s glory”. Therefore, angry is too… mild a word to begin describing God’s attitude toward sin. Rather, the word ‘Wrath’ is used to describe this strong, holy, divine anger that God has toward sin.

Therefore, ‘Propitiation’ brings forth the point that God’s wrath is against all man because of how they have desecrated his glory. And God’s holiness, justice and righteousness disallows sin to be let off scot-free….

In a nutshell, this is propitiation: God averting his wrath toward man through the death of His Son.

Adrian also looks at how various translations translate 1 John 2:2. (“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”) Adrian thinks that the ESV and others get it right when they use the English word propitiation here.

The ESV Preface says that the ESV “retains theological terminology–words such as… propitiation–because of their central importance for Christian doctrine and also because the underlying Greek words were already becoming key words and technical terms in New Testament times.”

For another view, see the NET Bible’s footnote to 1 John 2:2.

September 28, 2005 | Posted in: ESV,Translation | Author: Crossway Staff @ 9:34 am | (3) Comments »

Posted in ESV, Translation | 3 Comments »

New WordPress Plugin Using the ESV Web Service

Chris Roberts announces the availability of a WordPress plugin that pulls in the text of the ESV when you use markup to indicate a Scripture reference. It saves the passage in a database, so future references to the same passage don’t need to access the web service.

The plugin has two styles:

Using the markup like: [bible]John 3:16[/bible] allows a tooltip-style Scripture reference:

A tooltip appears when you move your mouse over the link

Using markup like [bibleblock]John 3:16[/bibleblock] results in a paragraph containing the text. You can style the paragraph however you like; we took these images from Chris’s website:

A paragraph containing the text of John 3:16 as supplied by the ESV web service

Installation is just like any other WordPress plugin–you install it into your plugins folder and activate it in your blog’s Administration section.

He’s released the code under the GPL, which means that you can tinker with it if you’re a developer.

Visit Chris’s site for more details and to download the plugin.

Update September 30, 2005: Chris writes that he’s posted an updated version of the plugin that fixes an incompatibility with Internet Explorer.

September 26, 2005 | Posted in: Digital,ESV | Author: Crossway Staff @ 8:49 am | (5) Comments »

Posted in Digital, ESV | 5 Comments »

“Time for a Change: A New Bible Translation”

David Manning wrote an article for his church newsletter about why the church switched to the ESV. He then posted it on his blog. An excerpt:

In 2001, Crossway Books released the English Standard Version. The ESV has broken new ground in that it maintains both accuracy and readability in one version…. The deacon board is very excited about this change, and we hope you will be too. It is our hope that, over time, the ESV will become the translation of choice within our congregation. It is because of this hope that we have ordered all new English Standard Version pew bibles, and Pastor Jack will be preaching from this translation as well.

He also talks a bit about the thought process that went into choosing the ESV for their pew Bibles.

We’re happy to help you if your church has switched or is thinking about switching to the ESV. We can provide you information packets and sample copies, plus we can answer questions you have about the ESV or the transition to it.

September 22, 2005 | Posted in: ESV,General | Author: Crossway Staff @ 9:25 am | Comments Off »

Posted in ESV, General | Comments Off

Zondervan Releases New Bible Search Site

Zondervan has announced ZondervanBibleSearch.com, an elegantly designed, minimalist site that lets you search many of the Bible translations they publish.

We have more than a passing interest in Bible search sites (since we run one ourselves), and we recognize quality work when we see it.

Here’s their Google-style front page:

ZondervanBibleSearch.com front page

You can search nine translations at the time of this writing; they promise more to come. Here’s a page that displays a passage:

ZondervanBibleSearch.com page showing Psalm 23 with a popup footnote

Notice how they use AJAX popup tooltips to show footnotes.

The site runs ASP.NET, C#, and SQL Server. Brian Anderson, one of the developers, has blogged about the site and even has a video about the technology behind it. Here’s another developer’s post about the technology.

September 20, 2005 | Posted in: Digital,ESV | Author: Crossway Staff @ 8:45 am | Comments Off »

Posted in Digital, ESV | Comments Off