Archive for May, 2008

Two separate bloggers in the past few days have decided to talk about what they’re looking for in a Bible (specifically, an ESV).

First up is Justin at CROSS-eyed, who’s posted an open question (and poll) on his blog about which format of Bible you prefer. He writes:

Bonus question just for fun: Pretend you are sitting at a table with the people at Crossway. They ask, “We want to design a Bible just for you. How can we serve you best?” How would you answer?

We do read nearly every blog post we can find that mentions the ESV. So if there’s a Bible format that you’d particularly like to see, blogging about it is probably the best way to let us know about it. We make no guarantees that we’ll actually produce a Bible to your specs, of course, but we’ll almost certainly read your post with interest.

Separately, Thomas at Truth Is Still Truth describes the top 11 features he wants to see in a Bible. Quality construction, sewn bindings, three ribbons, wide margins—you name it, he mentions it.

He also talks about a five-column parallel Bible, with a column for notes, two for the original languages, one for English, and one for cross-references. Thomas rightly notes that such Bible would be a “behemoth.” But a future Amazon Kindle or similar device could conceivably give you all those features without the physical heft.

In a later post, Thomas discusses why he plans to buy the calfskin ESV Study Bible.

John at River Oak Blog shares how he started his one-year Bible reading plan on May 1. Like some others, he hopes (or, in this case, perhaps “hoped”) to use his blog to record his thoughts.

We mostly want to remind you that you can start reading through the Bible at any time of year—June, with its longer, warmer days (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) marks a good time to start.

The ESV site can help you start a reading plan whenever you want. Add the start-date parameter to a URL to treat whatever day you want as though it’s January 1. For example, read the Daily Reading Bible starting the year on June 1, 2008.

Dan at MBC Globe Pastor’s Blog gives three reasons why he preaches from the ESV. He concludes:

With all this said, the reason I preach from the ESV is because I believe that the Bible is the very Word of God and I believe the ESV best communicates the literal words of inspired Scripture in a manner which reflects the literary beauty of this most supernatural book.

Jason at Intersections writes about how he’s considering switching to the ESV:

So far, I’m enjoying it. It feels familiar and different all at the same time. I’m beginning to see why my grandparents made such a fuss about the switch from KJV to NIV while I was growing up. If I decide to switch to the ESV permanently, I’ll have to re-learn all the passages I’ve memorized, probably over the course of years. To help decide, I’m working through 1 Timothy with an eye for what Paul tells Timothy about being a leader in the church, but also in contexts of the family, among friends and in the world.

If you’re considering switching to the ESV, we encourage you to follow Jason’s example and spend some time with it first. For example, try doing your devotions in it for a while (for free online, even). As Jason notes, changing translations is a big decision, especially when you’ve memorized a lot of passages.