Author Archives: catholicbiblestudent

Recent Interviews: Catholic Theology Show; Drew Mariani Show

I’ve been doing some interviews on my new books. Take a listen:

The Catholic Theology Show with Michael Dauphinais

Little did I know some 20+ years ago that I would get interviewed by one of my professors! I took classes with Dr. Dauphinais in Ypsilanti, Michigan back at Ave Maria College (before the Florida campus was even purchased). I think he was 29 years old when he arrived as a professor fresh out of doctoral studies at Duke and I arrived as a freshman. I’m happy to find out that we’re still both on the same page–studying theology together. Very cool. We talk about the commentary and the Wisdom of Solomon in general, a terribly under-studied book of the Bible.

Drew Mariani Show

Ancient Discoveries / Bodily Dignity in Death

On Tuesday 2/6, I appeared on the Drew Mariani Show. He wanted to ask about recent archaeological finds that relate to the Bible and Christian settlement in the Holy Land. In particular, we talked about the recently found fifth century inscription mentioning “Christ, born of Mary” near Megiddo. It was a fun segment with a lot of topics and some speculation about what happened to the Ark of the Covenant. I hope you enjoy listing!

Max Weber on 2 Thess 3:10 – If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

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A few years ago, I published an article in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly on 2 Thessalonians 3:10 where it is stated “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” My essential argument is that the “let him not eat” statement was a formal indication of excommunication for persons who refused to work.

Little did I know that the inimitable Max Weber–one of the towering intellectuals of the early twentieth century–weighed in on this passage himself:

Almost all prophets have been supported by voluntary gifts. The well-known saying of St. Paul, “If a man does not work, neither shall he eat,” was directed against the swarm of charismatic missionaries. It obviously has nothing to do with a positive valuation of economic activity for its own sake, but only lays it down as a duty of each individual somehow to provide for his own support. This because he realized that the purely charismatic parable of the lilies of the field was not capable of literal application, but at best “taking no thought for the morrow” could be hoped for. (Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization [New York: Free Press, 1967] p. 363.)

Is he right? I don’t know, but he offers an intriguing theory. Were there indolent “charismatic missionaries” hoping for a handout and refusing to do any real work? Well, 2 Thessalonians does not provide evidence for this, but the Didache does! This absurdly early Christian document (first century!) was lost for centuries, but rediscovered in the 1873 hiding in a monastery library somewhere in Constantinople. In it, we find the following almost humorous warning:

In regard to ‘apostles’ and ‘prophets,’ act according to the doctrine of the Gospel. Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord. But he shall not remain more than one day. But, if necessary, let him remain a second day. But, if he stays for three, he is a false prophet. And when the apostle departs, let him take only enough bread to last until he reaches shelter; but, if he asks for money, he is a false prophet. (Didache 11:3-6; Francis X. Glimm, “The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” in The Apostolic Fathers, trans. Francis X. Glimm, Joseph M.-F. Marique, and Gerald G. Walsh, vol. 1 of The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1947), 180.)

I don’t know if Max Weber was aware of this text from the Didache, but it does support his interpretation of 2 Thess 3:10. Perhaps there were wandering “apostles” and “prophets” some of whom were legit and some of whom were trying to get a free lunch. The Didache puts a firm limit of two days on any prophet’s stay–any more and he’s false! I don’t know if these prophetic freeloaders really came in “swarms” as Weber supposes, but they must have really been walking around the first-century Christian world, such as it was.

Announcing My New Book – Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know

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Sometimes good things come in twos. I am happy to announce my other new book – Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know. This book is part of the series from Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press that seeks to educate Catholics with laser focus on particular topics. “What Every Catholic Should Know” means that the book is designed for regular Catholics, not for some group of specialists. It is my hope that this book helps a lot of people think about, pray about and work through their own experiences of suffering.

Why Write a Book about Suffering?

Everybody suffers. There’s no way around it. Life is wonderful, but it can also be terrible. The more you love, the more it hurts. It would be nice if everything were always perfect and comfortable, but we get sick, have problems, struggle with relationships and careers. Cancer, war, debt, depression–I mean, you don’t have to look too far to find examples of suffering. It’s everywhere. There are a lot of books out there about suffering, but it’s a hard topic to write about, so many of the books are too long or too philosophical or tell too many personal stories without getting to the point. I couldn’t find the book I wanted to read out there, so I decided to write it.

What I am trying to do in this book is get at the heart of the question: Why do we suffer and how can we make sense of it if God is all-loving, all-good and all-powerful? And yet, I wanted to hit the topic from multiple angles so that we can get past the abstract stuff to the more practical strategies for living. My experience has been that a little theological thinking about suffering goes a long way. Once we take up the tradition of Christian biblical theology on this topic, we get some new insights, new perspectives, new ways of coping with the most pressing problems. No, this book won’t take away all of your suffering, but it might help a bit.

Here’s a sneak preview of the Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Suffering Is an Experience of Evil
Chapter 2 Suffering Disorients Us
Chapter 3 Suffering Tests Us
Chapter 4 Suffering Saves Us
Chapter 5 Does God Suffer?
Chapter 6 The Many Forms of Suffering
Chapter 7 Suffering Is Personal
Chapter 8 Coping with Suffering
Chapter 9 Redeeming Suffering
Chapter 10 Suffering on Purpose
Chapter 11 Preparing for Death
Chapter 12 Suffering Transforms Us

Books in the What Every Catholic Should Know Series

Being Catholic by Suzie Andres
The Bible edited by Tim Gray
God by Elizabeth Klein
Literature by Joseph Pearce
Mercy by Fr. Daniel Moloney
Philosophy by Peter Kreeft
Salvation by Michael Patrick Barber
Suffering by Mark Giszczak

Where to Buy

You can find my new book at a couple different sites:

Catholic Market: https://catholic.market/what-every-catholic-should-know/suffering-what-every-catholic-should-know/
Amazon: https://a.co/d/bOfiVzm

When Will the Book be Released?

The release date for Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know is set for January 31, 2024.

I hope you enjoy my new book and I’m looking forward to sharing it with everyone. Suffering is such an important topic–one close to heart for all of us.

Announcing My New Commentary on Wisdom of Solomon

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Wisdom of Solomon Commentary

I am very happy to announce that my new book is available for pre-order. This commentary on the Wisdom of Solomon is the first volume of the Old Testament series of the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture from Baker Academic.

Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture

The CCSS series has been valuable for teaching and research on the New Testament since the first volume on the Gospel of Mark by Mary Healy came out in 2008. Since that time the CCSS series has offered a total of 17 volumes, covering all the books of the New Testament. Peter Williamson and Mary Healy asked me to join the editorial team for the Old Testament series back in 2019. We have been working hard since then to bring out commentaries that will deliver a serious, scholarly, yet pastoral and accessible Catholic theological reading of the biblical text. We have recruited a great team of authors and are very happy to share this volume as the firstfruits of the OT series. Know that more volumes are coming as we continue writing and editing!

Why Write on Wisdom?

The Wisdom of Solomon is in one of the most overlooked books of the Bible. As a deuterocanonical book, it is not in the Protestant canon and so only Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican scholars (and some Lutherans) would think of it as Scripture. As an Old Testament book, it is an outlier since it was originally written in classical Greek. In terms of Greek, it is an outlier because it uses very rare vocabulary words. In terms of doctrine, it combines Hebrew doctrine with Greek philosophy, so it is not a favored topic of biblical scholars looking for the unique contribution of the Hebrew tradition. In terms of timeline, it is likely the very last book of the Old Testament to be composed. And in terms of resources in English, very little has been published on it. The last full-length English commentary was David Winston’s 1979 Anchor Bible volume (and fortunately, that has been added to by the Italian–and now translated–volume by Luca Mazzinghi in the IECOT series from Kohlhammer Verlag in 2019). I’ve posted before about how few resources are available on Wisdom of Solomon in English. To me, it was important to make a unique contribution that would help people read and understand this valuable book of the Bible. To that end, you might have noticed my name on the Ignatius Study Bible booklet on Wisdom. But this commentary is a much more complete treatment.

What is Wisdom of Solomon About?

The book of Wisdom or “Wisdom of Solomon” is an unusual book. Having read Proverbs and Sirach, you might expect it to be full of one-liner aphorisms, but it’s not. It takes up a different approach to talking about the pursuit of wisdom that is more reminiscent of Ecclesiastes, albeit in a Hellenistic Jewish mode. The author, who lived in Alexandria, attempts to fuse together Jewish appreciation of Torah and salvation history with a Greek philosophical approach to life. He addresses his work to “kings and rulers” and invites his audience to pursue Wisdom. But the book unfolds as a series of exhortations, vignettes, quests and symbolic narratives. The author speaks with the voice of Solomon (at least in chaps. 6-9), but is not actually Solomon, who died centuries earlier. However, the author sees Solomon as representative of an ideal life, of the pursuit of wisdom as the goal of life. By “loving righteousness” and honoring wisdom, one finds the path to God. So Wisdom of Solomon is about the quest for wisdom.

What is the Commentary’s Approach?

If you are familiar with the New Testament volumes of the CCSS series, you’ll know the approach. It is highly focused on the text–presenting the text of each passage with cross-references, Lectionary references and Catechism references. Then each verse or passage is discussed in paragraph form, with many quotations of Wisdom and other biblical passages. We have included Biblical Background sidebars that explain certain topics not directly treated in body text–topics like “The Devil’s Envy,” “Aristobulus,” and “Immortality in the Old Testament.” Also, we have included Living Tradition sidebars that offer quotations from major Christian writers on certain special topics such as “St. Irenaeus on Adam’s Salvation,” St. Augustine on Sevenfold Gifts and Sevenfold Evils.” The commentary includes a glossary of key terms. The hope is to explain the meaning of each passage in the Wisdom of Solomon with clarity, aware of the historical background, the literary techniques the writer is using and the tradition of the Catholic Church. The commentary is addressed to the educated general reader and will be accessible to priests, catechists, theology students, Bible study leaders and avid Bible readers. I hope that readers of the commentary will come to love the Wisdom of Solomon as I have!

Where to Buy

If you are interested in picking up a copy of this new resource, you can find available for pre-order it at these sites:

Baker Academic: https://bakeracademic.com/p/Wisdom-of-Solomon-Mark-Giszczak/542807
Amazon: https://a.co/d/a91Ukha
Verbum (for the electronic edition): https://verbum.com/product/252803/wisdom-of-solomon

When Will It Arrive?

The book is in production now and is set to be released on February 13, 2024. Perhaps it will make a great Valentine’s Day gift! 🙂

I hope that you will enjoy the book and that it will lead you into a deeper study of the Sacred Page. As we continue to work on the Old Testament series of the CCSS, I am hoping that many people will find these commentaries to be useful, inspiring and enjoyable.

Bellybutton Statues

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Image credit: Fallaner, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the weirdest things that I learned in college is that during the time of St. Cyril of Alexandria, there was a bellybutton statue in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. I saw a circle on a diagram of the church that was labeled “omphalos.” That is the Greek word for bellybutton. I asked my professor what it was about and, if I recall correctly, he explained that it meant that Christians regarded the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the center of the world. I’ve added a similar diagram here of the modern church and you can see a tiny “19” at the middle. Yes, to this day, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem has a bellybutton statue at the very center! I’ve also posted a picture of it so you can see what it looks like.

Image from: M’Clintock, John, and James Strong. “Sepulchre of Christ.” Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1880.

So where did this idea come from? Were there other bellybutton statues in the ancient world? It turns out, there were quite a few.

The Omphalos of Delphi

Image credit: Yucatan (Юкатан), CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The most famous bellybutton statue was at Delphi where the famous Greek Oracle of Delphi would receive visitors and offer her cryptic prophecies. Some archaeologists think she was inhaling intoxicant vapors from the geothermal features at the site, which helped her achieve an altered state of consciousness for the purpose of prophesying. Some even believe that she breathed these fumes through the omphalos statue itself. Very strange! You can actually still pay a visit to Delphi and find the belly button statue from antiquity in their museum.

Image credit: Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Outdoors at Delphi, you will also find another bellybutton statue that looks more plain—like a cone of plain rock with no decoration.

The Bellybutton of Rome

Ancient Rome had something similar, called the umbilicus Urbis Romae, the belly button of the City of Rome. It was a statue or monument of a belly button that officially marked the center of the city. It was the point from which all distances were measured. Today it looks a little like a beat up pile of bricks with a doorway:

Image credit: Karlheinz Meyer, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Center of the World

The point of all of these belly button statues is that they mark a spot regarded as the “center of the world.” We find this idea in the Bible at the Book of Ezekiel, where the prophet is told,

“Thus says the Lord GOD: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries round about her.” (Ezek 5:5 RSV2CE)

In fact, many religious traditions identify a certain place as the center to which everything relates. Consider these examples outlined by Zimmerli, Cross and Baltzer:

The wealth of material gathered by Wensinck and Roscher (see also Holma) makes it additionally clear that not only the assertion of living in the center of the world, but also the specific reference to the “navel” (ὄμφαλος) is attested in a wide surrounding area. In Greece, alongside the dominating claim of Delphi, there stands the conception (apparent only in monuments rather than in literature) of the Eleusinian mystery cults that Athens, the μητρόπολις τῶν καρπῶν, was the place of the ὄμφαλος. In the wider Greek world the same claim is made by Paphos, Branchidai, Delos, Epidauros. In post-biblical tradition it gained significance through its connection with the Adam legend in its relationship to Golgotha, Zion and Moriah and perhaps also with Hebron. Islam, for its part, has transferred the tradition to Mecca. (Walther Zimmerli, Frank Moore Cross, and Klaus Baltzer, Ezekiel: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983], 311.)

So many places have claimed to be the “omphalos,” the belly button or navel of the world. And some of these places mark their claim with a statue of a belly button. The ones we have noticed here include:

Delphi
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Roman Forum

New Interview on Bible Translation

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I was just interviewed by Paloma Lopez Campos for Omnes Magazine, a Catholic outfit based in Spain. She asked me a lot about Bible translation and I did my best to answer. We talked about inclusive language, Liturgiam authenticam, dynamic equivalence, biblical vocabulary, the Septuagint, the text of the New Testament, the ancient manuscripts and how they were compiled, biblical ministries and how beginners can get started reading the Bible. Note that this interview was transcribed from an audio conversation. It tested the limits of my ability to speak in coherent paragraphs without grammatical errors! (You’ll notice a few.)

Here’s an excerpt:

What is the biggest challenge now facing Bible translators?

– In my book on Bible translation I talk about the challenge of inclusive language, which has been a very important topic of discussion over the last fifty years. There has been a real shift in the way we think about men and women, about roles, and language has a lot to do with it.

In Bible translation, some translators have gone in the direction of trying to make the Bible as inclusive as possible. And others have taken a different, more conservative approach. They say we should make as many things as we can as inclusive as possible, but if the biblical text is gendered, then we should translate it as it is.

This becomes a kind of dialogue about the right way to translate. And I think as the conversation around genre continues to change, Bible translators will continue to have to reflect on the right approach.

On the one hand, there is a kind of tendency to yield to whatever the culture is doing at the time. On the other, there is a tendency to resist the culture. I think the right way to go is somewhere in between. Christian translators should resist the idea that contemporary culture can rewrite biblical anthropology. But, on the other hand, I think we must translate in a way that communicates with contemporary culture. (Read the rest…)

Talk on Suffering – CD and mp3

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I am happy to announce the release of my latest audio talk on CD and mp3. It is entitled “Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know“. It is available from the Augustine Institute for $4.50 for a CD and $3.49 for the mp3 download.

Tonight, June 12, 2023, I will be interviewed about this topic on Catholic Answers Live Radio show. I hope you can tune in to listen live or after the fact.

Suffering is a mystery: an unavoidable reality of human life on earth, which disorients us and tests our souls. It leads us to ask questions about God and his goodness. Though we seek pain relief and comfort, suffering cannot be solved by human effort. Instead, Jesus invites us, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). As we accept his call to self-denial, suffering can become redemptive, conforming us to Christ in his salvific suffering. This talk will explain Catholic teaching on the redemptive value of suffering and show how it can go from feeling useless to transforming us to be like God.

This talk is an appetizer for my forthcoming book, Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know (Ignatius Press/Augustine Institute, 2023). Look for the book when it comes out later in 2023.

Old Alliance? Old Advance? Old Covenant.

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Normally I’m focused on the intricacies of Bible translation, but sometimes closely related translation problems crop up. One that I stumbled across made me smile. It has to do with how a now-disfavored term is translated in the premier document of the Second Vatican Council, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, paragraph #2.

The Latin

Lothar Wolleh, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Just so we are all on the same page, the Latin of the crucial sentence reads:

Credentes autem in Christum convocare statuit in sancta Ecclesia, quae iam ab origine mundi praefigurata, in historia populi Israel ac foedere antiquo mirabiliter praeparata(1), in novissimis temporibus constituta, effuso Spiritu est manifestata, et in fine saeculorum gloriose consummabitur.

The Translations

The translation of the relevant section presented in the English Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed, sec. 759. reads:

…already present in figure at the beginning of the world, this Church was prepared in marvellous fashion in the history of the people of Israel and the old Alliance.

Some sites contain what must be the text of the first edition of the English Catechism and strangely read:

…already present in figure at the beginning of the world, this Church was prepared in marvellous fashion in the history of the people of Israel and the old Advance. (here, here too)

Analyzing the Latin Terms

The typical Latin phrase for “Old Testament” is Vetus Testamentum, whereas the typical Latin term for “Old Covenant” is Foedus Vetus (see Catechism 121). So it is true that the composers of Lumen Gentium–ok, likely not the Council Fathers themselves here, but the Latinist periti that were helping them at the Council–served up a non-standard phrase in foedere antiquo. “Foedus, foederis” is a noun which could mean “treaty, alliance, league, compact, etc.” Fair enough, it is the typical term for covenant. But why antiquo? Perhaps it is meant to have a more nostalgic ring than mere “vetus.” Antiquo could mean “of old, antique, of the ancients, of olden times.”

A Better Translation

It does seem to me that Vatican translators have caught this one and thought the “old Advance” does not mean much to English readers. However, I did find one instance of St. John Paul II talking about the “Old Alliance” from a 1986 General Audience. In the present English text of Lumen Gentium on the Vatican website, we get a better rendering:

Already from the beginning of the world the foreshadowing of the Church took place. It was prepared in a remarkable way throughout the history of the people of Israel and by means of the Old Covenant.

That sounds better to my ears! But it is true that “Old Covenant” and “Old Testament” too have become disfavored as seemingly supportive of supercessionist frameworks. However, to my mind they are simply conventional terms by this point without much charge to them at all.

Conclusion

If we wanted to really parse the difference between foedus vetus and foedere antiquo, then perhaps we could try “the covenant of old” as a kind of nostalgic translation of a Latin phrase that an unknown peritus typed on his Olivetti portable typewriter late at night in his hotel room between sessions of the Council. I was only able to find the phrase in Lumen Gentium and in Livy. Perhaps I’m missing a nuance, but that’s what the comment section is for.

A New Chapter in the ESV Story: Wayne Grudem’s Letter to the National Council of Churches

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I wrote a whole book on the ESV, but I did not know this part of the story! Wayne Grudem, one of the principal evangelical translators of the ESV, wrote a long letter in March 1996 to the National Council of Churches proposing a revision of the RSV with specific translation choices for certain passages. That letter became the contractual basis for the production of the ESV Bible translation. The original ESV was the basis for the ESV Catholic Edition approved by the bishops of India in 2018 and published by the Augustine Institute in 2019.

A Podcast Interview

Recently, on May 8, 2023, the Crossway Podcast released an episode entitled “Wayne Grudem on His Life, Love of Theology and Translating the Bible.” He shares a lot about his career with the host, Matt Tully–from personal stories in his childhood to the success of his book Systematic Theology (1994). The ESV translation, which took place in 1999-2001 was one of the major projects Grudem was involved in during his career.

The 1990s and Bible Translations

To understand the context of the letter, I have to give a bit of backstory. In the 1990s, evangelicals were arguing over the use of “inclusive language” and other issues in in Bible translations. Wayne Grudem and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood took a strong stand against inclusive language in favor of traditional gender-specific translation. The Revised Standard Version (originally translated in the 1940s and 1950s) has been replaced by the more inclusive-language-oriented New Revised Standard Version, but many evangelicals were disappointed by the NRSV. Both the RSV and NRSV were copyrighted by the National Council of Churches, an older American Protestant organization. The other translation option for evangelicals, the New International Version (1984), was also about to trend toward inclusive language in a proposed revision, the NIrV also known as the “Stealth Bible”.

The Idea to Revise the RSV

In the podcast interview, Grudem recalls calling the president of Crossway Books, Lane Dennis, with the idea to request permission from the National Council of Churches to revise the RSV anew:

Wayne Grudem
I called Lane Dennis, the President of Crossway, and said, Do you think the National Council of Churches would give us permission to revise the Revised Standard Version? And he said John Piper had called him recently with the same idea.

According to Grudem, Dennis reached out to the National Council of Churches, but did not get very far:

Wayne Grudem
Well, he said he would contact the National Council of Churches and see how they would respond. And he came back to me after a while and said they responded that they wouldn’t allow us to have permission to use the Revised Standard Version as a basis for a new translation.

Matt Tully
So they said no.

Grudem’s Letter to the National Council of Churches

Now here comes the new and interesting part: Wayne Grudem decided to reach out to the NCC again by writing a lengthy letter describing the kinds of changes the Crossway team would make to the RSV along with examples of how specific verses would be handled. Here is the story straight from Wayne Grudem himself, with some added bolding by me:

Wayne Grudem
They said no. And then I said, Could I try once more? And Lane, who was president of Crossway at the time, said, Yes, that’s fine. You have to contact David Lull, who’s in charge of permissions for the National Council of Churches. He’s in New York City. So I put it off and put it off, and then one day (I think it was a Thursday) I didn’t have any of his teaching responsibilities at Trinity, and I just felt the Lord wanted me to work on this. So I spent seven hours just entirely focused on writing a letter to the National Council of Churches, telling them what kind of translation we would do and explaining in detail what we would do with a number of verses. It was maybe a five or six or seven page letter when I finished it. I called David Lull, this man at the National Council of Churches in New York City. It was a quarter to five in New York City, and I asked if I could send him a follow-up letter and that Lane Dennis had given me permission to write. He said, Yes, you got fifteen minutes and then I’m leaving the country*. So I faxed him the letter.

Matt Tully
Before 5:00pm you got it over there?

Wayne Grudem
They were interested. I explained to him who would be involved in the translation and the kind of translation we wanted to do. We’d change Isaiah 7:14 to “a virgin shall conceive” not “young woman.” We’d change four verses in the New Testament to put the word “propitiation” back in the Bible, which is important in the doctrine of the atonement. We would change Psalm 45 from “your divine throne” to “your throne, O God.” I faxed the letter, and they came back and said they were interested. And so Lane Dennis and the Crossway leadership began discussions with the National Council of Churches. The lawyers on both sides were involved in the contract negotiations. They couldn’t come to agreement in the details, and finally they ended up saying the revision would be done in accordance with the principles laid out in Wayne Grudem’s letter to David Lull on March such and such of 1996.

Matt Tully
So that became the core document.

Wayne Grudem
It became the legal basis on which the translation was done.

Matt Tully
Oh, wow.

Wayne Grudem
So that letter became the contractual basis on which the ESV was carried out. And there was one sentence at the last page that said, And any additional changes that we think exegetically defensible—or something to that effect—which gave us true and complete freedom. And we ended up changing, I think by one count, I think we ended up changing 60,000 words, or 8% of the RSV text. So 92% of it is the Revised Standard Version, which is the revision of the American Standard Version of 1901, which is a revision of the King James Version. So the ESV is a direct descendant of the King James Version. It’s the great-grandson.

More of the Full Story of the History of the ESV

There you have it. A March 1996 from Wayne Grudem, representing Crossway Books, to David Lull of the National Council of Churches became “the contractual basis on which the ESV was carried out.” Now that there are over 250 million copies of the ESV in print, such stories pass from the realm of personal career lore into public Christian historical interest. I hope someday that Crossway and/or the NCC will release the full letter since it is now a very important piece of Bible translation history.

How Many Editions of the ESV Bible Text Are There?

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The ESV Bible was originally released by Crossway Books in 2001. This new word-for-word style translation, which was a significant revision of the RSV Bible, has now been adopted by many Christian communities including the Catholic Church in India. Like many translations, the ESV has been released in many different editions. I don’t mean simply hardback, leather and paperback bindings, but that there are actual changes in the biblical text. Over the years, Crossway has published a handful of textual changes and has produced some unusual editions of the ESV for specific audiences—from the English, to the Gideons, to the Catholic Church. In this post, I will list out and explain the editions of the ESV Bible text that have been produced over the years.

2001 First Edition of the English Standard Version Bible

The first edition of the ESV Bible was published in 2001 by Crossway. It was hoped that this new revision of the RSV would replace the KJV, the NRSV and compete with the NIV in the evangelical Bible marketplace. Other translations would soon contend for the same turf: the Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004), the TNIV (2005), the NET (2005) and ISV (2011). The ESV was the product of a serious revision process undertaken in 1998–2001, when Crossway’s Translation Oversight Committee (TOC) held its periodic meetings to hammer out the text that would become the ESV. Its translation philosophy was to modernize the RSV text along the lines of an “essentially literal” approach, aiming for maximum transparency to the original language while maintaining elegant English style.

2001–2006 Silent Changes to the ESV

The first edition of the ESV was not flawless. In fact, a small number of verses were tweaked after the first edition without any public notification. An example of this phenomenon is in Romans 3:9. Take a look:

2001 First Edition ESV: “For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under the power of sin.”
Later ESV: “For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin.”

The RSV had added the word “power” (not in the Greek) to clarify that people were under the spiritual domination of sin, not physically beneath an invisible entity. That went against the ESV’s “essentially literal” translation philosophy and had to be removed. I would imagine this change was brought to the attention of the TOC by readers familiar with the King James, which does not have “the power of.” These silent changes are small and infrequent, but no one has ever compiled a complete list of them. It would take a monumental effort by someone with eyes like a hawk!

2007 Brings 360 Changes to the ESV Text

Fortunately, Crossway collected ideas for little edits and changes over the years and kept its Translation Oversight Committee meeting on a periodic basis. By 2007, after pastors, churches, professors and seminaries had six years to examine the translation, the TOC released an official, public list of 360 changes to the ESV text, meant to improve the text and bring it further into accord with the ESV’s stated translation philosophy. These textual changes are small and systematic—the “wizards” in the Old Testament became “necromancers”, “reptiles” became “creeping things” (Rom 1:23), instead of “fighting with” we find Jephthah “fighting against” the Ammonites in Judges 11. Some of the changes involve word order, as in Acts 1:3, which had been “To them he presented himself alive,” but is now “He presented himself alive to them.” It is a phrase here and a word there. These minor changes altered the text of the ESV permanently. You can even view these changes through an automated software tool.

2009 ESV with Apocrypha from Oxford University Press

Building on the 2007 ESV Text, Crossway launched a joint publication project with Oxford University Press to bring out the 2009 ESV with Apocrypha. This standalone edition, bound in vermilion hardcover, included the texts of the Deuterocanon, which are in the Catholic Bible:

Baruch
Bel and the Dragon (=Daniel 14)
Greek Esther
Judith
The Letter of Jeremiah (=Baruch 6)
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men (=Daniel 3)
Sirach
Susanna (=Daniel 13)
Tobit
The Wisdom of Solomon.

It also included a handful of other texts that are not part of the Catholic Bible, but are regarded as canonical by certain Orthodox Churches, namely

1 Esdras
2 Esdras
3 Maccabees
4 Maccabees
The Prayer of Manasseh
Psalm 151

This edition laid the groundwork for the ESV-CE since it brought out the texts necessary to include in a Catholic Bible. The tiny one-page preface written by “The Translation Committee of the Apocryphal Books” credits three scholars (David A. deSilva, Dan McCartney, Bernard A. Taylor) and one editor (David Aiken). It is unclear who else, if anyone, was involved in the publication or on the Committee. The ESV with Apocrypha was initially released in just one format, with no electronic editions that I am aware of. Recently, over the past few years (2019–2021), we have seen new editions of it come out from SPCK and Cambridge University Press.

2011 – Another 275 Verses Changed in the ESV Text

In 2011, Crossway released a statement with a new list of changes intended “to correct grammar, improve consistency, or increase precision in meaning.” This list encompassed 275 verses and “less than 500 words.” No more would the Lord be “sorry” that he made man; now he “regretted” it (Gen 6:6). Abraham changes his word order, so he no longer says, “Here am I” but “Here I am.” Now the Apostle John is no longer merely “reclining at table close to” Jesus, but “leaned back against him” (John 21:20). And he asks that the friends be greeted “each by name” now not just “every one of them” (3 John 1:15). These are the kinds of tweaks that scholars love for their precision, but that the typical reader will never even notice.

2012 – Anglicised ESV Bible

One of the virtues of the ESV is that it was designed to be in “Standard English.” That meant the Translation Oversight Committee included both Englishmen and Americans. The text of the Bible should not be nationalized, nor should the English language—though many have tried, going back to Noah Webster and his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). However, it is true that certain spelling conventions have divided the language across the Atlantic—“theater” or “theatre,” “center” or “centre,” and so on. To deal with this problem, Crossway came up with an “Anglicised” (not “Anglicized”) version of the ESV for publication in England that seeks to offer “British spellings for some words.” It was prepared with HarperCollins UK. The “Collins Anglicised ESV Bible” seems to have originally come out in 2012, but I have not found an official release date. All editions now being published in England through SPCK—whether Anglican, Catholic or otherwise have the “Anglicised” label.

2013 ESV Gideon Edition With NT Based on Textus Receptus

The Gideons are famous for distributing Bibles, placing them in hotel rooms and promoting the reading of the Bible around the world. While they distribute Bibles in many languages, the Gideons used to exclusively distribute the King James Version in English. Then they switched to the New King James Version (1982), but as of 2013, the Gideons have adopted the English Standard Version. This special edition is very different from the regular ESV Text because it uses a different Greek textual base for the translation. “Huh?” you ask. The regular ESV Bible uses the latest critical edition of the Greek New Testament (now the Nestle-Aland 28^th edition), while the ESV Gideon Edition uses the so-called Textus Receptus as its base.

Why? The Textus Receptus was the Greek base text for the King James Version and some Protestants still hold it in high regard. A great example of the difference is Acts 8:37. If you look it up in the regular ESV, you won’t find it! It’s not there! Ok, it is in a footnote. But if you look up Acts 8:37 in the Gideon ESV, you will find this: “And Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Though the regular ESV is based on more ancient and more accurate Greek manuscripts than the Textus Receptus, it was startling to some English Bible readers to have verses disappear. The Gideons and Crossway reached a compromise agreement, allowing the Gideons to “restore” verses and phrases present in the King James, but not the ESV. The copyright page even says, “Crossway is pleased to license the ESV Bible text to The Gideons, and to grant permission to The Gideons to include certain alternative readings based on the Textus Receptus.” The Gideon edition is the most dramatically different version of the ESV text compared to all other editions, but also the one you’ll never have to pay for!

2016 Permanent Text Edition Changes

In 2016, by this time fifteen years after the original release, Crossway released a final list of changes to the ESV text changing 52 words in 29 verses. The most important change was to Genesis 3:16, which altered God’s speech to Eve from “your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” to the more competitive “your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” Both translations are plausible, and the ESV 2016 also changes Gen 4:7 to show the relevance of the change, but with gender issues always being a controversial area, this change did not go unnoticed by critics.

The members of the TOC were aging and the idea of releasing changes on an on-going basis forever seemed implausible. Citing the permanence of the King James Version, Crossway issued the list of changes with a statement that from now on, this would be the “Permanent Text” of the ESV. To me, this strategy seems completely reasonable. Once a book is published, you cannot take it back from readers and rework it, so why keep tweaking a Bible text forever? Weirdly (from my vantage point), Crossway came under attack from certain quarters for issuing a Permanent Text. I really don’t see why anyone would care to stir up controversy over this, but they did. Eventually, responding to critics, Crossway released an additional statement saying that they would be open to “minimal and infrequent” changes to the ESV text.

2018 ESV Catholic Edition

In 2018, Crossway published the first edition of the ESV Catholic Edition in combination with the Asian Trading Corporation in India. This edition came to be incorporated in the liturgy in India as part of the 2019 ESV Lectionary approved by the Vatican. The ESV-CE was released by the Augustine Institute in the United States in 2019 as “The Augustine Bible” and it is now under consideration for being adopted in the Lectionary by the bishops of England, Scotland and Wales. If you are interested in learning more about were the ESV came from, its translation philosophy and how it fits in to the landscape of Catholic Bible translations, I have written a whole book about it: Bible Translation and the Making of the ESV Catholic Edition

The List of ESV Bible Text Editions

In sum, then, I think we can say that there are at least ten different text editions of the ESV Bible text:

First Edition ESV (2001)
Silent Changes ESV (2001–2007)
2007 ESV Bible Text
2009 ESV with Apocrypha
2011 ESV Bible Text
2012 Collins Anglicised ESV Bible
2013 Gideon Textus Receptus ESV
2016 Permanent Text Edition
2018 ESV Catholic Edition
2019 ESV Catholic Edition, Anglicised