Bible, Revised Standard Version (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between the RSV and ESV? ›

The Revised Standard Version is a more traditional translation that uses a formal language and is closer to the original Greek and Hebrew texts. The English Standard Version is a more modern translation that uses a contemporary language, and is aimed at making the Bible more accessible to modern readers.

The Old Testament translation of the RSV was completed before the Dead Sea Scrolls were available to scholars. The NRSV was intended to take advantage of this and other manuscript discoveries, and to reflect advances in scholarship.

The NRSV is published in several major formats, notably a Roman Catholic edition and the Common Bible (which includes all Biblical books of Protestant and Catholic tradition). The NRSV is a popular academic translation.

The NIV states explicitly its intent “to go beyond a formal word-for-word rendering of the original texts.” Alternatively, the NRSV has a desire to follow an older translation maxim — “as literal as possible, as free as necessary” — attempting to retain a word-for-word technique as much as possible.

Any translation involves a trade-off between precision and readability so that the most-literal translations also tend to be the least-readable. Though the ESV is a precise Bible, its translators chose to place a premium on literary excellence. ...

"Approved by the Vatican for liturgical use, adapted by Catholic biblical scholars in India, and beloved by English-speaking Catholics around the world, the ESV® Catholic Edition is easily the most up-to-date, most literal, and most beautiful English translation of the Bible in print.

Thus, with its revisions of the NRSV in accordance with the most up-to-date modern scholarship, the NRSVue has become the most historically accurate, compellingly clear, and broadly vetted English translation in the world. Academic reliability and everyday readability meet each other on every page.

In 1965, the Catholic Biblical Association adapted, under the editorship of Bernard Orchard OSB and Reginald C. Fuller, the Revised Standard Version (RSV) for Catholic use. It contains the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament placed in the traditional order of the Vulgate.

6But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” 7“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. '

The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE) is a Bible translation approved for use by the Catholic Church, receiving the imprimatur of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1991.

Which Bible do Catholics read? ›

There are many contemporary translations of the Bible into English but only a few are officially approved by the Catholic Church to be free from inaccuracy and excessive bias. Among these are the: Revised Standard Version. New Revised Standard Version.

A more literal Bible translation is not necessarily more accurate, especially if it's difficult to understand, leading modern readers to misinterpret it. For daily reading and Bible study, we recommend using a Bible translation that emphasizes the importance of being both literal and readable, such as the CSB or NIV.

The focus of the controversy was the RSV's translation of the Hebrew word עַלְמָה (ʿalmāh) in Isaiah 7:14 as "young woman." Almah in Hebrew translates as a young woman of childbearing age who had not had children, and so may or may not be a virgin.

However, some translations, like the New American Standard Bible (NASB) and the New King James Version (NKJV), will give more weight to matching the original language word-for-word. Translations like the New Living Translation (NLT) and the Contemporary English Version (CEV) give more weight to readability.

During the 2017 meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), a committee was formed to initiate a new update of the NRSV, to be called the NRSV Updated Edition (NRSV-UE). As of January 2022, the NRSVue is available electronically with the print publication scheduled for May 2022.