ESV Comparison Backlash??

06/25/2007 01:01 Filed in: Faith & Reason

Anyone following this blog knows that I've been posting changes between the 2001 and 2007 editions of the ESV over the last few days. A few hours ago I finished with the Old Testament and over the next two or three days I will cover the New Testament and in doing so complete the entire Bible.

I've been able to compare the editions simply because OakTree Software released the Accordance etext of the 2007 edition as a separate module, listed simply as ESV-SE (SE standing for "second edition"). Previous purchasers of the ESV module could pay $10 to download the update. Over the weekend, in a surprising turn of events, the ESV-SE module has been withdrawn from the Accordance website, and now an update to the original 2001 module has been released that will update it to the 2007 edition. Those of us who paid for the update last week have been told we will receive a credit on our next order. According to the Accordance forum, the release of a separate module was "due to a misunderstanding."

Now I find all of this very interesting, and pardon me if the importance of This Lamp is exaggerated in my own mind, but I have to wonder if any of my posts from the last week created part of the problem. Let me back up a minute and offer a brief history of the events related to this extremely minor controversy.

Last year, when it first became evident that Crossway was planning to update the ESV, I and a number of others received word that the changes were minor (they are) and some kind of list would be made available as to what these changes between editions were.

Then, to the consternation of many, Crossway and/or the Standard Bible Society changed their minds on the issue and decided not to release a list of changes.

Last Fall, the first part of the new revision of the ESV was released in the form of the The English-Greek Reverse Interlinear New Testament, a join project between Crossway and Logos Bible Software. I bought a copy of the Reverse Interlinear and did my best to produce a list of changes that I could find. It was a very short list indeed, but it can still be read: "Truth Unchanged Not Changed that Much: A Preliminary Survey of Updates to the ESV New Testament." What amazed me at the time--given all the criticisms of the ESV as holding over too much baggage from the RSV and feeling like a project that was rushed to market--was that the revision wasn't more extensive considering there had been half a decade to improve the version.

Earlier this year, upon hearing that OakTree Software was working on the update to the ESV for Accordance, I requested through email correspondence that they keep the update as a separate module so that the two editions could be listed side-by-side using the wonderful comparison feature in Accordance.

On May 24, I received an email from OakTree stating, "We have come up with a solution which should work all around. The new ESV edition will be a $10 upgrade and will have a slightly different name. Installing it will not overwrite the older version, so you will be able to run both in parallel." This was a perfect solution. Granted the texts are publicly published, but finding the differences between them without the aid of a computer would certainly be a chore. So if Crossway didn't want to disclose the changes, at least we could hunt them down ourselves using Accordance.

Now one has to wonder why Crossway and the Standard Bible Society would be so secretive about the changes in the two editions. But the reality is that they were so secretive that they wouldn't even offer a list of changes to OakTree, but forced the Accordance engineers to prep a brand new etext for use in the software--something that was much more time consuming and expensive than it would have been simply to have a list of the changes and apply them to the earlier module.

A week ago, on June 17, OakTree released the ESV-SE module for an upgrade price of $10 or $30 for new users. I bought my copy of the update early last week and began running comparisons of the 2001 and 2007 editions and publishing the results here on my blog.

As I've been comparing the texts, I've come across errors in both the 2001 module and 2007 module and have been dutifully reporting these back to OakTree as I've found them. Yet tonight after sending in a few errors I found in the 2001 text (which you'll remember was kept as a separate module all of last week), I received an email instructing me with the following: "Since the new ESV is now what was the ERSV-SE, there is no point is sending corrections to the old ESV module. Please just send any you find on the ESV-SE or the version 2 of the ESV. See the notice on the Forum and News page."

I had no idea that there had been any kind of change. But sure enough, upon checking the Accordance website, the ESV-SE module has been removed, and now an update has been posted that will replace a user's original 2001 ESV module with the 2007 edition. The update is now free, in spite of a statement last week that a $10 charge had been placed on the ESV-SE module to cover the cost of prepping the three modules (text, notes, and cross references) for the ESV-SE.

A statement has been made on both the Accordance Blog and the Accordance Forums that:

Due to a misunderstanding, last week we released the updated ESV as a separate second edition, following the model we had used for the New Living Translation. We now understand that Crossway prefers that this update replace the original ESV rather than considering it a second edition. This means that the original and updated ESV can no longer be viewed in parallel and compared using the Text Compare feature.

Well, they can still be viewed in parallel on this user's MacBook, because I still have both modules. However, after I finish publishing the changes in the New Testament, I'll probably go ahead and update my modules. Otherwise I would never be able to get updates to the text as it's improved. However, if anyone really wants to keep both versions--assuming the ESV-SE module was purchased--the text from the 2001 edition could be exported to text and then re-imported creating a custom user Bible.

Of course, I really can't imagine why anyone would want to do this. Again, the changes are not that significant. Obviously, Crossway contacted OakTree asking them to remove the separate module. But why? Is it because the comparison is embarrassing to them? Is it because it supports my contention that the 2001 edition was rushed and changes from the RSV were not as extensive as they could have and should have been?

Yes, there are mistakes in the 2001 version, but these are forgivable--especially by diehard ESV aficionados. And I can't see how sales could be hurt by the comparisons. First of all, the ESV is going gangbusters in sales, incredibly hitting the #3 spot on the CBA list for June. And second, in my opinion, the only thing my comparisons can do for Crossway is to encourage ESV users to go out and get the new edition, thus increasing their sales even more.

So I don't know what the big deal is. There was a separate Accordance module that allowed for comparisons with the original. So what? In the end, by blog has the potential to reach more people with the changes than the software did. My blog is accessible to anyone who runs a search on Google for "ESV changes."

And I get a lot of these very hits, and have ever since my posts last year.

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ESV Comparison Backlash??