This page was migrated in July 2022 from my older website, biblicalambiguities.net.
24 July 2022
The English Standard Version or ESV is a conservative Protestant update of the 1971 RSV, published in 2001. In conservative Protestant circles, it has gained some ground among people who might earlier have used the NIV or NKJV. Due to its sectarian nature, it hasn't really caught on in mainstream Protestantism or in academia. There, the nrsv of 1989[1] occupies an analogous position.
There is a belief out there -- I don't know how accurate it is -- that the ESV is a uniquely Calvinism-friendly translation. On acocunt of this, an old roommate of mine jokingly refered to the ESV as the Elect Standard Version.