English Standard Version Bible with Apocrypha [Hardcover]

Oxford University Press (Creator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2009

The English Standard Version Bible captures as far as possible the precise wording of the original biblical text and the personal style of each Bible writer, while taking into account differences of grammar, syntax, and idiom between current literary English and the original languages. The ESV thus provides an accurate rendering of the original texts that is in readable, high quality English prose and poetry. This Bible has been growing in popularity among students in biblical studies, mainline Christian scholars and clergy, and Evangelical Christians of all denominations.
Along with that growth comes the need for the books of the Apocrypha to be included in ESV Bibles, both for denominations that use those books in liturgical readings and for students who need them for historical purposes. More Evangelicals are also beginning to be interested in the Apocrypha, even though they don't consider it God's Word. The English Standard Version Bible with the Apocrypha, for which the Apocrypha has been commissioned by Oxford University Press, employs the same methods and guidelines used by the original translators of the ESV, to produce for the first time an ESV Apocrypha. This will be the only ESV with Apocrypha available anywhere, and it includes all of the books and parts of books in the Protestant Apocrypha, the Catholic Old Testament, and the Old Testament as used in Orthodox Christian churches. It will have a lovely pre-printed case binding, and will include a full-color map section, a table of weights and measures used in the Bible, and many other attractive features.
The English Standard Version Bible with Apocrypha is certain to become the preferred Bible in more conservative divinity schools and seminaries, where the Apocrypha is studied from an academic perspective. And it answers the need of conservative Christians in general for a more literal version of these books.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1446 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (January 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195289102
• ISBN-13: 978-0195289107
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.3 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #305,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 53 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Overall Pretty Good! January 28, 2009

By Timothy Mccormick

Overall, I think the product, itself, is quite good. Since there was very little information about it given on any of the vendor websites, I must say I am pleasantly surprised. It contains the 2007 edition of the ESV, with the new Oxford 2009 ESV Apocrypha. The new translation of the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals) is really an updating of the older RSV Expanded Apocrypha. The Preface to the Apocrypha says that this edition's goal was "updating archaic language, clarifying obscure words, removing inaccuracies, and bringing punctuation up to current American standards." Also, the edition of Esther in the Apocrypha seems to be the full Greek version, not just the extra chapters.

The Table of Contents Lists the Following:
Alphabetic Listing of Books of the Bible
Alphabetic Listing of Books of the Apocrypha
Preface to the ESV
Explanation of Features
OT
NT
Apocrypha Table of Contents
Preface to Apocrypha
Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals
Tables of Weights and Measures
Oxford Maps (9)

Positive features:

1) I really like the size of this Bible. I was worried at first that it might be too big and heavy, but it really isn't. In fact, if I were to compare it to one of my other Bibles, it is almost identical in size with the Ignatius RSV-2CE. As a matter of fact, it may be a touch smaller, but not by much.

2) The page layout is pretty good. I think it is similar to many of the Crossway ESV editions that I have looked at in the past, although I could be wrong on that. Each page contains paragraph headings, textual notes, alternative renderings, and cross-references (primarily in NT).

3) It seems to have a solid binding. (I am no expert on this however!) It also lays open nice and rests well in the hand....

4) It contains maps and cross-references to OT citations in the NT.

Negative Features:

1) I don't like the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals placed at the back.

2) I think it would have been helpful to have a list of the various OT Canons in the Apocrypha section. This would certainly have helped the mistake, IMHO, of placing them in the back. Although, I should point out that the Apocrypha are arranged with the Catholic Deuterocanonicals first, before the Orthodox.

3) The last negative feature, thus far, is that the paper is very thin. My guess is that there would be some considerable bleeding through when using any type of Bible pen. Read more ›

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Initial Impression - Very Good January 23, 2009

By J. L. Harper

A friend just bought this and showed it to me. The Apocrypha is included at the back, after the NT. Its translation is nicely readable, and a very full corpus of apocrypha was translated (including 3-4 Macc and 2 Esdr). Greek Esther was translated in its entirety, though the chapter numbering is odd--for the portions shared with Hebrew Esther are numbered as Hebrew Esther is numbered.

The binding is very nice--as one would expect from OUP. The pages (nice, thin, opaque paper) are sewn in small signatures and well bound together. On the other hand, the cover is very, VERY bright red--much brighter than the pictures seem to be.

Nevertheless, a good value and translation.

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Excellent translation, very poor workmanship January 27, 2009

By Richard W. Papuga

I have been waiting for an ESV with Apocrypha and am not disappointed in the least with the translation, however the book itself leaves much to be desired.

1. The cover is a very glossy bright red.

2. The Apocryphal books are at the very end of the volume, not in the Catholic order or even between the testaments as is customary these days.

3. There are no cross-references.

4. The pages are so ultra-thin you can literally read through to the reverse side, let alone even trying to highlight or mark the text in any way.

Perhaps we can hope for a more well-constructed book in the future, and greater accuracy in item descriptions.

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Justly Acclaimed English Standard Version Bible Now Includes Deuterocanonical Writings Essential to Catholic Christians March 18, 2009

By Gerald Parker

A Catholic Christian's dilemma regarding use of the Revised Standard Version (R.S.V.) of the Holy Bible is taking another route to solution with the publication of the English Standard Version (E.S.V.) Bible with the deutero-canonical writings (identified in it as "Apocrypha") included. The two R.S.V. Bibles as edited specifically for Roman Catholic (R.C.) use, the R.S.V. "Catholic Edition" (R.S.V.-C.E.) and "Second Catholic Edition" (R.S.V.-2nd C.E.) have served only as "half-way houses" in this regard, despite what their titles promise, in spite of their incorporation of the R.C. deutero-canonical writings of the ecumenical R.S.V.'s "Apocrypha" to their places interspersed within the Old Testament (O.T.) canon, and notwithstanding their adjustments of the renderings of some passages in the New Testament (N.T.) to conform their readings to specifically R.C. preferences and concerns, since too much liberal Protestant residue remains in the R.S.V. translation itself even after all of these adjustments, to varying extents, have been made.

Although the entire Authorised "King James" Version (A.V.), with its own "Apocrypha" (deutero-canonical writings) included, was always primary in this reviewer's life, the R.S.V. (alike in Protestant, ecumumenical, and Catholic editions) also figured rather a lot over the years in Bible reading and study. The main problems with the R.S.V. have been, and still are, its liberal bias in translation, especially in rendering scriptural passages touching on Christology and the Holy Trinity (as well, occasionally, as some readings affecting other doctrines), in addition to the R.S.V.'s resort to the so-called "Critical Text" of the Greek N.T. (mostly according to the various Nestle-Aland and U.B.S.... editions thereof) which liberal Protestants, wrongly, so highly esteem, thereby incorporating far too many minority manuscript readings which undermine doctrines that are clearly asserted in readings of the majority of the Bible's manuscript evidence. The proponents of any such "Critical Text" edition of the Greek New Testament, with its deviant readings, have fobbed off these "Critical Texts" even on a lot of believing Christians also, Evangelical Protestants and sectaries as well as Roman and Eastern Catholics; only the Eastern Orthodox putting up a sufficient resistance to such textual corruption of the N.T. As for the R.S.V.-C.E. and R.S.V.-2nd C.E., they only have touched up a few affected passages; most of what is wrong in R.S.V. renderings remains in those putatively Catholic editions.

However, when it is not being devious in wrongly conveying passages touching on these central issues (and a few others at times), the overall approach to translation that the R.S.V. (in its various permutations) has taken is quite lucid and is as clear as its relative and commendable literalism permits it to be (as always should be the case in translating the Bible, of course). The "Wisdom literature" of the canonical and deutero-canonical O.T. especially benefit from the R.S.V.'s greater clarity in comparison with the A.V.'s sometimes obscure rendering of those writings, where that great and justly venerated Bible version of the O.T. is at its literary weakest.

The Catholic Christian who, with good reason, takes umbrage at the R.S.V.-C.E. or R.S.V.-2nd C.E., and even more at the New Revised Standard Version (N.R.S.V., which in ecumencial editions also includes the deutero-canonical writings), could turn with profit to the newly published conservative evangelical revision of the R.S.V. Bible entitled the "English Standard Version", which now (as of early 2009) embraces the O.T.'s deutero-canonical writings (included as "Apocrypha", placed after the New Testament) of the contents of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican Bibles at their fullest extent (which varies somewhat from one to the other as to what their O.T. deutero-canons comprise), which makes the E.S.V. edition with "Apocrypha" a good candidate for consideration, now, as a Bible that now a Roman Catholic can use, albeit with the habitual caution (which he can exercise now more relaxedly in the case of the E.S.V.) in making use of any such version translated under Protestant auspices. Here is the citation of this edition of the E.S.V. roughly in ISBD form:

The English Standard Version Bible : Containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha / Translation Review Scholars [for the E.S.V.'s] Translation Oversight Committee. -- E.S.V. text edition [with] the Apocrypha. --New York : Oxford University Press, 2009. -- xiii, 1446 p. + [16] p. of 9 col. maps, some spread over facing pages). -- ISBN 978-0-19-528910-7.

In addition to cleaning up some of the worst liberal and intentional misrenderings of Holy Scripture found in the R.S.V. (and mostly also in the R.S.V.'s Catholic editions), there is, as in the R.S.V.-2nd C.E. (and in the N.R.S.V.), a more consistent use of English idiom and, what pleases perhaps most of all, an increased luicidity and heightened clarity of language and style, even more elegantly and marvellously clearly expressed than in earlier R.S.V.-based Bibles. It is a bit annoying that the writings which constitute the "Apocrypha", for handier reference, were not listed on main page of the "Table of Contents" along with the rest of the Bible's contents, rather than later in the volume, but this is a minor quibble.

As to the E.S.V. translation's wording of the fully canonical books of the Bible, one encounters, in this new edition with "Apocrypha", the texts which incorporated the changes made in 2007 to the translation of the fully canonical O.T. and N.T. books. In checking by means of a "Google" search, one finds that these changes to the 2007 text from that of 2001, according to one account, amount to 348 in number, which may seem to some to be quite a few, but one should bear in mind that it is easy to pile up numbers like that even in making merely miniscule changes, and the editors themselves do regard the alterations as very minor, so much so that the 2001 and 2007 texts of the E.S.V. as earlier published without the "Apocrypha" are being marketed concurrently.

The hardback edition, being a "text edition", is free of dubious opinion-mongering appended by Protestant or sectarian annotators, and certainly is free, as well, of the misleading annotations of liberal annotators included in the apparatus of too many "study editions" of the R.S.V. The E.S.V. with "Apocrypha" is very reasonably priced, too, making it all the more accessible to Roman and Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox purchasers who wish to have The E.S.V. in this edition as an highly desirable supplement to a Catholic or Orthodox version, or edition, of the Bible.

There is rather little in the way of study aids in the E.S.V. "with Apocrypha". There are some notes at bottom of pages, but, as already noted, they are not of a commentary nature. Neither is there is a systematic presentation of cross-references, which are so abundant in the original E.S.V. "Classic Reference Bible" edition of 2001 (or of 2007). In the ISBD description above, the statement on the verso of the title page that this new publication is a "text edition", indicates that extra study features (an exception being the excellent colour maps) would be few in number, and so they are. For those interested in a study Bible edition of the E.S.V., Concordia Publishing House publishes both the E.S.V. Old Testament and New Testament together in a study edition PLUS a separately issued study edition of the E.S.V. Apocrypha (which the publisher has entitled "The Apocrypha: Lutheran Edition with Notes") as a complementary volume; together, these two volumes of the "Lutheran Study Bible" from Concordia provide an excellent resource for study all of the Holy Scriptures, the deuterocanonical writings included, in the fine E.S.V. translation. One would assume, regarding a less demoninationally specific study Bible including Apocrypha, that a safe hunch would be that producing a study edition with extra features to include in an edition of the E.S.V. which also has the deutero-canonical writings included would not likely be any kind of high priority for those who have been directly responsable for the evangelically sponsored E.S.V. However, who knows for sure? Perhaps that guess could be merely a miscalculation of the E.S.V.'s potential as an oecumenical version which includes both the canon and deutero-canon of Holy Scripture.

As for the graphic aspect, the printing in this E.S.V. edition with deutero-canonicals is admirably clear, airy in its appearance with a nicely chosen type face. The letters and other typographical characters not particularly large or prominent, but the printing of them is easy on the eyes and is pleasantly plain in look.

Now, Oxford University Press, how about going even futher, to publish a fully "Catholic edition" of the E.S.V. that incorporates the full canon of the O.T. with all of its writings together in one sequence, perhaps also making slight accomodations in certain verses of the N.T. that reflect Eastern Orthodox and/or Roman and Eastern Catholic understandings of the Holy Text? The need is there, and so, surely, is the buying public! Read more ›

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice Translation June 12, 2009

By John Blake

Amazon Verified Purchase

As a Catholic, I was delighted to find a edition of the ESV which included all the books of the Catholic canon ("Apocrypha").

And after it came, my delight was in no way reduced: It has a nice clear print layout and hardcover binding, the translation itself is literal but gets rid of the "old-fashioned" language.

The Deutercanical books are at the end, but considering that all other ESV's don't include them at all, thats not a problem.

One note, this is not a study bible and as such just really has the bare text without helps or notes (just brief translation footnotes like the NRSV "other translations say" etc.).

Overall I'm very pleased with this Bible.