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Tuesday, August 22, 2006

ESV on eBay

There are quite a few editions of the ESV available for sale on eBay. Many ESV users have sung the praises of the ESV Reformation Study Bible, edited by Reformed pastor R.C. Sproul. I was intrigued to discover that there is also an ESV Scofield Study Bible, which takes some very different interpretational positions (Dispensational) from Dr. Sproul.

Of course, you can find other English Bible versions on eBay, as well, including the KJV, Tanakh (1985), NLT, NASB, NIV, TNIV, HCSB, CEV, GNT / TEV, NAB, NWT, the Contemporary Torah, Fox's The Five Books of Moses. (I had to be careful searching for the NWT, since eBay uses the acroynm NWT to abbreviate "New With Tags"! I had to spell out the full name of the NWT version.) There are some parallel Bibles for sale on eBay.

There are, of course, many other outlets selling Bibles besides eBay. Recently I have been increasingly turning to the AddAll book search to try to find the best prices for books and Bibles that I'm interested in.

8 Comments:

At Tue Aug 22, 10:00:00 AM, Blogger R. Mansfield said...

The ESV Scofield Bible is significant for a couple of reasons in my opinion. I would suggest that there are at least two signs of a translation's widespread acceptance beyond merely sales figures. The first is the appearance of a translation in study editions. There has to be a big enough demand for a translation to see it paired with study notes because this is much more expensive and time-consuming to prepare as opposed to a simple text edition. So, this is the second such pairing for the ESV. The second sign of a translation's acceptance is the desire on the part of third-party publishers (besides that of the sponsoring publisher or the publisher with exclusive rights) to pay licensing fees just to publish editions of a particular BIble version.

Having said that, allow me to pose the first rabbit trail on this topic, namely the Scofield Study Bible. I simply don't understand the appeal of this BIble in this day and age. I'm no dispensationalist (so maybe that's why I don't get it), but is Scofield better than say Ryrie or even LaHaye, both of whom have study BIbles of their own? I don't understand the appeal that would make Oxford University Press (of all publishers!) want to make editions of Scofield in the KJV, NKJV, NIV, ESV, NASB, and coming soon, the HCSB!!

I mean here's the publisher of the prestigious and scholarly Oxford Annotated Study BIble reaching all the way to the extreme (in my opinion) of the other side of the theological spectrum to publish all these various editions of the Scofield Study BIble. And it seems that evidently, the notes are in their third revision, but if you're a really hardcore Scofield fan, you can still get the original notes in the KJV.

Wow.

 
At Tue Aug 22, 11:19:00 AM, Blogger anonymous said...

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At Tue Aug 22, 01:06:00 PM, Blogger R. Mansfield said...

Well, the fact that it sells well is the only reason for Oxford to sell it, but it still seems like an odd fit for Oxford AND I just don't understand the appeal of this Bible and why there must be a market for it in every evangelcal translation imaginable.

On a related note to the original post here, I was reminded that I came across Cambridge TNIV's (not officially sold in the U.S.) last night on Amazon. I've put up a post on my blog here.

 
At Wed Aug 23, 09:03:00 AM, Blogger Alex S. Leung said...

Ok, since we are talking about this already, I am debating which ESV study Bible to get:
the ESV Reformation Study Bible
or the
ESV Scofield Study Bible III
?

Can somebody post a good review & comparison between these 2? Or are there other ESV study Bibles already that are better?

 
At Wed Aug 23, 09:38:00 AM, Blogger R. Mansfield said...

Alex, it's this simple: if you're a dispenastionalist, get the Scofield. If you're a Calvinist, get the Reformation Study Bible. If you're a Dispensationalist Calvinist (not sure if I've ever seen one of those) get both, tear apart the bindings, interleave the pages of both together, and then have it rebound.

Otherwise, you'll want the TNIV Study Bible.

 
At Wed Aug 23, 10:11:00 AM, Blogger anonymous said...

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At Thu Aug 24, 05:56:00 PM, Blogger anonymous said...

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At Thu Aug 24, 10:42:00 PM, Blogger anonymous said...

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