ESV Responds!

I asked the ESV website the following question: given that the NASB existed, why was there a need for yet another translation? Their response consisted of the following pages of their website:

1. How is the ESV Different from Other Translations?
2. Verse by Verse Comparisons
3. Origin of the ESV
4. Wayne Grudem's Account

The first page says the following: "[T]he NASB’s commitment to strictly literal translation often results in wording that sounds awkward. The ESV... while striving for accuracy and faithfulness... flows more naturally than... the NASB."

They also say that "[T]he real origin of the ESV Bible goes back to the early 1990s, long before the gender-language controversy, when Crossway’s president, Dr. Lane T. Dennis, talked to a number of Christian scholars and pastors about the need for a new literal translation. He found a hunger for a Bible that conveyed the majesty and dignity of God’s Word, a Bible both accurate and beautiful. The ESV developed from this perceived need, not as a reaction to other Bible publishers’ doings..."

Grudem says, "[T]he ESV grew out of the appreciation of many scholars for the merits of the old RSV and a desire to see it updated, and not out of opposition to the TNIV Bible. The reason for my own involvement with the ESV was a long-standing desire to see an updated RSV, and had little or nothing to do with the TNIV controversy." (The TNIV was the proposed gender-inclusive version of the NIV.)