Planned obsolescence?

[Rvaughn]

In the fast-paced and ever-changing world of technology, companies plan obsolescence into their product cycles. Have Bibles moved into this cycle of determined discontinuance? In less than two decades the Holman Christian Standard Bible – which was first published as a complete text in 2004 – is now obsolete and soon to be replaced by Lifeway’s new revision/translation called the Christian Standard Bible.

[Haruo]

Maybe the market has forgotten who Holman was? I'm not sure what to make of the SBC having a proprietary Bible version. Or has Lifeway been privatized now?

[William Thornton]

It's about marketing and sales, brethren, like successive editions of a successful textbook. CSB is a more marketable title, seems to me. I am unaware of any great advances in Biblical scholarship in the last decade or two. Electronically, I suppose it's relatively simple to create a "new" Bible.

You bet LifeWay owns this one. No rabble lib group of scholars will foist the latest in social engineering on our Bible.

[Rvaughn]

William, I think you are right. It is about marketing, and changing the title serves that purpose. It will be interesting to see how much the CSB has actually changed from the HCSB (i.e. in the text itself). Though you and I are unaware of any great advances in biblical scholarship, it doesn't keep that from creeping into the marketing info: "With the benefit of up-to-date manuscript discoveries and significant advances in research, these translators, reviewers, and stylists exhaustively scrutinized ancient source texts..."

In their online explanation of "Why" this Bible is needed, Lifeway/B&H notes there is a problem of people reading their Bibles less and less. To help solve the problem, enter the CSB -- "a Bible optimally translated for today’s English reader." Of course, we have a plethora of a Bibles already "optimally translated" for today’s English readers -- and we still have the problem! CSB apparently threads the needle between "clunky and hard to read" and "stray(ing) away from important precision [i.e. accurate translation, rlv]. Of course, that was what the HCSB was supposed to do a few years ago, but now here they are replacing it. My totally uneducated total guess is this is about market competition with the NIV. Maybe not.

William, with regard to Leland's question about the relationship between Lifeway and the Southern Baptist Convention, could you give us some clarity on that?

[Sandy]

[Rvaughn]

Makes sense. A large publisher could rack up a lot of expense paying royalties on Bible quotations.

The link below gives Comparison Verses in the CSB, with explanations. The chart compares certain CSB texts with HCSB, NIV, ESV, NLT and KJV. I'm sure these are verses they prefer to highlight for various reasons. Thought some of you might find it interesting.

[William Thornton]

[Mrs Haruo]

We started getting a catalog from a company that bills themselves as "Anything Christian for Less" which appears to be sort of a multi-denominational outlet store that now handles toys, homeschooling curricula and a lot of marked down kitch and literature and pages and pages of different translations of Bibles, including an amazing array of different covers, editions and assorted bells and whistles. When I think of my in-laws toiling for nearly 30 years to get a translation of the Bible produced and printed for a group who never had ONE in their own language and the excess of excess we have in this country I can't help but shake my head.

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

Lifeway sends a constant stream of circulars to Biblioteko Culbert, the primarily Esperanto-oriented library Mrs. H. and I custode. Ofyen they are addressed to fictional characters like Youth Ministries Director. I think this is all beause a few years ago we bought a copy of the 2008 Baptist Hymnal from them.