ESV Bible Blog

A few days ago we reminded you of the various reading plans available for the ESV and this new plan found in the back of the Literary Study Bible and ESV Study Bible.

This plan does not attempt to incorporate the introductions or articles of either study Bible.

Eric Schumacher has served those of us reading through the ESV Study Bible by putting together this Reading Plan for Articles and Introductions in the ESV Study Bible.

He explains his approach:

I tried to have the introduction for a book of the Bible fall on the first day of reading in the plan. (If a book is read twice in the plan, the introduction appears twice.) Other wise, I mainly clumped articles by topic and tried to space them out throughout the year. I put the articles “A Survey of the History of Salvation” and “God’s Plan for Salvation” in quarterly, since those are good to review as we read through Scripture.

There are generous gaps in the plan to allow for “catch-up” in reading. December is almost blank to allow for busy Christmas schedules and end-of-the-year catch-up.

The daily reading plan found in the back of the ESV Study Bible is now available for download.

As Justin Taylor recently cataloged, there are several ways to access the ESV Reading Plans:

• web (a new reading each day appears online at the same link)
• RSS (subscribe to receive by RSS)
• email (subscribe to receive by email)
• iCal (download an iCalendar file)
• mobile (view a new reading each day on your mobile device)
• print (download a PDF of the whole plan)

There are currently 10 plans available in each of the options above.

The ESV: Every Day in the Word and ESV: Chronological Reading Guide are also available as audio podcasts in iTunes.

Our prayer is that you would be helped by one or more of these tools as you study God’s Word in 2009.

Earlier this year, Weston Ruter wrote a Greasemonkey plugin that shortens document titles when you’re browsing the ESV online. For example, “ESV Bible Online: Passage: John 3:16″ becomes simply “John 3:16 (ESV)”. It’s handy if you have a lot of tabs open in your browser or if you use a clipping service like Google Notebook.

Weston has updated the user script to work on the ESV Online Study Bible.

Regular readers of the ESV Blog have probably noticed it’s been awhile since we last posted. Recent changes here at Crossway have called for some reorganization (hence the blog respite), but we are eager to resume our conversation with you.

Your participation in the ESV Blog has brought about much fruitful dialogue, so thank you for visiting, reading, and commenting. Our interaction with you has been a vital part of what has made—and will continue to make—the ESV Blog interesting and helpful. For now our plan is to post a similarly broad range of content related to the ESV text, but we want to take this opportunity to invite your feedback.

Are there topics you particularly benefit from or enjoy (e.g. translation, the local church, global missions, technology, upcoming Bible editions)?

We invite your comments below (or you can email us at blog@esv.org).  Thank you in advance for your input, and we look forward to interacting with you around God’s Word throughout 2009.

The ESV Web Service now has an option for output-type=mp3, so you can integrate audio directly into your applications.

For example, here’s the URL to hear John 3:16-17: http://www.esvapi.org/v2/rest/passageQuery?key=IP&output-format=mp3&passage=John+3:16-17

Just change the “passage” parameter, and you can listen to any passage or combination of passages (up to around 200 verses).

The audio is copyrighted (as indicated in the MP3 files themselves) and subject to the same Terms of Service as the rest of the ESV API, including non-commercial use. Notably, you’re not allowed to just download the whole Bible. We sell a complete ESV audio Bible for $29.99 if you want to do that.

Paul K. Graham recently completed a Mechanical Turk experiment: he paid people to rewrite King James Bible verses in their own words. The results are interesting. For example, John 3:16-17 becomes:

God loved the people of the world so much that he gave to them his only son, and whoever believes in the son will not die. Instead, they will live forever. God didn’t send His Son Jesus to condemn people, but rather He sent Jesus so that people could be saved through Jesus.

Compare the ESV:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

All the ESV Bible reading plans are now available as free podcasts. You don’t need to do anything special if you’re already subscribed: the MP3s will show up automatically for you.

To subscribe in iTunes, here’s what to do:

1. Go to the ESV Reading Plans page.
2. Right-click (Ctrl-click on a Mac) the “RSS” link of the feed you want.
3. Choose “Copy Link Location” or “Copy Shortcut.”
4. Start iTunes.
5. Choose Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast
6. Paste the URL from step three into the box.
7. Click OK.

We’re still working out a few kinks, but we hope you enjoy the podcasts. The audio is by David Cochran Heath and is available for purchase and for streaming at the ESV Online Study Bible.

ESV Hear the Word Audio Downloads—the audio found at the ESV Online Study Bible—are now available.

Prices are $29.99 for the complete Bible, $19.99 for just the Old Testament, $14.99 for just the New Testament, $4.99 for Psalms and Proverbs, and $4.99 for the Gospels.

The complete Gospel of John is available for free download, as are a few other samples. As always, the ESV Online Study Bible lets you stream any passage you’d like.

This recording is by David Cochran Heath. Heath is a veteran stage actor, performing in more than one hundred productions. He has recorded many audio books, including Christian classics by Thomas a Kempis, Francis Schaeffer, and John Piper.

If you’re technically inclined, after you buy, you can choose the bitrate that best meets your needs: 128 KBps (4 GB for the complete Bible), 64 KBps (2 GB for the complete Bible) or 32 KBps (1 GB for the complete Bible). Unless you’re an audiophile, we recommend 64 KBps as the best balance between file size and audio quality.

The ESV Hear the Word Bible is also available as a physical product: on 59 CDs ($99.99) or 7 MP3 CDs ($49.99).

Erik at The Kowalker Journey provides six tips on what to look for when evaluating the quality of a Bible’s binding. If you’ve ever wondered about the difference between a glued and a sewn binding, or bonded and genuine leather, he has answers for you.

The ESV Online Study Bible now lets you listen to a brand-new recording of the ESV text. Try it out in Matthew 5—just click the “Listen” link. You can even listen to any combination of individual verses (try Matthew 5:14-15).

We’ll be rolling out this recording to our other sites, podcasts, and the ESV API in the near future, and you’ll be able to buy it from Crossway starting next week. The existing recordings by Max McLean and Marquis Laughlin will remain available.

This recording is by David Cochran Heath. Heath is a veteran stage actor, performing in more than one hundred productions. He has recorded many audio books, including Christian classics by Thomas a Kempis, Francis Schaeffer, and John Piper

If you’ve been using Safari to access the ESV Online Study Bible, we fixed a bug that was preventing you from hearing the audio. Quit and restart Safari, and you should be able to hear the new recording.