Christian Standard Bible

There are so many English Bible translations, the weary Christian reader may well ask, “Why do we need another Bible translation?”[i]

Here is a bit of the history of the “why” of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) and Christian Standard Bible (CSB) came into existence. The current CSB was a major revision, including a name change, of the 2009 edition of the HCSB. The CSB was copyrighted in 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers, a division of Lifeway.[ii] Its forerunners, the HCSB New Testament, was published in 1999 and the whole HCSB Bible in 2004. In August 2023 Christianity Today claimed that the CSB was the second best-selling English Bible translation.

The origin of the HCSB is found in a two-pronged history. One prong was the desire of Arthur Leonard Farstad to create an English Bible translation based on the Majority Text.[iii] The other prong was the desire of the Southern Baptist Convention to have copyright control of a Bible for use in their publications. These two met together in 1998.

Arthur Farstad had been the general editor of the New King James Version, published by Thomas Nelson. He had hoped to help create this as an English translation based on The Majority Text, a Greek text edited by Farstad and Zane Hodges.[iv] However, Thomas Nelson publishers did not want to proceed in that fashion with the NKJV. After this project was over, Farstad began an independent translation of the Majority Text.

Prior to the creation of the HCSB, the Southern Baptist Convention had an exclusive contract to use the New International Version (NIV) in their Sunday School curriculum and other educational literature. This was an expensive and restrictive agreement with the copyright holder of the NIV. As the time of the end of this contract neared, they began plans to create their own Bible version. The money previously going to others could stay in SBC coffers. The headache of dealing with copyright restrictions would be relieved. Additionally, there were also considerations and concerns about an upcoming revision of the NIV. With their entity holding the copyright, the SBC would not have to worry about Bible revisions made by another entity. Of particular concern was the issue of gender-neutral language.[v] The SBC tried to negotiate the purchase of the copyright of the New American Standard Bible and others, but these efforts failed. 

After this, either Farstad, knowing about the plans of the SBC, pitched his idea to them; or, the SBC, knowing of Farstad’s work, approached him to help them further their plans. Maybe some of both.[vi] It was a match made in ..... Nashville, probably.

It seems the initial plan of action was to follow Farstad’s desire to use the Majority Text as the basis for the New Testament translation.[vii] However, Arthur Farstad died at age 63 in September 1998 – five months after the initiation of the project. Holman brought in a new editor, and the translation’s basis was changed to the Nestle-Aland Critical Greek Text. Promotional material says that “a team of more than 100 top conservative scholars from 17 denominations” worked on this translation.

The promotion of the CSB Bible states a goal to create “optimal equivalence” in translation (accurate yet readable), and to stay up-to-date with advances in biblical research. When the history of the HCSB/CSB is told, it usually does not include these background details, especially the financial and theological considerations behind its rise. I thought the parts left out were worth telling.

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[i] Simply put, I would say we do not. Information for this article was gleaned in bits and pieces across the World Wide Web, with a good bit of debt to the review of the Holman Christian Standard Bible, by Michael Marlowe.
[ii] Lifeway is what used to be the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
[iii] The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text, edited by Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers 2nd edition, 1985).
[iv] The independent project of which Farstad was translator and general editor lives on in the New Testament, or at least the Gospel of John, translation called Logos 21. Some sources state that Logos 21 was the first English translation of the Greek Majority Text.
[v] Interestingly, however, the CSB update of the HCSB itself moved in the direction of gender-neutral language.
[vi] I could not get a clear sense of which came first. In this article, Mark L. Strauss says that SBC representatives from Holman and Lifeway approached Farstad.
[vii] There are some unclear statements that suggest he had to agree with Holman to use the Critical Text. Mark L. Strauss says Farstad planned to use the Majority Text. He also says that Edwin Blum had been working with him on the indpendent project of translating the Majority Text into English