The information below is the sum of an email exchange I had this afternoon with Jeremy Howard at B&H Publishing. He unexpectedly (from my perspective) contacted me in regard to the post I wrote a year ago about the Disciples Study Bible revision in the works. Howard gave me permission to present the material below to readers of This Lamp.First the bad news...
Evidently, we will not see the 2009 copyright Holman Christian Standard Bible in print this year as originally planned. It will be available beginning in 2010.
And the good news? I have a list of upcoming "2009 text" HCSB releases.
February, 2010: The Apologetics Study Bible for Students. This will mark the first "2009 text" HCSB in printed form. This Bible is edited by Sean McDowell, son of Josh McDowell.
October, 2010: The HCSB Study Bible.
2013: The Disciples Study Bible will be published completely revised from the former edition with many new features and with numerous new contributors. It will probably be released under a different name.
Undoubtedly, other editions may fall in between those dates--especially before the 2013 release--as B&H Publishing transitions between the old and new texts.
A few notes:
(1) At this point, there are no plans by B&H Publishing to refer to the new edition of the HCSB as either "revised" or as a "second edition." I've used "2009 text" above for clarity, but that's merely my designation. Once the new editions are in print, the copyright page will be the primary way of determining the newer text.
(2) If you want to get a copy of the 2009 text HCSB right now, you may want to consider purchasing the text in WORDsearch where it is already availble:
I do not know of any other way to obtain the 2009 text HCSB as of this writing.
(3) On a personal note: in recent years, I’ve said that I recommended three different translations for primary Bibles: the HCSB, TNIV, and NLT. I felt those three translations provided a broad spectrum for Bible readers on numerous levels. With the events of this past week, I’m no longer recommending the TNIV, and I certainly don’t recommend the NIV as a primary Bible either as it is too dated.
I am still enthusiastic about the HCSB and NLT, however. The HCSB is, in my estimation, unsurpassed in technical accuracy above and beyond any translation on the market. And the NLT contains the most conversational English of any contemporary translation.
For anyone considering an alternative to the TNIV, I’d recommend looking at both the NET Bible and the NRSV as the TNIV fell somewhere in between these two.