International Standard Version

The International Standard Version is a committee translation of the complete Bible that seeks a middle ground between literal accuracy and literary English. Rather than revising an existing English version, it is a fresh translation made from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and it is based on modern critical texts of the sort that have shaped English Bible translation since the nineteenth century. Its stated philosophy is one of literal-idiomatic mediation, positioning it between the strict formal equivalence of translations such as the King James tradition and the freer dynamic approaches of the twentieth century. Among its distinctive features are deliberate poetic formatting, which sets verse passages apart from prose, and attention to ancient literary forms, including the structures and conventions that shaped the biblical writings in their original languages. It thus belongs to the broad stream of modern committee-produced English versions.