The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.

[1] This translation is a revision of the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901,[2] and was intended to be a readable and literally accurate modern English translation which aimed to "preserve all that is best in the English Bible as it has been known and used through the centuries" and "to put the message of the Bible in simple, enduring words that are worthy to stand in the great Tyndale-King James tradition.

"[3][4] The RSV was the first translation of the Bible to make use of the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah, a development considered "revolutionary" in the academic field of biblical scholarship.

Luther A. Weigle became its chair and helped find members; the final committee began meeting in 1937 at Yale Divinity School where they did their work.

A total of 3,418 interdenominational religious gatherings across North America were held that evening to honor the new version and the translators who made it possible.

Luther Hux, a pastor in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, announced his intention to burn a copy of the RSV during a sermon on November 30, 1952.

On the day in question, he delivered a two-hour sermon entitled "The National Council Bible, the Master Stroke of Satan—One of the Devil's Greatest Hoaxes".

After ending the sermon, he led the congregation out of the church, gave each worshipper a small American flag and proceeded to set light to the pages containing Isaiah 7:14.

[11] The RSV translators linked these events to the life of William Tyndale, an inspiration to them, explaining in their preface: "He met bitter opposition.

The Standard Bible Committee intended to prepare a second edition of the Old Testament,[13] but those plans were scrapped in 1974, when the National Council of Churches voted to authorize a full revision of the RSV.

This second edition removed archaic pronouns (thee, thou), and accompanying verb forms (didst, speakest), revised passages used in the lectionary according to the Vatican document Liturgiam authenticam, and elevated some passages out of the RSV footnotes when they favored Catholic renderings, such as replacing "young woman" with "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14.

[17] When the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) was published in 1989, some traditional Christians — both Catholic and Protestant — criticized its wide use of gender-inclusive language.

[20] On January 20, 2017, incoming U.S. President Donald Trump took his inaugural oath of office using a copy of the RSV Bible given to him by his mother in 1955 when he graduated from a Presbyterian Sunday School.

[21] In 1999, the National Council of Churches, in association with Odyssey Productions, produced a TV documentary about the making of the RSV — The Bible Under Fire.