The New Revised Standard Edition (NRSV) made 2 main types of updates to the existing Revised Standard Edition (RSV)

1. Use of the Dead Sea Scrolls - The Old Testament translation of the RSV was completed before the Dead Sea Scrolls became available for study. The NRSV takes these sacred ancient texts into account.

2. More Accurate Gender Language - The RSV utilized the older convention of using masculine wording in reference to both males and females (ie "man" instead of "person", "mankind" instead of "humankind"), and at times used masculine verbiage where the original sources actually used gender neutral language. The NRSV strove to remain truer to the source languages and use more accurate gender verbiage where applicable.

The NRSV with the deuterocanonical books and the NRSV Catholic Edition received the Imprimatur of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Some quotes from this translation appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.