Thanks for the responses. But, it brings me to another question. If most do not think the NIV is a good translation, then why is the best selling? Could the responses be due to the mindset of this (Catholic Answers) forum? Do Evangelicals really think this much different?
Going back about 30 years, the NIV emerged as a uniquely Protestant translation in America. Zondervan did a good job of bolstering its marketability by producing it with a variety of “study Bible” augmentations that made it a more complete teaching tool that could be used by anybody who reads above the 5th-grade level. Additionally, sales were improved because its intended purpose as “teaching tool” made it uniquely suited to evangelistic activities. Consequently, the NIV was better suited for being bought in large amounts and distributed widely with the expectation that someone could read it without assistance and go from there.
Since then, I think the NIV has stayed on top for a number of reasons. First, while it’s still number one, the number two and three translations on the list are the NKJV and the KJV, respectively. There’s still a number of people who prefer the old version to the new, and if you counted these two versions together, they’d retake the top spot. It will be interesting to see what happens when the NIV crowd is split up in the same way- will the two versions drop to three and four, or perhaps farther? A lot of it depends on the decisions that major missions agencies make with regard to the Bibles that they buy and distribute in mass quantities. A lot of it also depends on how Zondervan markets them and on whether or not the latest attempt at an update completely bombs like it did in '05. Even if it’s very successful, the most it can do is draw a majority of NIV readers to the new version, but nowhere close to all of them.
Second, the last 20-30 years have given us a greater number of new (or updated) translations that, while more useful for Biblical scholarship, pertain more to serious students of the Bible and less to a wide audience that’s oriented more toward easy reading. For example, the NET Bible, ESV (an update of the RSV), and HCSB are all competing for the same readership, and that target group is somewhat narrower than what the NIV was aimed at to begin with. You also have to remember that these newer translations are competing with a well-established base of KJV readers, while the NIV found a way to make inroads on a market that was previously unsaturated (by comparison, anyway).
Third, there have been a couple of translations like the NLT and New Century Version that are similar to the NIV in many ways that were published after the NIV, but they just aren’t as good. Even though the NIV isn’t what I need for what I do, it probably is the best translation among the thought-for-thought or dynamic equivalence kinds of translations (probably because it tries to strike a balance between formal and dynamic equivalence).
Fourth, the best translations that are suitable for scholarly use are still in the process of gaining readership because most of the major ones were produced in the last 10 years. The first full version of the HCSB was produced in 2004, the first edition of the ESV was published in 2001, and the NET Bible goes back to 2005, where its main goal was to be made available online for free in its entirety. (Lots and lots of notes with that one- over 60k).
My current analysis is that the NKJV and KJV will both jump the NIV once its readership is split up in the same way. The NLT will probably jump at least one of those versions, too- probably both. (It’s a fellow competitor in dynamic equivalence). The NASB might jump one, but probably not both. (That one’s formal equivalence, and it was produced shortly after the NIV). The HCSB might jump one of them, too, but it- along with the ESV- still have some climbing to do that can only come with an adequate amount of time.
This all depends on a fair amount of success with this update, though. If it’s unsuccessful, the NIV will probably still have the top spot in the next couple of years and not much will change in the immediate future. If it is successful, though, it may pick up a modest amount of new readership for Team NIV or perhaps stall some of the departures, but the main result will be one of splitting readership into two camps and they’ll both settle in below Team KJV.
That’s my analysis and my predictions. :twocents: For what it’s worth.
