The biblioblog world is abuzz with the announcement that the popular evangelical English bible, the New International Version, will be updated and scheduled for release in 2011. While I rarely use the NIV anymore, this version holds a special place in my heart. It was the pew bible in the Methodist church I attended, it was the translation of choice in the "non-sectarian" private school I attended, and I had used it personally for biblical and devotional study.
Since English was not my first language, I struggled with other English bibles, especially the "biblish" Tyndale-based versions (KJV, RSV, NASB). The NIV was just easier to read and understand. I have owned three NIVs, of which two are still extant (I never found out what happened to the third). One was the NIV Student Bible given to me as a gift by my camp counselor when I had attended bible camp as a teen, the other was a devotional study bible my sister gave me cause she doesn't care for religion and thought I would find a better use for it.
As I said, I no longer use the NIV as much. It is, after all, an evangelical version and the biblical text and especially the commentaries that came with the NIV tend toward a strongly evangelical viewpoint. When I started to drift from evangelicalism, I had become sufficiently comfortable with biblish to start using the RSV and even the ASV. But even then, I use the NIV as a supplement, especially in those passages where the RSV uses archaic expressions.
With the ever-changing face of the evangelical movement, and perhaps also for monetary considerations, the publishers of the NIV think it's time to update. I doubt that they can convince the NIV-faithful to accept a new edition (the 1984 version is good enough for Jesus!). And given their pathetic handling of the TNIV, this latest move might signal that the era of the NIV may finally be coming to an end. There's a new darling of the more conservative evangelicals, the English Standard Version. Since it's based on the RSV, the ESV will probably be difficult for non-native English readers (although the use of modern English is a positive). The NIV 2011 translation committee must not make any boneheaded mistakes. It'll give the other evangelical translations just the space to drive a wedge in.
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