Just wanted to relate my preferences with versions over the years. I'm a layman with no knowledge of the original languages, just the owner of several English translations and my good ol' Strong's Concordance. ;-) I used to belong to KJV-only church. I mean, to the extreme...if that wasn't your main Bible for study, your faith was in serious question. What happened was various non-orthodox theologies and prophecies (such as British-Israelism) were formed using the KJV, and once you tried to follow them in any other Bible, they all fell apart...poof, gone. They depended on the sometimes quirky KJV language. Once I was free of that (I still like the KJV - the Psalms cannot be beat), I moved to the NIV for a number of years. I loved how it read, but then recoiled in horror at 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10, which were really vague concerning homosexuality. Most other translations were not nearly as vague. This was the 1984 version. I started looking at more literal translations, and settled on the NASB95, and used it for years, up until recently. I still love it and keep it for study...just got tired of having to go "huh?" every once in a while, and reading out loud in Bible class was sometimes awkward. I've recently started using the NLT 2007 as my main Bible, and love it. I had never even gave the TNIV a thought...never even looked at it, because of my disappointment with the earlier NIV. I also just recently purchased a pew Bible version of the NIV 2011 (love the sturdy, cheap pew Bibles), just to see what has changed since the 1984 version, and was pleasantly surprised. I know the gender-neutral language has been added, but the two aforementioned verses were changed...the vagueness was gone! My hat's off to the group responsible, but it's probably too late. Like you have said on your site, the NLT has started to take it's place.

One thing that I have found curious for years now, is why have a lot of translators of these modern English versions not corrected some of the scribal errors in the Hebrew text? Let me mention three verses:

2 Samuel 8:4 David captured 1,700 of King Zobah's horsemen. Septuagint (LXX) and Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) read 7000.
2 Chronicles 22:2 Ahaziah was 42 when he began to rule over Jerusalem. LXX reads 22.
2 Chronicles 36:9 Jehoiachin was 8 years old when he became king of Jerusalem. LXX reads 18.

The above LXX readings agree with the second mention of the events in the Hebrew (cross-references to them are given in many Bibles). Some versions use the LXX to correct the Hebrew in those instances, and some do not. The NIV and NLT do, the HCSB does in two of the three (but corrects the third in a note), the NASB only corrects one, and some others correct none. One version that surprised me was the NRSV, which doesn't correct any of those three, but it uses the DSS to add material after 1 Sam 10, which makes the whole eye-gouging thing make sense. NONE of the others go that far.

Just something I found puzzling.

I also noted your article from August 2006, Fellowship Baptist Church in Saltillio MS.
I was doing a lot of looking on the internet to try and find a good church and had heard this story and wanted to see if it was true.
Not a church I would want to attend if it is still in existence.
Thanks for your blog

I almost agree with you. I have only seen the first three movies (chronologically) and Revenge of the Sith - which was so boring I did not even watch the whole thing. The Empire Strikes Back is the best but I am not a big Star Wars fan.

Your tribute to your Mom is wonderful to read. I loved The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, the difference being, I bought it as a young adult...for the pictures!