In the course of some internet browsing this afternoon, I came across a massively detailed review of the newly revised 2011 New International Version Bible. Robert Decker offers detailed comparison with the original New International Version published in 1984, and interacts and evaluates various critiques that have already appeared.
Southern Baptists have rejected the NIV11, and the Committee on Bible Translation responsible for the NIV11 has responded. The Douglas Moo, the Committee Chair, has responded to a critique from the Committee on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
I am not taking sides at this point. I simply appreciate the thoroughness of Robert Decker's review. For sheer wealth of information, the review deserves to be noted.
Apart from the substance of the review itself, I'd like to confess that I often find footnote reading fascinating. I had known before of early Bible translators' powerful motivation to see the Bible become familiar to ordinary people, and so I was delighted that Decker provided exact quotes:
3 Tyndale said to an English cleric, "If God spare my life, ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost." His statement echoes the preface of Erasmus' Greek NT: "I would to God that the plowman would sing a text of the Scripture at his plow and that the weaver would hum them to the tune of his shuttle." Both citations from Tony Lane, "A Man for All People: Introducing William Tyndale," Christian History vol. 6, no. 4, issue 16 (1987): 7.
And here is a footnote correcting much misinformation regarding the King James Bible:
5 Indeed what some call "the 1611 KJV" has been almost entirely a phantom for more than 200 years because it was revised at least six times, though each time continuing the same name as its predecessor. The last revision to bear that name was the 1769 revision by Blayney that has now been printed for over two centuries, but it is not the same as what was printed in 1611. These various revisions were due to changes in the English language. Later revisions of the same tradition have changed the name. The 1885 was known as the (English) Revised Version, the 1901 as the American Standard Version (originally, the "Revised Version, Standard American Edition"), the 1952/1962/1971 as the Revised Standard Version (and NRSV, 1989), and the 2001/2007 as the English Standard Version.
I also learned of the immense popularity the NIV has enjoyed:
6 The KJV, despite celebrating 400 years, has not reigned as sole monarch on the English Bible throne during all of that time. It was more than a half century after 1611 before it became the preferred translation, and for somewhat more than the last half century it has had to share that throne with other translations. The KJV dropped from the number one position as the best-selling English Bible in 1988; the NIV has held that position since then (email correspondence from Verne Kenney, Executive Vice President, Zondervan, October 17, 2011).