Hello "Just-a-thought". Your poll and Thread title reminded me of some issues which came up frequently when I was the Asst. Manager and Used Book Buyer at 2 Christian Book stores in So. Cal... Both of those stores carried all the big sellers, and I often tried to guide people into buying a solid Bible, but many times they would purchase the NIV and the NLT...
Hope you will not mind if I post some thoughts.
There are many translations and variations out there of the Bible in English, mostly from the U.S.A. and some from the U.K. . Don't know if they have done any from the other Commonwealth Nations (English speaking) such as Canada- -- which is almost American except they can't properly pronounce "out"...
, New Zealand, Australia, R.S.A. (former) Rhodesia, India, etc..
Some are garbage deluxe paraphrases such as The Living Bible" (which sold bunches!), "The Message", ugh!. And one many of you have probably seen called "Good News for Modern Man" (Todays English Version), it was paperback and had newspaper headlines printed on the cover... but inside was an easy read paraphrase with---do ya remember them?--Stick figure drawings of people throughout the text. It was aimed at getting the hippies/yippies/druggies/college-types (who would not pick-up a regular Bible) to read the Gospel message. It's nickname bacame: "The bloodless Bible", because wherever the word "blood" should have been used--the TEV changed it to "death"/"dead"... You can still see these at thrift stores and used book shops... about .50 cents each.
There are the many "Easy-to-read" ones with several different names on them. The Word/God's Word/New Century Version/Int. Childrens Bible/NIrV/NKJV. There are specialty versions such as one developed for Deaf people. Another one with Navajo on one page and english on the other.
There are One man translations (N.T. and Whole Bibles) such as Williams , Weymouth, Moffatt, and Green's "Literal", and Beck's "An American Translation", Goodspeed, Phillips, Lamsa-(Aramaic/Syriac).
I'm sure these men meant well... (Folks who have known Jay Green say is is a solid Christian) --- but I would not trust myself to translate God's Word myself. The A.V./K.J. gents used several men to translate, and then cross-checked and double checked. Every man/woman has some biases, and it would be very easy to change a word here or there to fit our opinion. It's always a good idea to get some input from other folks.
The Berkely Version-New Berkely-Modern Language/ New American Standard/E.S.V./Holman Christian Standard Version were done by multiple translators/linguists, and not "sloppy" or "anything goes" translations, BUT... They all use the Alexandrian text family for the N.T., and the not so good Hebrew versions for the O.T.. They seemed to be trying to do right-( using good solid English instead of street slang, gender neutral speak, and 2nd grade vocabularly), but they let the Romish/Alexandrian texts be their main guide. The NASB says they consulted and compared with the A.V.-K.J., but often times they put certain verses in [Brackets] casting some doubt upon it.
There are some versions that I think (can't swear to it in a court-of-law-
) which are/were hatched by the Temptor/Deceiver/Father-of-Lies. Stuff like the NIV/TNIV/RSV/NRSV/--- plus the "Green Phantom" from the J.W.'s.
When someone at a publishing house/ecumenical group intentionally changes words/descriptions/attributes pertaining to The Almighty God-Creator/King Eternal, Who is called Holy,Holy,Holy by the cherubim around The Throne....
...and deletes the words such as Him/His/He/Father/Son in order to make the Word of God "gender neutral"... I think there is going to be a reserved space in a very hot and dark place for those who have altered (monkeyed around with) God's Written Word!