The serpent, wiliest of all the field animals the Lord God had made, said to the woman,
“So, God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
(Gen 3:1, MLB, emphasis added)

Of course, you've already read the title of this post. But pretend for a moment that you had not. What if I told you that in the mid-twentieth century, there was a concern to create a new Bible translation in contemporary language. This translation would not be in the Tyndale tradition, and upon its completion, it would be published by Zondervan Publishers. More than likely, you would guess I was talking about the New International Version. But you’d be wrong.

Quite a few years before the NIV, Zondervan published a new translation of a New Testament called The Berkeley Version. It would later expanded to the entire Bible, and eventually receive a name change: The Modern Language Bible: The New Berkeley Version in Modern English.

However, even beyond a common publisher, there’s still another connection that the MLB has with the NIV. If history had turned out a bit differently, there’s a strong chance that the MLB--and not the NIV--could have risen to become the English-speaking world’s top-selling translation. Who knows? Perhaps instead of the TNIV, we’d have had Today’s Modern Language Bible (the TMLB!) for critics to be upset over.

Background. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Some may be wondering how the MLB came to be. This translation began as audacious dream of Gerrit Verkuyl, a Presbyterian minister and staff member of the Board of Christian Education of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. I say that the dream was audacious for two reasons. First, for Verkuyl, English was not a primary language. Nevertheless, this Dutch-born immigrant to the United States desired to create a Bible translation in modern English. Second, the seeds of this dream had been planted in Verkuyl's spirit during his undergraduate studies at Park College in Missouri where a professor instilled in him a love for Greek, and Verkuyl began comparing the Greek New Testament with the King James Version and the Dutch Bible he was most familiar with. Verkuyl determined that his Dutch Bible was more faithful to the Greek than the KJV, and he longed for a modern and accurate version to be made available in his newly adopted tongue, English. Yet, Verkuyl's career got in the way of his idea for a new translation, and work did not actually begin on it until he reached retirement at the age of 65! But if Moses' most important mission didn't begin until he was eighty, Verkuyl was not about to let his age get in the way of his dream.

In 1936 Gerrit Verkuyl began working on his modern language New Testament. A year later he moved to Berkeley, California, and in 1939 he retired from the Board of Christian Education so that he could devote his full energies to his translation. Borrowing the name of his new home, Verkuyl published the first edition of The Berkeley Version of the New Testament in 1945. The publishing rights were eventually transferred to Zondervan where there was interest in creating a complementary Old Testament as well. Such a large project as an Old Testament translation was outside the bounds of Verykuyl's abilities, especially at his advanced age. But a team of nineteen Hebrew scholars was put together who worked under Verkuyl's supervision to create a new translation of the Old Testament using the same principles and guidelines that Verkuyl had followed in translating his New Testament. The entire Bible was finally published in 1959 as The Berkeley Version of the Bible in Modern English. Verkuyl's lifelong dream which began when he was in his twenties, and was not commenced until he was in his sixties, was not fully completed until he was 86 years old!

The staff of Old Testament translators for the 1959 edition reads like a who's who of mid-twentieth century evangelical OT scholarship:

Gleason Archer, Fuller Theological Seminary
John W. Bailey, Berkeley Baptist Divinity School
David E. Culley, Western Theological Seminary
Derward W. Deere, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary
Clyde T. Francisco, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Leonard Greenway, Pastor, Bethel Christian Reformed Church
Howard A. Hanke, Asbury College
S. Lewis Johnson, Dallas Theological Seminary
James B. Keefer, Missionary, United Presbyterian Church
William Sanford LaSor, Fuller Theological Seminary
Jacob M. Myers, Lutheran Theological Seminary
J. Barton Payne, Trinity Theological Seminary/Wheaton College
George L. Robinson, McCormick Theological Seminary
Samuel Schultz, Wheaton College
B. Hathaway Struthers, chaplain, U. S. Navy
Merrill F. Unger, Dallas Theological Seminary
Gerard Van Groningen, Reformed Theological College
Gerrit Verkuyl, Presbyterian Board of Education
Leon J. Wood, Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and Bible Institute
Martin J. Wyngaarden, Calvin Theological Seminary

Of the 1959 edition, F. F. Bruce wrote, "The Berkeley Version is the most outstanding among recent translations of both Testaments sponsored by private groups." And although he continued his enthusiasm toward the translation, especially the Old Testament, Bruce went on to point out numerous errors and questionable renderings in in 1961 book, The History of the Bible in English. Although the MLB was generally well received, the criticisms by Bruce and others led to another revision by E. Schuyler English, Frank E. Gaebelein, and G. Henry Waterman. That edition--said to be a revision, not a re-translation in the preface--was published in 1969, after the Verkuyl's death. The 1969 edition also received a new name: The Modern Language Bible: The New Berkeley Version in Modern English. According to the book, House of Zondervan,

the old [name] had become the victim of current events. The university in the city for which the version was named--Berkeley, California--had become a center of student revolt and the Free Speech Movement in the mid to late sixties, and the name Berkeley was a byword for antiestablishment protests.

Of course, the MLB was an antiestablishment protest in a sense. It was a protest against the KJV as the primary Bible used by English speaking Christians of his day.
The NIV Connection. So what's the MLB's relationship to the NIV? Well recently, David Dewey (author of A User's Guide to Bible Translations) and I were discussing the MLB via email correspondence. Dewey reminded me that if history had turned out a little differently, there's a strong possibility that the NIV would have never been and it might have been the MLB that went on to become the English-speaking world's most popular Bible versions. David wrote:

Apparently, when the National Association of Evangelicals inquired into a translation suitable for evangelical and evangelistic purposes, various options were considered before a decision was made to go for an entirely new translation. The options included the NASB, an evangelical edition of the RSV (how ironic we now have the ESV!) and Verkuyl's work

From David Dewey's book, A User's Guide to Bible Translations, in regard to the NIV:

As early as 1953 two separate approaches to inquire if an evangelical edition of the RSV might be permitted were declined. (One was made by the Evangelical Theological Society, the other by Oaks Hills Christian Training School, Minnesota. See Thuesen: In Discordance with the Scriptures, page 134). Separately from this, in 1955, Christian businessman Howard Long asked the Christian Reformed Church, of which he was a member, to consider the need for a Bible suited to evangelistic work. In 1956 the Synod of the CRC appointed a committee to consider the possibility. Independently of this, the National Association of Evangelicals set up a similar inquiry in 1957. A joint committee of the two groups was formed in 1961.

In a two-hour meeting in 1966 with Luther Weigle, chairman of the RSV committee, the option of preparing an evangelical edition of the RSV was again refused, despite a Catholic edition appearing in the same year. Other translations, including the Berkeley Version and the as yet incomplete NASB were also deemed unsuitable for what was in mind. So work on the NIV began in 1967, undertaken by the New York Bible Society (subsequently renamed the International Bible Society and relocated to Colorado Springs).

But who knows? Consider that in his section on The Berkeley Version of 1959, F. F. Bruce wrote the following:

The general format of this version reminds one forcibly of the Revised Standard Version, and it might not be too wide of the mark to describe it as a more conservative counterpart to the RSV

But in reading the rest of Bruce's review, one might understand why the Berkeley Version was passed up in favor of a brand new translation that would become the NIV. In reality, as demonstrated by Bruce, the 1959 still had quite a few rough spots. And Bruce's treatment today is a bit frustrating because although his book was updated in both 1970 and 1978, in neither one does he update his review. The reality is that when one compares Bruce's criticisms of the New Berkeley Version to the 1969 revision reflected in the MLB, the vast majority of them were corrected! Obviously, the revisers took into consideration Bruce's critique clearing up almost 90% of his concerns (but oddly leaving a few glaring ones intact). In the 1978 edition of Bruce's book, he merely adds this disclaimer: "The Berkeley version was revised as The Modern Language Bible, and many of the above-mentioned "stylistic oddities" were happily replaced by acceptable renderings (1969)." In my opinion, a much better survey of the MLB is found in the now out-of-print So Many Versions? (1983 edition) by Sakae Kubo and Walter F. Specht. In fact, these authors devote an entire chapter consisting of nine pages to the MLB--the most complete treatment of this Bible version I've seen yet.

Character and Significance. Gerrit Verkuyl wrote of his Berkeley Version that

I aimed at a translation less interpretive than Moffatt’s, more cultured in language than Goodspeed’s, more American than Weymouth’s, and less like the King James Version than the RSV.

In large part, he succeeded at his goal. He saw a definite need for a Bible translation such as his in the era in which he lived. Admittedly if one were to pick up the MLB for the first time today, it might come across as totally unremarkable in terms of contemporary language. In fact, at this point, it might be a bit dated in places. But this was not so in Verkuyl's day when the vast majority of Christendom still used the King James Version. One cannot even truly grasp the significance of the MLB without realizing that it was primarily created to counter the KJV's dominance in the English-speaking Church. By contrast, we have so many "modern language" Bibles to choose from today, we easily forget that merely a generation ago this was not the case.

Perhaps the fact that English was not Verkuyl's original language allowed him to see the inherent problems with a four-century old translation more easily.

A little girl from a Christian home asked me, “Why do I have to suffer to come to Jesus?” (Matt. 19:14, AV). Upon my reply that Jesus loves children and makes those happy who come to Him, she quoted what she had learned in Sunday School, and what she understood Jesus had said, “Suffer, little children to come to me.” How utterly contrary to our Lord’s intention was this small child’s conclusion! Divine revelation is intended to reveal His thoughts, but to this child the words of the AV failed to convey our Lord’s gracious invitation and no amount of dignity or rhythm can make up for such a failure. That child is entitled to a language in which it thinks and lives, and this is a right all human beings deserve.

Some might wonder where the MLB stands on the scale of translation (literal/formal/median/dynamic/paraphrase). I've never seen this directly addressed in any analysis of the MLB. Nevertheless, in my evaluation, the MLB is still basically a formal equivalent translation, but perhaps not so much as the RSV of its day. I'd probably place it on the scale somewhere between the RSV and the NIV as it does not quite reach the freedom in rendering that the latter does. Nevertheless, Verkuyl does seem to talk of moving away from a strict world-for word method in order to reach the thoughts of God. In the preface to the original Berkeley New Testament, Verkuyl wrote

As thought and action belong together so do religion and life. the language, therefore, that must serve to bring us God's thoughts and ways toward us needs to be the language in which we think and live rather than that of our ancestors who expressed themselves differently.

Certainly this is true and a reality that translators should keep in mind today concerning common use translations.

Verkuyl's vision was to create a Bible that employed contemporary, but not colloquial language. As I mentioned above, many of these renderings today would seem unremarkable to those who are accustomed to modern translations. Nevertheless, the MLB had its own personality, sometimes simply for a rendering such as Gen 3:1 which I quoted at the beginning of this post. While the KJV used "subtil" [sic], and most other translations use "crafty," the MLB describes the serpent in the garden as wily: he was "the wiliest of all the field animals the LORD God had made." Such distinction in word choice gives the MLB a unique flavor of its own. Consider these examples to which I will give emphasis to the MLB's unique rendering:

In Matt 19:25, many translations render ἐκπλήσσω with the word amazed or slightly better astonished. But I've never thought that these words quite capture the meaning of the original. Yet, see how the MLB translates the verse:

When the disciples heard this, they were utterly dumbfounded, and said, "Who then can be saved?" (Matt 19:25)

Some will find the overt legal terminology questionable, but the MBL's rendering of παράκλητος certainly brings out that aspect:

Dear children, I write you these things so you may not sin, and if anyone does sin, we have a counsel for our defense in the Father's presence, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. (1 John 2:1)

While other translations were still translating ἱλασμός as propitiation or expiation, Verkuyl used something more simpler, perhaps even influencing later translations such as the NIV:

He is Himself an atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. (1 John 2:2)

No "broken pieces" in Mark 8:8. Rather something that is immediately understandable:

So they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up the leftovers, seven baskets full. (Mark 8:8)

The camaraderie that was surely present between Jesus and the disciples is reflected in a verse like this:

Then Jesus said to them, "Boys, have you caught anything?" They answered Him, "No." (John 21:5)

But perhaps at times, the rendering is a bit too modern:

The disciple whom Jesus loved then said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" So Simon Peter, hearing "It is the Lord," wrapped his work jacket around him (for he was stripped) and flung himself into the sea. (John 21:7)

Another unique rendering that demonstrates Verkuyl's sensitivity to the original languages is found in his translation of μέγας in Matt 18:4. I'm not sure what lexicons Verkuyl consulted for his work, but obviously it was not the newest edition of the BDAG. Nevertheless, in my copy (which is the 2000 third edition), μέγας in Matt 4:18 is listed with the meaning "pertaining to be relatively superior in intensity, great." The problem is that this relative aspect is somewhat lost when most translations simply use the word, greatest. Note how the MLB renders the verse remaining true to the relative use of μέγας in this verse:

Whoever then humbles himself like this little child, he excels in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 18:4)

Although the MLB was in many ways a reaction against the dominance of the KJV, and although Verkuyl did not tie himself to Tyndale-tradition renderings, nevertheless, he was still sensitive to the fact that most of his readers would still be very well acquainted with the KJV. According to Kubo and Specht, Verkuyl based the original Berkeley NT on the 8th edition of Tichendorf's Greek text in consultation with the Nestle text of his day. Knowing that his translation would be read by those more familiar with the KJV, he often included Textus Receptus readings in brackets within the text. So with the Lord's Prayer in Matthew six, Verkuyl adds the phrase "For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen," but does so bracketed. He included such phrases in the actual text because he knew that these were readings that would be made in the church. The MLB was not merely meant to be read alongside the KJV, but to supplant it for as many people willing to do so. In explanation to the verse mentioned above, a footnote appears:

The words enclosed in brackets are not found in the majority of the most reliable ancient manuscripts. They have been added to the text here to make the prayer more appropriate for public worship. Certainly the last sentence is compatible with Scripture. Cf I Chron. 29:11. In Luke's account of the Lord's Prayer, Lk. 11:2-4, this sentence is omitted.

One very nice feature of the MLB is the abundance of footnotes to the text. Verkuyl believed that footnotes to the text could and should be used as frequently as necessary to help the reader bridge that gap between the languages and contexts of the original authors. Some footnotes are textual in nature such as the one quoted above. But many have to do with backgrounds/historical issues or even explanations of Greek or Hebrew words. A few tend to be more applicatory. On the same page as as the footnote quoted above, one finds these explanations:

• For robe and tunic in Matt 5:40-- "A tunic reached to the knees; a robe was a long outside garment which reached almost to the ankles."
• For Matt 5:43, cross-references are offered: "Lev. 19:18; Deut 23:3-6."
• A note of application is given for Matt 5:45-- "We show that we are God's sons by living His principles."
• For Matt 5:48, the word perfect is explained: "'Perfect' is from the Greek teleios meaning complete, mature."
• For 6:12, an interpretive explanation: "Debts [the word Verkuyl uses here in his translation], or trespasses in the sense of falling short of God's requirements."

This one page in the MLN demonstrates the kind of notes offered. Such notes are plentiful throughout both testaments.

Another modern aspect of the MLB was the desire by Verkuyl and the OT translators to give strictly modern equivalents to weights, measures and even currency. Consider these verses from the MLB compared with the most recent of the contemporary translations, the TNIV:

GENESIS 6:15
MLB	TNIV
Construct it after this fashion: The length of the ark 450 feet; its width 75 feet and its depth 45 feet.	This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.* *That is, about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high or about 135 meters long, 22.5 meters wide and 13.5 meters high.
EXODUS 29:40
MLB	TNIV
With the first lamb you shall offer an ample six pints of fine flour mixed with 3 pints of pressed olive oil; and a libation of 3 pints of wine.	With the first lamb offer a tenth of an ephah* of the finest flour mixed with a quarter of a hin** of oil from pressed olives, and a quarter of a hin of wine as a drink offering. *That is, probably about 3 1/2 pounds or about 1 1/2 kilograms **That is, probably about 1 quart or about 0.9 liter.
EXODUS 38:26
MLB	TNIV
was about 12,000 pounds* around 65 cents per man for everyone registered from 20 years up, 603,550** men. *$201,000. ** No money had been coined; it had to be weighed. Actual values of gold and silver can be estimated only approximately. Classically, a talent of gold equaled $30,000 and a talent of silver $2,000; a shekel of gold $10 and a shekel of silver 65 cents. One standard of values remains--a day's wages and what can be bought for it; but monetary wages are not mentioned in our early Scripture.	one beka per person, that is, half a shekel,* according to the sanctuary shekel, from everyone who had crossed over to those counted, twenty years old or more, a total of 603,550 men. *That is, about 1/5 ounce or about 5.7 grams.
MATTHEW 25:15
MLB	TNIV
To one he gave ten thousand dollars;* to another, four thousand; and to a third, two thousand--each according to his own ability; then he went away. *In vss. 15-28 the direct translation from the Greek text reads "five talents [pente talanta]," "two talents" and "one talent," and in vs. 29 "ten talents." A silver talent wouldbe equivalent to about $2000 in mid-twentieth century U.S. currency, so that the figures given in this edition are approximately accurate.	To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. *Greek five talents . . . two talents . . . one talent; also throughout this parable; a talent was worth about 20 years of a day laborer’s wage.

The desire to make measures and weights into modern equivalents is admirable. In recent translations, the NLT is probably best at this. Note that in Gen 6:16 quoted above, the original NIV had feet instead of cubits, but this was changed in the TNIV--further evidence of my contention that overall the TNIV is more literal than the NIV. Nevertheless, while an admirable goal for the MLB, surely the greatest challenge would have to do with currency. The TNIV demonstrates contemporary wrestling with this issue in the questionable use of "bags of gold" in Matt 25 (obviously this was done because the average reader confuses monetary talents with "special ability" talents). The MLB's use of "cents" in the OT somehow seems out of place. But the greater problem lies in rising inflation rates. Maybe inflation was not a great issue in the fifties and sixties, but such use today would quickly date a translation. At our current rate of language change, English translations of the Bible only seem to have about a 20 to 25 year life span in my estimation. But adding in current monetary values--especially oddly placed United States monetary values--would date a translation very quickly. Perhaps only the NET Bible with its promised five years for a fixed translation between editions could pull this off, but because of the other factors mentioned here, I would certainly not recommend it.

Like many translations of its day, the MLB uses more formal pronouns (thee, thy, thou) for addressing God in the Old Testament. In earlier editions this practice was continued in the New Testament as well referring to Christ, but only in certain contexts. In the 1969 revision, this practice was removed altogether from the NT, but retained in the OT. The MLB also used capital letters for pronouns referring to deity throughout both testaments. However, like the RSV, the MLB did not follow the KJV's practice of formatting words added for understanding in italics.

A rather odd feature of the original Berkeley Version was the non-use of quotation marks for any words spoken by God or Jesus. The rationale was that all of the Bible is God's Word and Jesus is the Word of God, so why use quotation marks? This practice was done away with in the NT for the 1969 revision, but retained in the OT which received less attention from the revisers. In spite of F. F. Bruce's enthusiasm for the MLB OT in the 1959 edition, I would suggest that in the final product of the 1969 edition, the NT is much more consistent and polished.

The MLB Old Testament is significant because it was one of the first English translations to take advantage of the newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls. This version used the DSS to "fix" known problems in the Masoretic text. Nearly all modern translations do the same, today. But if I may be so bold as to disagree with "the Bruce," the MLB OT needed at least one more revisers' pass to make it thoroughly ready for widespread use. Part of the problem stemmed from a lack of editorial committees, a practice common in translations today. The OT scholars responsible for translating the OT were primarily left to themselves, having been given the instruction to follow the same "modern language" principles utilized by Verkuyl in his original NT. Then Verkuyl himself acted as a final editor for the OT, a very large task for one man, and one who was aging at that.

The most glaring inconsistency has to do with the use of the divine name, the Tetragrammaton. The MLB generally follows the principle used in most English translations by simply using the word LORD, spelled in all caps to represent God's name. However, like some modern translations, including the HCSB, there are some texts when reference is made to the name that the actual name itself would make more sense. But this name has been spelled differently over the centuries, and oddly enough, two different spellings show up in the MLB:

"Jehovah"

God said further to Moses, You tell the Israelites: Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob has sent me to you. This is My name forever and by this I am to be remembered through all generations. (Ex 3:15)

O Jehovah, our LORD, how glorious is Thy name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:1/9)

"Yahweh"

the LORD, the God of hosts, YAHWEH His name. (Hos 12:5)

And then one text where the reader might expect to see the name spelled out, it is not:

Seek Him who makes the Pleiades and Orion, who turns blackness to morning and darkens day to night; Him who calls the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth--the LORD is His name. (Amos 5:8)

Well, this is sloppy for more than just the inconsistency regarding the divine name. There are other problems in these texts. In Psalm 8:1/9 above, if Jehovah is used, LORD should not be in all caps because the second occurrence is adonai, not YHWH. And Hos 12:5 above is not a typo on my part. The text would read better with a verb added: "YAHWEH is His name."

One doesn't really wonder why the 1959 edition was passed over as a suitable translation to be used in evangelical and evangelistic purposes. The translation, especially the OT, was still a bit rough. But these very errors mentioned immediately above were noted by F. F. Bruce, so it's surprising they weren't corrected in the 1969 revision because other issues certainly were changed. Nevertheless, the MLB retains a significant place in 20th century translations, but was eclipsed by later translations, especially the NIV.

What's Available and Concluding Thoughts.I picked up my first copy of the MLB sometime in the late eighties--a green paperback Zondervan edition with California grapes on the cover. Technically, this translation was past its prime by the time I came to the party, but for whatever reason I clicked with it. Many nights at church, since I wasn't teaching, I left my NASB at home and carried my MLB. In fact, in many ways, in those pre-computer days, it was one of my most used secondary Bibles.

When I first put together this list of top ten Bibles, I tried to make clear that although some of them really were translations I used a good bit, others were not--but were primarily "best of" a certain category of Bible. To me, the MLB--specifically the NT--stands as one of the best (and most consistent) single-translator Bible versions ever produced in the 20th century. These days, committees produce most of our English translations. But we should be careful to remember that individuals have been responsible for quite a few translations that are worthy of our attention. This includes Bible versions such as those produced by Tyndale, Moffatt, Goodspeed, Beck, Phillips, Taylor, certainly Verkuyl, and a host of others.

To be honest, I don't use the MLB all that much anymore. Frankly, I'd use it more if I had an electronic edition in Accordance, but I can't find electronic editions anywhere except one made for PDA's. That means it is available in an electronic edition, just not a practical one (for my purposes). However, to its credit, the MLB has not yet gone out of print in its 60 years of publication. In 1990, after a near-exclusive history with Zondervan, the rights were transferred to Hendirickson Publishers. When Hendrickson took over, they released a nice hardback edition which I promptly bought and gave away my green Zondervan paperback to a minister friend. Currently, that hardback edition is no longer in print, but Hendrickson does make available a copy of the MLB in paperback (ISBN 1565639316). If you consider yourself an enthusiast of Bible translations, your collection is nowhere near complete without the MLB.

Whether or not the MLB (or the earlier Berkeley Version) was ever published in leather, I have no idea. Every copy I've ever seen, even of the original editions were hardback. If someone knows differently, let us know in the comments.

The MLB is definitely past its prime. I don't see the MLB getting any attention on the copyright pages of Christian books anymore. But it certainly did for a while. It was widely used in evangelical publishing--usually as a secondary translation, but there were also a handful of books based primarily on it. Billy Graham even gave away copies of the NT at his crusades, I've been told as recently as the early nineties. Certainly more than a footnote in Bible history, the MLB at least was an important chapter as English-speaking Christians gradually began to move away from the KJV. If the MLB was a "conservative RSV," it was eventually replaced by others translations which were even more so, including the NASB and the NIV which ultimately eclipsed it. But it almost was the NIV. Would history have turned out differently if the equivalent of the 1969 edition had already been released when the search was on for a modern English translation to use for evangelistic purposes?

The MLB seems to be a translation that could have been much more. In truth, it needed one more revision that never came. Within less than ten years of its final edition, its publisher Zondervan began marketing the first edition of a new translation, the New International Version--which finally did unseat the KJV as the most used English translation. While the NIV really was a better translation overall, the MLB had a bit of personality that I'm not sure was present in the NIV. I mean, you don't see clever renderings like wiliest in Gen 3:15 in the NIV (although check out NIV Job 5:18). There may be a word of warning here, too. Even a good translation can fall into disuse if neglected in favor of another by a publisher simply because one will bring in more money. I would like to continue to encourage Zondervan to transition itself away from the NIV as a base translation to its successor the TNIV, something that has been slow to take place. I'd hate to see the TNIV sitting beside the MLB one day as another victim of the NIV's success.

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Sources used:
F. F. Bruce, The History of the Bible in English
David Dewey, A User's Guide to Bible Translations
Sakae Kubo and Walter F. Specht, So Many Versions? 20th Century English Versions of the Bible (out of print, but used copies are still available)
James E. Ruark, The House of Zondervan
Gerrit Verkuyl, "The Berkeley Version of the New Testament" (this article was written before the final editions, so some references have been changed, but it provides a good introduction and insight into Verkuyl's vision and goals).

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Up Next: The Honorable Mentions: The KJV, the NET Bible, the Cotton Patch Version...and one more that I've added since I made the original list...

Tags: MLB, Top Ten