People who use the NIV exclusively need to also see the value of the NASB. All Bible-loving-and-reading Christians need to learn to see the value in all good Bible translations. Image taken from Mark Strauss’ Mobile Ed Course, BI181 Introducing Bible Translationsīut get that thumb out of your mouth, because it’s still wrong for Christians to be suspicious of other Christians just because of the Bible translation they carry to church. And I’ve argued before that the common translation continuum is, though potentially misleading (because all translations use a mixture of both “literal” and “dynamic” renderings), still genuinely useful as a rule of thumb: It’s not completely accidental that each of these groups would gravitate toward particular translations. There really are different groups in Christianity, and they really have differences.
There is probably a little truth in every one of these somewhat tongue-in-cheek stereotypes (except in the ones you don’t like, of course). The NRSV and CEB are the Bibles of Protestant mainliners.The NET Bible is the Bible of computer nerds.The NLT is the Bible of seeker-sensitive evangelicals.The HCSB is the Bible of Southern Baptists.The KJV is the Bible of fundamental, independent Baptists.The NASB is the Bible of conservative evangelical serious Bible students.
The ESV is the Bible of complementarian, conservative, neo-Reformed evangelicals.