The first is that the different denominations have different attitudes to them. It does those that do not rate them no harm to have access to them, and the difference in price between a bible with or without the extra books is not usually very great. But if you leave them out, you are saying ‘we only publish our bible for the Xs. If you’re a Y, we aren’t really interested in whether you read it or not’.

The second is that irrespective of the status ones denomination gives them, some of the material in them is both edifying and a good read – better than a lot of other spiritual reading that some people regard as almost sacred. I’d particularly commend Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Wisdom, the Song of the Three Children and 1 Maccabees.

If someone wants to study them then why not just go out and buy them separately. They are not divinely inspired and therefore, surely, they do not deserve to be included in the Bible.

I am not trying to start a riot or start a debate on the supposed pros or cons, but it is just that I have never heard any justification for their inclusion.

In the last few days someone has added to the Crosswire, Sword Project, site three different versions of something called the New Heart English Bible, one ordinary one, one Messianic Edition and one Jehovah Edition. But I can’t find out why, or why they claim this is any better or different from any of the other versions.

I also accept the point about advances in scholarship, but how many of these are developments accepted by the generality of all reputable scholars rather than issues that different scholars have genuine differences of opinion on, so that different translations represent the opinions of one group of scholars over another rather than the consensus of all except the mavericks?

Does Brian really think it’s a sin to “speak harshly” against a Bible translation, a person promoting a particular translation, a publishing company, or its marketing strategies? Sometimes publishers and publications, translators and translations, and marketing and marketers need to be harshly criticized. It seems just a bit too much like well-intentioned, yet misguided “Christian niceness” to say otherwise.

I know this is hardly the appropriate thing to say on a Better Bibles Blog, but a few months ago I referred to the news that somebody was producing a new translation that I thought it should be referred to as the NAV – i.e. Not Another Version. I still think that.

I don’t really agree with our praising the publishers of the NIV for revising the translation to make it more like the TNIV. If it superseded both of them, perhaps fine, but what about all the people who already have the other two and the churches that have chosen either as their church bible. If it doesn’t supersede them, that means three versions in stead of two, that differ slightly on a few points that some people feel strongly about.

Wouldn’t it be better if we all accepted that no version is perfect, if we put up with a version that is OK but not perfect and if we decided there’s rather more priority in producing bibles for languages that haven’t got them? Or if we have to work in English, then put the effort into completing deuterocanonicals for existing translations that haven’t got them at the moment.