Our message, Built on Common Ground, is appealing to many Christians who agree that the Bible is not a weapon but should be an instrument for spreading God's grace to all seekers and believers.  We are pleased to hear when any person reads their preferred translation, so we try not to imagine that the Common English Bible is in a contest to make other translations obsolete. If we apply the business principle of competition too literally to the distribution of the Bible, we easily slip into the same error that Jesus' disciples made when they asked Jesus who will be the greatest disciple?

Some unique characteristics are tied to the CEB. 1) translators from 24 denominations who came together from evangelical and liberal traditions worked very hard at consensus building.  2) the smoothness and naturalness of the English was improved by field testing (reading the text aloud) during the translation process in 77 reading groups. 3) 34 percent of the persons on the teams were women, again out of the conviction that common ground is possible and that God's grace is available to any person regardless of gender, age, identity, or color. 

2. What do you believe will be the long-term effects/results of the CEB? What do you think will be the overall impact? What do you predict will happen to the CEB in the next couple of years?
We expect that the CEB will become one of the most used Bible translations.  Many editions are already available (see www.commonenglishbible.com).  Many more are planned.  The two most important editions will include the CEB Deep Blue Kid's Bible that appears in August 2012 and the CEB Study Bible in the fall of 2013.  In general, when a new translation appears, people start reading the Bible again because the fresh language motivates passive or weary readers to take up the discipline of digesting God's word. Living the common ground is the next objective.

3. How do you think the CEB will do compared to popular translations like the NIV? Will its reach be as widespread like the NIV? 

The reach of the CEB might become as widespread as the NIV, given the number of Christian leaders and congregations that are attracted to the CEB's common ground and common language. The CEB is not as dependent on KJV vocabulary as are the five most purchased  translations. But the extent of the CEB use is of course difficult to predict. The NIV appeared in the 1970s at a time when print publishing and retail distribution, as well as character of denominational groups, were aligned very differently than the influential partners are now lined up in the digital era.  In addition, for more than 50 years now it is apparent that leaders in every generation will put the translation of the ancient Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible into the fresh, natural and common idioms that are spoken by God's people.  Some people prefer not to change their reading habits for understandable reasons, but these continuing acts of Bible translation show that the divine word is just as relevant now as it was when the Bible first began appearing in English (through John Wycliffe) 630 years ago.