The following was written by Dick France. It was chapter 7 in the book edited by Scorgie, Strauss and Voth -- The Challenge of Bible Translation. His contribution is called The Bible in English : An Overview.
"The Bible is expected to speak in Elizabethan English. The colloquial language employed by Tyndale so that the Scriptures would be accessible to the ploughboy has thus become, with the passing of time, the esoteric language of religion, and the more remote it becomes from ordinary speech the more special and holy it seems." (p.193)
"But the Bible, or most of it, was not written in a special 'holy' language. The Hebrew prophets spoke in vigorous contemporary idioms, and the New Testament writers used 'market Greek.' A translation that will do justice to the intention of the original writers must put intelligibility before the maintenance of traditional language that no longer communicates effectively." (p.193)