bacht

To justify the Flood and emphasize God's mercy in not destroying us again?

There are old Mesopotamian stories about humans irritating the gods, and the gods regretting creating them. The Greeks had Prometheus, who tried to help humans and got punished for it.

Then there's politics: the need to keep the "little people" in their place, with proper deference to kings and priests.

HaRaAYaH

Because it fit's their world view. If your view is that man is born sinful and needs to be baptized to wipe away the original sin than that's the way you read the text. It's what all translators do most of the time not even consciously.

Newton's Cat

NIV Bible is a translation (the whole bloody thing from beginning to end!) produced by people who have an obsession with violence and nastiness. It's so obvious to me I wonder why Christians tolerate it ... maybe the people who favour it like that kind of stuff?

' ... for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; ...' - KJV

A reasonable comment about the condition of most of us humans, eh?