Vorkosigan

Murdoch owns the sole publishing rights. The copyright is retained by the International Bible Society.

Copyrighting the Word of the Lord! Sounds like Dianetics to me.

Michael

hezekiah jones

The NIV: Edited by Sodomites.

Pantera

Other famous KJV-only advocates include Kent Hovind and Jack Chick. Of course, not all KJV-only types are as rational and reasonable as those two.

HelenM

The KJV is more of a word-for-word translation whereas the NIV translates phrase-by-phrase.

That means that the NIV is more accurate when they correctly perceived the meaning of the original and less accurate when they didn't.

I personally find the NIV annoying because of that extra interpretive layer in there. For example, in Galatians 1 where Paul says "I wish those [troublesome false teachesr] would be cut off" the NIV has "I wish they would be eternally condemned!"

But really the word eternally is not even in there.

Cut off could mean all kinds of things and in no way can we know Paul was referring to some after-death hell scenario for those people...so here the NIV translators egregiously based their translation on their own theology and opinions for no obvious good reason -- 'cut off' would have been fine.

Anyway that is a fine point; in general the KJV and NIV are similarly attempts to be very close to the meaning of the original texts and the NIV being recent is much easier to read than the KJV. Since the KJV has been published lots of words have changed meaning. So I think it's unkind to try to force people to struggle with reading the KJV who can't don't want to. But it's still a 'good' translation, if you're prepared to read it knowing you'll have to look lots of words up because they don't mean what they meant in 1611.

Because the NIV is fairly easy to read and thought relatively accurate by most Christians, it is widely used and has become the best-selling translation of the Bible, overtaking the KJV in sales just a few years ago.

love
Helen

The Guy

I do believe that the NIV translates some passages quite a bit differently than any other versions do. Jeremiah 7:22 seems a little bit less contradictory in the NIV than it does in every other translation I have read.

But the first time I actually suspected the translators of 'covering up' an error was when I read Luke 24:43&44. My NIV study bible breaks the narrative, and places a footnote at the bottom of the page explaining that the rest of the conversation Jesus had with his disciples happened several weeks later, despite having to tamper with the text a bit in order to justify breaking the conversation into two sections. Messing with the text at that point certainly erases an obvious contradiction to the instructions Jesus left for his disciples.

At that point I decided I would never use an NIV to study the bible again.

Nomad

I have the NIV Student's Bible, and I do not have any footnote at all connected with Luke 24:43-44. Are you sure you are talking about the right passage? I checked the following translations available online:

NIV Bible
Luke 24:43-44 and he took it and ate it in their presence. He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."

RSV Bible
Luke 24:43-44 and he took it and ate before them. Then he said to them, "These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled."

NET Bible Luke 24:43 and he took it and ate it in front of them. 24:44 Then (107) he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me (108) in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms (109) must be fulfilled."

I checked notes 107 to 109 and found no mention of a break in the passage of time.

Every translation I have seen says essentially the same thing, so what exactly was the difficulty you saw here? Are you thinking of some other text?

Nomad

[ October 21, 2001: Message edited by: Nomad ]

The Guy

No mistake.

Here is what my NIV study bible has.

There is a footnote at the bottom of the page that states:
The contradiction should be evident between the instructions in Matt and Mark and those in Luke. Matt and Mark have Jesus telling the disciples to return to Galilee, but the narrative in Luke has Jesus instructing the disciples to stay in Jerusalem until pentacost. There is simply no room for any weeks long trip to Galilee and back. A contradiction.

When I noticed the way the NIV starts v44 with "He" and every other translation starts v44 with either an "and" or "then", I wondered if there was any justification for the translators to drop the conjunction or adverb that starts the verse in other translations. So I popped open my transliterate NT and noticed that v44 started with "and", the romanized greek word was 'de', which is a continuing term usually translated as "and" or "then" (I don't read or understand koine greek, so I am at the mercy of lexicons and concordances.), it appears to me that there was no reason to break up the text between those two verses and no reason for not beginning the verse with some word to connect it to the previous sentence which was obviously intended from the writer to be a single conversation.

Reading the preface to NIV offers a clue as to why the translators might favor a less than ordinary choice of words in some instances. They are compromised by their interest in perserving the integrity of scripture.

That is just one of the reasons I will not use the NIV. Their alterations might be subtle, but they are still there.

[ October 21, 2001: Message edited by: The Guy ]

HelenM

Guy

I know I'm preaching to the choir...but here's my favorite NIV study note:

The passage is:

Said by none other than Jesus, in a passage in which he calls the Pharisees hypocrites over and over again.

Anyway the NIV study Bible note says



love
Helen

Apikorus

An amusing factoid regarding the KJV: The KJV always follows the masoretic qere in instances of kethib/qere. Nice to know that Kent Hovind and his ilk have such high regard for rabbinic tradition. Heh heh.

jre

Semi-on topic: Comparisions between different versions on Ezekiel 23:20.

NIV
There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

NRSV
She lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions.

KJV
She dotes upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

Good News Bible
She was filled with lust for oversexed men who had all the lustfulness of donkeys or stallions.

For some reason or another the local diocese recommended the Good News Bible over all other versions for grade schools.

edit - damn tyops.
edit #2 - I mean "typos"

[ October 22, 2001: Message edited by: jre ]

[ October 22, 2001: Message edited by: jre ]