Kevin Brown shared a long list of issues with the NIV translation of the Bible which were compiled on the blog Is That In The Bible? It includes this quote from N. T. Wright:
When the New International Version was published in 1980, I was one of those who hailed it with delight. I believed its own claim about itself, that it was determined to translate exactly what was there, and inject no extra paraphrasing or interpretative glosses…. Disillusionment set in over the next two years, as I lectured verse by verse through several of Paul’s letters, not least Galatians and Romans. Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said…. [I]f a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about. [Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision
, 2009, pp. 51-52]
I've talked about this before. It seems to me that, if in order to get the Bible to seem to be right, you have to tinker with what it actually says, then you are actually trying to hide the truth about the Bible, and are in no sense a defender of the Bible or its accuracy. You are like a PR company trying to salvage the Bible's image. But PR companies know the truth, and I suspect so do you.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In