NIV Part 2: Textual Errors

If you’ve ever been told a modern Bible version “says the same thing, just easier,” we put that claim under a microscope with a blunt, verse-by-verse critique of the New International Version. We’re not arguing taste, style, or personalities. We’re asking a sharper question: what happens when a translation repeatedly changes wording tied to the virgin birth, the atoning blood of Christ, and the way the New Testament quotes Old Testament prophecy?

We walk through specific passages where the NIV wording differs from the King James Bible, including Luke 2:33 and the impact of calling Joseph “the child’s father,” Colossians 1:14 and the omission of “through his blood,” and Romans 1:16 where “the gospel of Christ” is reduced to “the gospel.” From there, we dig into what we see as credibility-breaking issues such as Mark 1:2 attributing a quotation to Isaiah while also quoting Malachi, and Matthew 27:35 where an explicit fulfillment line is missing from the main text.

We also tackle the bigger textual criticism questions people search for every day: NIV missing verses, bracketed passages like Mark 16:9–20 and John 7:53–8:11, and footnotes that say “some manuscripts” without clear detail. We close with the real-world fallout we see in the pew when people can’t agree on what the text even says, and we tell you how to get the full five-part study in one place. Subscribe, share this with a friend who reads the NIV, and leave a review with the verse you want us to examine next.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why This Series Hurts

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And a very, very pleasant good day to each and every one of you. I'm Brother James. I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And I welcome you once again to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast. You know, sometimes sometimes this program is like a bad accident on the highway. You drive past it, you don't want to look at it, but something compels you. It may be curiosity, it may be some morbid sense of fascination, but you can't just pass it by. You've got to take a look. And I realize that many of you are not in any way, shape, or form enjoying this series of studies in which we are pointing out to you the reasons why no Christian who considers the facts and weighs the evidence can continue to make use of a new international version, and we are showing you fact upon fact, proof upon proof, that this is not in any way, shape, or form the Bible. Now a lot of you don't like this because you've invested a lot of money in one of these so-called Bibles. A lot of you don't like it because you have a great deal of confidence in some man who uses or recommends one of these Bibles. That's why we never deal with personalities, that's why we never deal with feelings, that's why we never deal with favorite persons or respective persons on these broadcasts. We simply give you the facts, the truth, and you can do with them what you will. Now we've been discussing, we left off on the last broadcast in the midst of a discussion of the textual problems to be found throughout the New International Version.

Virgin Birth Language In Luke 2

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Not only is the doctrine of the person of Christ affected by the NIV, but Christ's virgin birth is weakened in the text of the NIV. The King James Bible in Luke two hundred thirty three reads And Joseph and his mother marveled. The NIV renders this the child's father and mother marveled. Now of course Joseph was not the natural father of Jesus, and in other circumstances this would not be a problem. An adoptive father is often more of a parent than a natural father. No doubt Joseph proved to be a good father to his wife's son. Joseph was hand picked by God for the position, but he was not the father of Jesus, neither physically nor spiritually, as exhibited in Jesus' visit to the temple at the age of twelve. Now the reader of the NIV is given verses in which Joseph and Mary are freely put together as Jesus' parents. Joseph's association with Mary as his father and mother tends to leave the reader with the impression that this special parentage was equally shared by this human couple. And thus the NIV, with its use of the United Bible Society's text, casts doubt on the virgin birth of the Savior in a most blasphemous fashion.

Removing “Through His Blood”

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Another verse which has problems in the NIV is Colossians 1 14. Again, the person and work of Christ are involved. The authorized King James Bible reads, In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. But the NIV changes this to in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Now the King James Bible provides the important words through his blood, which of course are crucial to our understanding of redemption. It is by means of Christ's blood, the precious blood of the covenant, that eternal redemption has been provided for God's people. It is interesting to note that the NIV is seeking to communicate with modern man, yet omits the necessity of Christ's death and the shedding of Christ's blood for man's salvation, because that's a doctrine that modern man finds disagreeable. The NIV is not the word of God. It may be a corrupt commentary on the word of God, it may be a revision of the word of God to make the Bible suitable to infidels in this modern day, but it is not the word of God. In a related matter, Romans 116 in the Authorized King James Version says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. But the NIV renders the words, I am not ashamed of the gospel. The phrase of Christ is omitted without a single note, without a single comment, not

Omitting “Of Christ” In Romans

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only from the NIV, but from the United Bible Society's text as well. What was the good news of which Paul was not ashamed? Christ's own gospel is the only good news man needs to hear. It is the good news of which we must not be ashamed. Christ's gospel is the only one which is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believeth. Why is the New International Version ashamed of the gospel of Christ? Why would anyone listening to my voice who is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ be in possession of such a book? In addition to the doctrine of the person and work of Christ being weakened?

Prophecy Attribution Error In Mark

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The NIV calls into question the integrity and inerrancy of Scripture by introducing mistakes into the very text of Scripture and by omitting portions of verses which show fulfillment of prophecy. For example, in Mark one two, the authorized King James Bible says it is written in the prophets, and then quotes from Malachi three one and Isaiah chapter forty and verse three. But the NIV says as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, and then proceeds to quote from both Isaiah and Malachi. For some reason, not only to God and the devil, the NIV deliberately attributes to Malachi a or the Malachi quotation to Isaiah. Isaiah did not write Malachi. So the authorized King James Bible is the proper reading with the plural word prophets, since there are two of them, so that both Malachi and Isaiah are represented. Now critical scholars would argue that from their reason-based criteria, the United Bible Society's reading as used by the NIV is correct, but by sheer reasoning, based on the presupposition that Scripture is infallible, one can't help but believe that Mark, being a good Jew, would know when a prophecy was from Isaiah and when it was from Malachi. Even without that, the Holy Spirit's guidance would have eliminated the mistake of attributing a passage written by one prophet to another. In this day of unbelief, the NIV only gives the opponents of Scripture added reason to debase the Bible. Worse, it causes even Christians to doubt the veracity of the Word of God, leaving them without an anchor in this world. The rendering of Mark 1 2 in the New International Version is an out and out blatant error, and therefore leaves the NIV with this clear-cut distinction. It is not the Word of God.

Missing Fulfillment Line In Matthew

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Now another problem in prophecy in the NIV is found in Matthew 27 35. The authorized King James Holy Bible reads, And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. Now the NIV renders this When they had crucified him they divided up his clothes by casting lots. The NIV adds a footnote which reads a few late manuscripts Lots that the word spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled. They divided my garments among themselves and cast lots for my clothing, Psalm twenty two eighteen. Old Testament quotations in the news serve several very important purposes. They tie the two testaments together, giving God's people one word. They give Christians a heritage that extends back to creation, and the Jew is a Messiah who fulfilled God's prophecy. They give us proof that God will do all that He has said He will do. Of course there are some quotations that are questionable. Some passages are worded in such a way that one group of Christians will insist that they are quotations, while other Christians will say that they are not. It's a pleasure, therefore, when the New Testament tells us that a passage is a quotation, as it does in Matthew 27 35. It is a frustration when on the basis of the United Bible Society's text the NIV omits the fact. In addition to words and phrases being omitted from the NIV, entire sections of Scripture are not found in its pages, or are set apart and warned against.

Mark 16 And John 8 Set Aside

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Mark 16 verses 9 through 20 is the classic example of this. These verses are found in almost every manuscript of Mark 16 except the Vatican and Sineadicus Manuscripts. Two of them. The NIV includes the passage but separates it from the rest of the text and inserts before it the note the most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark sixteen, nine to twenty. So the NIV has told you they will remove entire passages from the Word of God relying upon the Vatican Manuscript and rejecting over five thousand manuscripts which have the passage. Isn't that a strange thing? The same problem is repeated in John 753 through 811. At a conservative American seminary, one professor who uses the NIV stated that these and other questionable passages are not to be preached or even read because they are not a part of Scripture. A full discussion of the textual evidence for including these passages is well handled in the works of John Burgeon and by the Trinitarian Bible Society in several of its articles and quarterly records. You should obtain, if you can, Article number sixteen on the authenticity of the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to Mark, and the book True or False by David Otis Fuller. Here suffice it to say that the NIV's handling of these passages can do much to dissuade people away from belief in the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, which was the exact position of its translators. The people that put out the NIV didn't believe the Bible as far as they could throw the building I'm sitting in right now. By accepting as fact the textual critical reasoning of liberal men, Christians no longer have an authority on which to rest their faith. There no longer exists one God-inspired Bible, except to those few of us who have held on to the Reformation text of the King James Bible. In addition to these verses being omitted or called into question, there are a number of verses which are deleted entirely from the

Long List Of Deleted Verses

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New International Version. Listen to this. Now keep in mind that God has already warned that anyone who took away from his word would have their name removed from the Lamb's Book of Life. The New International Version has removed Matthew 17 21, Matthew 18 eleven, Matthew 23 14, Mark 9 44, Mark 9 46, Mark 11 26, Mark 15 28, Mark 16 9 20, Luke 17 36, Luke 23 17, John 5 4, Acts 8 37, Acts 15 34, Acts 24 7, Acts 28 29, and Romans 16 24. Those verses are just gone from the NIV. They just took them right out. Proponents of the NIV often argue that none of these textual variants is particularly important. Now that's what they said. That's their attitude toward the Scripture. They claim that no doctrine is affected by these problems. What about the doctrine of inspiration of Scripture? What about the doctrine of the purity of God's Word? What about Jesus' declaration that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God? The NIV translators proclaim that we do not base doctrine on

Why Omissions Undercut Inerrancy

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any one verse. Well, this may be true as far as it goes, but the problem is basically twofold. First, we do not always have many perspicuous verses for any given doctrine. The doctrine may be inherent in all of Scripture, but explicitly stated only once or twice. For example, in 1 John 5 7 removed by the NIV. The omission of one verse will not destroy belief in the entire doctrine, but it makes teaching that doctrine to believers and documenting it to unbelievers very difficult. Now it must be noted that the proponents of the NIV who believe that no doctrine is affected by the NIV's handling of Scripture are wrong. One major doctrine is very greatly affected the inerrancy of Scripture. Now, as we've already said several times, if inerrancy is not based upon the words of Scripture, it has no basis at all. It cannot be based upon the original author's thoughts, or even on the thoughts of God Himself, for these are beyond man's ability to know. Inerrancy must be based upon words, God's words as set forth by God's servants. The Scriptures will remain inerrant no matter what man does for them, but man's belief in their inerrancy and thus in their authority over his life is damaged by the NIV's high-handed view of translation. A second problem is found in the teaching or preaching of a passage of Scripture that is partially or completely omitted from the NIV, and other translations based upon the United Bible Society's text. If a man is writing a systematic theology in which he will draw from all over the Bible for information, it is true that he will find no doctrine affected. If, however, he is writing or preaching or teaching from a single passage, and that passage is one adversely affected by the United Bible Society's text, he will find that the proponents of the NIV are wrong. He will find it does make a difference.

Confusion In Church From Mixed Bibles

SPEAKER_00 16:46

If the preacher uses a complete translation and his hearer is one of the others, that is, if the preacher uses the King James Holy Bible and the people in the pew have an NIV, there will be confusion among the hearers. And an increasing lack of trust toward both the preacher and the Bible himself. Because you see, the people in the pew will look and say, Well, that preacher said that's in the Bible, and it's not in the Bible. I'm looking at the Bible right now, and that verse isn't in the Bible. Those words aren't in the Bible. He must be making that up. No, you must have a book put out by the devil. If the teacher uses an incomplete translation, such as the NIV, both he and his hearers are robbed of the teachings of the omitted verses, often without even being aware of the robbery. If the preacher asks for a passage or verse to be read in unison, now can you imagine that? Just picture yourself going into a mainline denominational church on a Sunday morning, and just for kicks, the song leader asks the thirty or forty percent of the people who are there that have a Bible to read the passage in unison. Well, sixty to seventy percent of the people couldn't read it because they don't have a Bible with them, and the other thirty or forty percent have fifteen different translations of the Bible. What a madhouse! What a zoo. Now do you think that's God's will? Or is it nothing more than secular humanism having taken the church by the throat so that professing Christians cling to a book they call a Bible and say, Well, this is the one I prefer. This is my choice, oh this is my favorite, oh this one works for me. What is that? That's not Christianity. That's not man being subject to the Word of God. That is man subjecting the Word of God to his prejudices, feelings, and opinions.

Footnotes That Stay Vague Or Missing

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Now the NIV uh often includes footnotes in places where verses are omitted or changed. But some of these footnotes are too general or misleading or are actually incorrect. Let me give you a summary of footnotes given in the NIV with the number of times each is used. Some manuscripts eighty-two times, some early manuscripts thirty two times, a few late manuscripts two times, some late manuscripts six times, other manuscripts one time, many early manuscripts three times, the most reliable early manuscripts one time, many manuscripts four times, some less important manuscripts one time, two early manuscripts one time, the earliest and most reliable and other ancient witnesses one time, one early manuscripts, other manuscripts do not have one time, one early manuscript one time, late manuscript of the Vulgate one time. Now this betrays some of the bias on the part of the translators. They are vague and obscure when they want to be some manuscripts, and they never tell you which ones, but they can be very specific when they wish, late manuscript of the Vulgate. There are occasions when the translators omit verses or words with no comment at all. For example, first John five thirteen. Now why the inconsistency? Why the insincerity? Is that the way God works? Does that sound like the leading of the Holy Spirit? What seems to be the problem? Why do the NIV translators have such a hard time in footnoting the manuscript evidence for their attacks on the Word of God in such a way that they could be checked and examined? Remember, liars are never specific. Liars are always vague and general. Remember that. Why do you have to have a prosecuting attorney? Because you'll never get a straight answer. You'll never get the details unless you force the guilty party to give them.

Revelation Variants And Final Warnings

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One very surprising omission from this group of the variant readings is in the book of Revelation. For years the opponents of the received or traditional text have argued that there was a great weakness in the traditional Greek text of this book. However, the NIV gives only two occasions of textual variants. In the footnotes in Revelation. In the United Bible Society's text, there are ninety-two occasions of variants noted. And these ninety-two occasions are not exhaustive, but selective. Some were not even indicated by a footnote. Now it's interesting that in the NIV, changes throughout the remainder of the Bible were designated by footnotes. In Revelation alone, the NIV is inconsistent. It is assumed that only the variants considered important are noted. Those classified as unimportant or insignificant are omitted. However, on the basis of Revelation 22, 18 and 19, is there anything in God's Word that is unimportant? God said not to add to his word, not to take away from his word. Is there any part of the Scripture that's not important? So it's clear to see by this examination of the textual problems of the NIV New Testament that this book is not a safe rule for man to follow. It is not by any means the Holy Bible. It couldn't possibly be mistaken for the Word of God.

Why Leaders Still Recommend The NIV

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You say then, well, Brother James, why do preachers by the tens of thousands recommend it? Well, either they're not saved or they're not led by the Holy Spirit. That's all it could possibly be. Now see, when I make a statement like that, people just go crazy. You know why? You want me to explain that to you? Because their loyalty is to a man and not to God. Because their confidence is in the words of a man and not the words of God. Now, my friend, you can't sit where you are listening to this radio broadcast today and say that you believe the Bible to be the perfect word of God. And then when I show you that the NIV has out and out blatant errors in its text, you can't sit there and say you believe it's the Word of God. That just doesn't make any sense. Now, having been shown the blatant errors in the New Testament text of the NIV on this program, the Old Testament text of the NIV on the last program, the way in which the translation of God's Word has been handled, which we showed you on the first two broadcasts, there is only one reason why you would hold on to an NIV and continue to call it a Bible of the Word of God, and that's because you just don't care about the truth. You care about your opinion, you care about your feelings, you care about the forty dollars you wasted on the NIV. But if you love the truth and you want the full truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of the Word of God, you will not cleave to a perverse, adulterated text like the New International Version. You can't possibly do it. Now we're not through yet.

How To Get The Full Study

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We still have to discuss the synonym problems, the unusual translating of some of the NIV passages, and then sum this matter up. Hopefully, we can get that done on the next broadcast. Well, as we come to the close of part four in this five-part study, I know, I know that some of you listening are very upset with me for pointing out the errors in your modern Bible version. Don't be upset with me. Be upset with the man that told you. It was just easier to understand, but it still said the same thing the old King James said, and now you know that's not true. You'd like to go over these verses, but you were at work driving in the car, busy, you didn't get them all jotted down. You'd like to have this study to give to a friend so they can be as shocked as you are to find out all the problems with the NIV. Well, whatever the case might be, we have all five programs on one C D in an MP3 format. All five programs on one CD. When you visit our website, look for the C D on the NIV, and we'll get that right out to you. That web address is jameswnox.org. Visit us at jameswnox.org, and there you'll find not only this study, but thousands of hours of helpful Bible study materials recorded, dozens of books, many, many things there to be a help to you in your walk with the Lord. All right, the announcer will be on in just a moment to let you know when this program will be heard again over this particular radio station. And we hope at that time you'll join us for the preaching of the cross radio broadcast. Until then, I'm Brother James. May the Lord richly bless you, and good day.