NIV Part 5: Why It Matters

A Bible can sound more modern and still move you farther away from what the text actually says. We make the case that the fight over Bible translations is not academic nitpicking, because the words you trust shape the doctrine you live, the church culture you build, and the kind of spiritual fire you can sustain.

We start with a hard look at the current spiritual condition of churches: on one side, fundamental convictions with little life; on the other, high energy with practices we believe are unscriptural. Then we trace both problems back to a single issue: people placing their faith in a Bible that is not truly preserved and reliable as God’s Word. From there, we explain why we stand on the Authorized King James Version for English-speaking Christians and why we believe the New International Version has become so widespread in pulpits, classrooms, and bookstores.

A major focus is the NIV’s translation philosophy. We contrast literal translation with dynamic equivalence, where translators aim for thought for thought rather than word for word accuracy. We press the question that follows: if the words are not controlling, who decides the meaning? We also talk about practical consequences such as losing singular versus plural distinctions in “you,” inserting clarifying words, and chopping long passages into shorter sentences in ways that can change interpretation. We close with why readability is not the same as understanding, why memorization matters, and why the Holy Spirit, not trendy wording, opens Scripture to the heart.

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Transcript

Welcome And Global Ministry Reach

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Alright, now a very pleasant good day to each and every one of you. I'm Brother James, and 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 to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast. This is a ministry in the Bible Baptist Church of Deland, Florida, heard by the grace of God around the world. And we're so very happy and very thankful that you've tuned in to the program today, and believe that you will be as well. You know, God's given us a wonderful opportunity to minister his word not only by means of radio, many stations broadcasting the program now, some here in the United States, several in Africa, some in the Philippines, but also through the cassette recordings that we've been able to send out. Over twelve, thirteen hundred hours now, I suppose, of cassette recorded sermons and Bible studies. We've sent out over five hundred thousand of these cassette tapes, responses having come from over seventy nations. Been my privilege and opportunity already this year to preach in many, many parts of the United States and Canada, traveling there on a personal basis.

Two Church Problems One Root

SPEAKER_00 1:17

And it's alarming to me. It's sad as I look and see the dreadful spiritual condition of our churches. On the one hand, you have those who hold to the Orthodox and fundamental tenets of the Scripture, whose churches are dead and dying, a lack of life, a lack of interest, a lack of fervor and love for God. On the other hand, you have those churches of a charismatic bend for persuasion, uh filled with excitement and activity and action, and yet so incredibly unscriptural in their practices that one can scarce believe that they claim the name of Christ. Now there's a reason for all this. There is a reason why those who seemingly love God and are excited about God have so little knowledge of the Scripture, and why those who seem to have some knowledge of the Scripture are apparently so dead in their practice. The reason is that man has forsaken the true Word of God, the source of all life, the source of all understanding and knowledge, the source of all right relationship to God is the Word of God, the Holy Bible. And the fact that so many men and women today are reading and studying and hearing preaching from and putting their faith in a book that is not the Word of God is certainly a primary contributing factor to the apostasy of our day, if not the primary contributing factor.

Why We Reject The NIV

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Now we take a lot of criticism for our position on this radio broadcast that God gave his word without error in perfection in the original writings, and that the same God preserved that word, gave it to his people in the English language, and that the authorized King James Bible is indeed the Word of God for the English-speaking people. Now, when we say that, we get all kinds of grief from people who have a New King James Version, a New American Standard Version, a Living Bible, a Good News Bible, a New Jerusalem Bible, a uh Jupiter Version, a New World Translation, and so forth. But we we make that statement being in a position to make it. And those who criticize the statement are not in a position to criticize. We have read I have read personally forty-four translations of the New Testament, comparing them verse by verse. Now, when people criticize me for saying that the New International Version is not God's word, they are criticizing someone who has spent more time with the New International Version than those who defend it. On this broadcast today, we are going to begin a series of studies, and I hope you'll listen. I hope you'll listen with that broad mind that you claim to have. I hope you'll listen with that love that you profess to have. And I hope you will allow us to explain to you why this new international version is a very, very dangerous piece of work. I hope you listen carefully and allow God to teach you. You know, there's nothing worse than somebody thinks they know everything. So, Brother James, don't you think you know everything? Absolutely not. That's why I took the time to read and study the New International Version. Because I didn't know what it said, I didn't know what it was all about, I didn't know what its foundations and statements were, and so I took the time to check the thing out. Like any honest man or woman would do.

How The NIV Took Over

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Now in the mid-1950s, Howard Long set out to witness to a business associate who broke into laughter. The laughter came as the man read the gospel for himself directly from the pages of the Bible. It made Howard angry, not that the man laughed at the scriptures, but that Howard couldn't give him a Bible in his own language. Howard's children too had trouble understanding a Bible written in something other than everyday language. He said we've translated the Bible into a couple of thousand tongues. Someday we're going to translate it into English. Little did he know that his frustration would give birth to one of the most popular and least conservative translations in the English language. The new International Revelation thirteen version was in the words of James Powell, president of the International Bible Society, and I quote, really God's project. His fingerprints are all over it, from the original dream thirteen, Book of Jude, to the final production. Apparently many people agree. The International Bible Society, and league with several publishers in North America and the United Kingdom, has packaged the NIV in every style and binding imaginable, and for every group of people under the English speaking sun. There are expensive, luxurious leather editions and cheap paperback editions, versions for children and versions for college students, whole Bibles and individual verses, Bibles with holy Bibles stamped in gold on the cover, and Bibles that are only discovered to be scripture when read by those familiar with the NIV. In its relatively short lifetime, the New International Version has become the basis of commentaries, interlinears, systematic theologies, and concordances. Colleges and seminaries distribute it to their students and require it in the classroom. Churches of all denominations and doctrinal persuasions now use it in pew and pulpit. Bookstores claim that it is outselling the Authorized King James Version and everything else that claims to be scripture. Now many versions of Holy Scripture claim to be literal translations. For example, the Authorized King James Version, the Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Version. Others claim excellent readability. These are the paraphrases such as the Living Bible and Phillips and others. But the NIV claims both literalness and readability. The latter is definitely not a dispute. The NIV is written in a modern English that anyone, rich or poor, young or old, saved or unsaved, with a child's education can understand. The NIV is legitimately compared to a newspaper for comprehensibility. But with regard to the former, the literalness of translation, the NIV has come under increasing scrutiny and has been found wanting. It should first be noted that Howard Long interpreted his colleagues' laughter in more biblical terms, or had he done so, the NIV might never have come to be. You see, the Holy Spirit of God had the apostle Paul record these words in 1 Corinthians 2 14, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Why did this man laugh at the words of the Bible? He thought they were foolish. Why did he think they were foolish? Because he was a natural, unsaved man with no Holy Spirit guidance. You see, unless the Holy Spirit works in a man's life, that man has no reason to react positively to the word of God because of what it is, God's word. Those in spiritual darkness will hide anywhere from light, even in laughter. This, however, was probably the case with Howard's children as well. Just as it is the parents' responsibility and honor to bring their children to an understanding of salvation through Christ alone, so it is their responsibility in honor to help their children understand the rest of Scripture. That can be done no matter what translations parents use. A child can learn to read with understanding the most difficult language, usually more easy than adult can, as has been proven over and over the past centuries with dead languages such as Latin or Corne Greek. Now, while it's true that the NIV requires less adult supervision and guidance when being read, it also deprives the parent of opportunities of spiritual interaction, opportunities that may never come again. The problems with the NIV, however, are more basic and far reaching than this.

Dynamic Equivalence Versus Literal Translation

SPEAKER_00 10:56

In fact, the problems begin at its very core, the philosophy of translation held by its translators. The NIV translators began with a very noble goal. Their wish was to produce an accurate translation with a high degree of clarity and literary quality, one that meets standards of modern English, but at the same time preserves, quote, some measure of continuity with the long tradition of translating the scriptures into English. That is, we want to make it sound a little bit like the King James Bible, or people won't think it's a Bible. Now to fulfill this desire entails first the belief that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the very Word of God, inerrant and inspired by God, even down to the individual words. On the basis of this belief, the words of Scripture are translated as literally as possible, with the goal being to reproduce in English what is written in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek of the original texts. The resultant translation should differ from the original texts and other literal translations only in idiomatic expressions, word order, and alternative definitions of words. The operating principle of this literal equivalence translation is as literal as possible, as free as necessary. That should be the rule. This philosophy of translation had been the standard of most translators throughout the centuries, discounting, of course, those who have paraphrased the scriptures. But the major differences between conservative translations of the past century have been in the Greek text used and the cultural or theological basis and biases incorporated into the translations. However, in recent years there has arisen a group of so-called scholars who no longer believe in the importance and often the inerrancy and inspiration of the individual words of Scripture. These men believe instead that it is the thoughts or the truth behind the words that is important. In the inerrancy controversy, this theory explains such supposed problems as the diversity between Scripture and science. It is not what Genesis 1 says that is important according to these infidels, but the truth behind what it says. In other words, they believe the Word of God is a lie, but they also believe that what it's trying to teach is true. You could get locked up for that if you're not careful. This view is called the dynamic view of Scripture. Transferred into the realm of translation, this is referred to as dynamic equivalence. The aim in dynamic equivalence translation is not word for word accuracy, but thought for thought equivalence. Although the NIV translators would avoid using the term dynamic equivalence in reference to themselves, their aim was for a quote more than a word for word translation. That's what they said. Their goal instead was, and I quote, fidelity to the thought of the biblical writers, quoting again from their preface to their work, they sought by frequent modifications in sentence structure and constant regard for the contextual meanings of words to produce a translation that would speak to people in that people's own culture. In other words, they rewrote the Bible whenever they wanted to. They did not translate God's words. They rewrote them. That's what they said. That's their own preface. I am quoting from their own writing. Now the basic idea of the dynamic equivalence theory is to ask the question, how would Paul have written his New Testament letters had he written them in English? Or how would a first century reader have understood the writings of Paul? The dynamic equivalence translators want to produce the same response and reaction in twentieth century readers. Thus, to them the thoughts, phrases, or truth expressed in man's writings are more important than the actual words. Their desire is to give modern man what Paul and his colleagues would have written if they were writing today. This is nothing more than secular humanism, man being his own God. That's all it is. How can a man's thoughts be known apart from his words? Further, if his words do not express his thoughts, especially in Scripture, how can truth be known at all? Where can man find truth if not in the very words of God to man? How can man know what Paul's thoughts were, apart from what he wrote? How can man know how the first century readers responded, apart from what has been written about their responses? Now the attempt to answer these questions through dynamic equivalents can produce all sorts of heretical extremes. Now I'll grant you the NIB translators held to the basically conservative end of the dynamic spectrum, but it's distressing that in spite of signing statements that they believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture, they decided to use a theory of translation that in essence denies not only the inerrancy of Scripture, but also the need for Scripture to be inerrant. You better think about that.

Pronouns Added Words And Doctrinal Drift

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Now a great difficulty in the NIV translator's theory is the view of the importance of the receptor or receptor language over that of the original authors. The result is that the need of the reader takes precedence over the fidelity to the text. Sentence structure and word usage must be such that the reader will have no trouble understanding the author's intent, regardless of the author's actual words. Thus, in a translation aimed at people in the Caribbean, Isaiah 118 would not be, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, but rather as white as a dove's feathers. Because you see, they don't know anything about snow, so we have to give them something that in their experience would be white. Now that's what we're talking about. That's the type of translating we're talking about. The NIV translators assumed that English readers would have seen snow, but since the translators believe that there is a sense in which the work of translation is never wholly finished, that's what they said in their preface, one wonders what will happen in the next edition. Now, with this in mind, the NIV translators have gone on to say, quote, a present-day translation is not enhanced by forms that in the time of the King James Version were used in everyday speech, whether referring to God or man. You see, they've always got to attack the King James Bible. Why didn't they say in the time of the Rehams Douway Version? Why didn't they say in the time of the Geneva Bible? Why didn't they say in the time of the Revised Version? You see, there's a deep-seated enmity in the hearts of these translators against the King James Bible. Now, by saying this, the NIV translators have done away with the use of thou and thee, whether in narration or in prayer in the scriptures. They would say that to use these terms only when referring to deity serves no legitimate purpose. But it must be understood that the Authorized King James Version had no more purpose linguistically in using thou and thee than the New International Version translators would have had today. As can be seen in the works of Shakespeare, the these and thous were not in common usage during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, the King James Version translators use these terms to express something that nearly every language except modern English expresses the singular of you. In Biblical Hebrew and Greek, there is a differentiation between you singular and you plural. To distinguish the two into English, the authorized King James translators employed thou and thee for singular, ye and you for plural. In this way, the reader of Scripture understands that the temple of God is holy, which temple are ye? 1 Corinthians 3.17, and is thus able to avoid the twentieth century individualism so rampant in the church today, an individualism perpetuated by the NIV's lack of differentiation between singular and plural forms of you in its rendition of 1 Corinthians 3.17 and you are that temple. Now to be fair, it must be noted that in some passages the NIV attempts to indicate the differences between the singular and plural pronouns. But this is normally done by inserting words not found in the Greek texts. For example, Luke 22 32, NIV reads, I have prayed for you, Simon. Simon's not found in any Greek manuscript on the face of the earth. And in 1 Corinthians 3.16, you yourselves, which is a redundancy not found in the original text or original languages. Now without indicating that the words were added or by adding footnotes, the NIV just blatantly adds to the Word of God to try and make it say what it would have said if they'd left it alone. The

Readability Memorization And Reading Reverence

SPEAKER_00 21:37

result of this modern dynamic view of translation is a Bible that reads like a newspaper, complete with short, chopped sentences. The idea is that the modern reader of English is incapable of retaining more than a half a dozen words at a time. Thus the paragraph long sentence of Ephesians 1 3-14 is broken down to eight simpler sentences in the NIV. And is even broken at verse eleven into a separate paragraph. The problem is this can't be done without changing the proper interpretation of the passage. For example, there's a break between verses three and four in the NIV that just completely obliterates the entire sense of the passage. Now, I'm sorry that modern man is so woefully lacking in reading skills and English comprehension that he can't take in anything deeper than a newspaper. I'm sorry about that. But God helped these men that feel like they need to rewrite the Bible and bring it down to the level of unregenerate Laodicean Americans. One advantage of having Scripture in a classical form is that the reader obtains a feeling of foreignness when reading Scripture. The Bible is not only the word of God to man, but is also a history of the people of God. Here we learn of the culture of the Jews, their way of living, the entire basis for the faith revealed in Christ. We learn also of our earliest brothers in the faith, of their struggles and trials and joys. But we also learn that despite this foreignness, we are the same as they. Since the fall, man has not changed. His heart is still desperately wicked, his salvation is still by grace or not at all. There is also the benefit of memorization. It is much easier to memorize something with an unusual or unique wording than it is to memorize a paragraph from a newspaper. The NIV is more readable than, say, a King James Version, but it is much less easily memorized and less easily hidden in the heart. And that's what God said man should do with his word. Hide it in his heart. One further disadvantage of easy readability is speed of readability. The NIV is so easy to read that it is often read as one might read a newspaper, quickly and with little comprehension. An advantage of greater difficulty in reading is that one is more apt to read slowly and pick up nuances and meanings hidden from the rapid reader. This is one of the great advantages of learning to read the scriptures from the old King James Bible. Skimming the newspaper may be acceptable, but skimming the scriptures rather than in-depth reading and study is most inappropriate. Now, one further word needs to be said regarding the receptors, that is the readers, the hearers of God's word. As we said earlier, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. No matter how a passage is worded, how closely or loosely translated, the unsaved man will never understand it unless the Spirit of God opens his eyes to its truth. In this respect, the word of God is most definitely given to his people. Through it, God gives instruction on how to live in a right relationship with him. It is his word to us, and must be treated not merely as a glorious piece of literature, but as the very word of God. The most important aspect of a translation, therefore, is not the audience, but the author. And with this in mind on the next broadcast, God willing, we are going to consider the individual translation problems in the New International Version, and they are numerous.

Next Broadcast And Getting The CD

SPEAKER_00 25:57

All right, my friends, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is just the first in a five-part series wherein we are going to show you the horrible, horrible problems with the new international version. Some of you said, I I I wish I could have written those references down, but I'm at work, I'm driving. Others said I don't believe that's so, I want to go back and check it out, but I couldn't get it all jotted down. Others of you said that's just the material I need to give to my friend who's been drawn into this modern translation with all of its problems. Well, all five of these programs are on one CD. We've got 'em all uh squeezed in. It's an MP3 format. I don't know how it works, but it works. And so one C D on the NIV can be obtained by visiting our website, jameswnox.org. JamesWNox.org. There you may obtain this entire series of studies on the NIV. Every Christian listening to my voice, and every Christian you know needs this study on the NIV. Again, that's JamesWnox.org. That's the website where you can obtain the study. Well, this program is heard by the grace of God and through the help of God's people at many different times over many different radio stations. And the announcer will be on in just a moment to let you know when we're coming your way again on this station. And we hope you'll join us then for the preaching of the cross radio broadcast. I'm Brother James. May the Lord richly bless you and good day.