The NIV: Gods Word?

[KJVBibleThumper]

Some time ago DeclareHim challenged me by saying that all bible versions say the same thing as the King James, they just say it in different ways and words. I have been working on the answer for some time and it took longer then I thought it would and I still wish I could have put more information in it but I am out of time.
I would like to request that all answers to this paper be factual based and answer the whole thought. I am splitting it into chapters so that if you want to you can answer a chapter at a time. I do not want this to turn into the sort of brawl that so frequently happens on other threads, I promise I will refrain from sarcasm if you do. Lets not fly off the handle here. [img]smile.gif[/img]
If all you are going to do is post a short sarcastic answer then you might as well know that I am not going to reply. Lets keep this a (fairly) pleasant debate.
Thank you,
KJVBibleThumper

The NIV: Gods Word?
There are two verses of Scripture to keep in mind during this, Revelation 22:18-19 and proverbs 30:5-6. If all versions are Gods Word then what do these verses apply to?
Chapter one
What is the NIV?
The NIV is a translation that came out in 1978, it is one of the formost versions used today and is widely accepted by Christians. It has been revised several times since the original translation and was translated by a commitee.
Several members of the commitee were: Dr. Ronald Youngblood, Dr. Kenneth Barker, Dr. Larry Walker, Dr. Martin Woudstra, and Virginia Mollencott.
Dr. Ronald Youngblood went to college in the midwest, seminary in the southwest, and graduate school in the northeast. He is currently the chairman of the board of directors of the International Bible Society and was associate editor of the NIV, Dr. Kenneth Barker is one of the translators of the NIV and has a ThM from Dallas theological seminary and a PhD from the Drop college for Hebrew and cognate learning and is the author of commentaries on the books of Micah and Zechariah and was a translator on the NASB, Dr. Larry Walker holds a PhD from Dropsie college for Hebrew and cognate learing and has taught Aramaic, Akkadian, and Ugaric and was a member of the CBT from shortly after it was formed, Dr. Martin Woudstra was a sodomite and homosexual and helped write a pro-homosexual paper and was chaiman of the Old Testiment committee, Virginia Mollencott was a practicing lesbian who wrote several pro-homosexual books.
Virginia Mollencott said that she would take "swatches" of texts, often whole books at a time home so she could approve and finalize word choices, quite a change from the way the King James translators worked.
A dodge the publishers of the NIV will try and make is that they did not know that she was a lesbian. It is a matter of record that in 1978 Bob Jones Senior sent a letter warning them that she had been dismissed from Bob Jones for attemting to seduce their female students into lesbian affairs. With these two homosexuals on the commitee it is no wonder that the words "sodomy" and "sodomite" have been removed from the NIV.
There were a 104 peple involved in the translation of the original NIV or the first revision in 1984, on the list I saw 28 gave no church affiliation and the rest were from differing churches.
Many of them had had only a couple years of Greek, a couple years of Hebrew and may have taken Spanish or French in high school. They did not approch the scholarship of the King James translators who I will mention further on.

Chapter two
Errors in the NIV
The NIV removes 63,625 words, this equals removing Obadiah, Ephesians, Phillipians, Collosians, 1 and 2 Thessolonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1,2, and 3 John, Jude and more.
it omits the word "Christ" 25 times, "Lord" 352, "God" 468, totally removes "Godhead" 3 times, totally romoves "Lucifer" once, omits "devil" 80, "heaven" 160, "blood" 41, "salvation" 42, "Word of God" 8, "Word of the Lord" 25, and
"Lord Jesus Christ" 24.
The NIV totally takes away Mathew 12:47, Mathew 17:21, 18:11, 21:44, 23:14, Mark 7:16, 9:44, 9:46, 11:26, 15:28, 16:9-20, Luke 17:36, 22:43, 22:44, 23:17, John 5:4, 7:53-8:11, Acts 8:37, 15:34, 24:7, 28:29, Romans 16:24, 2 Corinthians 13:14, James 1:8 and more.
Isaiah 14:12 in the NIV is changed from "Lucifer" to "morning star" when in Revelation 22:16 it clearly says that the morning star is Christ.
The NIV converts the Lords prayer in Luke 11:2-4 to the devils prayer by taking away all references to heaven and "deliver us from evil". In Mark 1:2 they change "prophet" to "Isaiah".
Now is when the anti-KJVO people say that "the fundementals are still there so it cant be bad."
Well, ANY fundemental found in the NIV is found purer or more often in the KJV thus in that catagory making it the best.
An example of changes in doctrine is in Mathew 13:33, in the KJV it says "watch and pray" in the NIV it says "keep on the alert".
The NIV removes the salvation of the Eithiopian enuch, in Luke 2:33 the virgin birth of Jesus is denied when it calls Joseph, Jesus's father, and the doctrine of the Trinity is removed in 1 John 5:7 where it removes verse 7 and splits verse 6 for a false verse 7.
In Mathew 17:21 the NIV totaly removes verse 21 where it says "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting", in Mark 9:29 it totaly removes "and fasting" and does the same thing in multiple other places. In Mark 12:32 it omits the word "God" and substitutes the "One", and does the same thing in Mathew 19:17 and in Luke 23:35.(In the religions that worship the devil the devil is called the "One" strangely enough."
The NIV substitutes the the word "one" for God, Christ, Son, He, Most High and more.
It omits totaly in Luke 1:28 the phrase "blessed art thou among women" and in Mathew 1:25 omits the word "firstborn" thus bowing to Roman Catholic dogma in suggesting that Mary remained a virgin.
In Ephesians 5:9 the NIV instead of saying "fruit of the Spirit" says "fruit of the light" which can refer to Satan.
In Acts 17:22 Pauls rebuke to the idol worshippers becomes a compliment as instead of saying "I percieve that in all things ye are too superstitous" the NIV says "I see that in every way ye are very relegious".
The NIV puts the words "boast" in place of "your rejoicing" and "glory on our behalf" is replaced by "take pride" and it does the same thing in other passages as well. And as you nkow the Bible does not speak well of pride or boasting, see James 4:6, Jeramiah 13:15, Proverbs 16:18,
Romans 2:17,23, and 3:27 to name a few.
In Ephesians 5:1 the NIV says "Be imitators of God", I think I prefer the King James "Be ye therefore followers of God".
In a number of places the NIV changes "blasphemy" to "slander" which makes for a much vauger meaning as according to Webster blasphemy includes not only slander against God but "acts of claiming the attributes or perogatives of a deity". The word "blasphemy" applys only to God while "slander" has a much milder meaning and is generally used for human affairs alone.
The NIV also replaces the word "God" with the vaguer reference "He" in Revelation 2:4,
1 Timothy 3:16, Galations 1:15, Mathew 22:32, Colosians 2:19 and Mathew 6:34.
Where the KJV says God "commanded" the NIV says He "instructed", for commandments it says "precepts", instead of "He shall rule" its" He shall shepard" to name a few.
The new versions are chipping away at Gods power and majesty and none more then the NIV, why should we want to use a bible that so blatently changes doctrine and waters it down?

Chapter three
Some things the men that support it say
Dr. Gordon Fee, professor at Wheaton college and defender of the new versions said inChristianity today "the contemparary translations as a group have one thing in common, they tend to agree against the KJV...in omitting hundreds of word, phrases, and verses."
The chief editor of the NIV says "This shows the great error that is so prevelent today in some Orthodox Protestent circles, namely the error that regeneration depends on faith...and that in order to be born again man must first accept Jesus as Savior".(Notice how "Savior is spelled with 6 letters instead of 7 thus changing the meaning.)
Quote from the NIV editors "the KJV is misleading...eronous...corupted by errors.", "The King James version...changed the originals", "The Textus Receptus contains so mant significant departures from the original manuscripts of the various New Testiment books that it cannot be relied on as a basis for translation."
They had NO respect for the KJV at all!

Chapter four
Why was the Apocripha included in the first edition of the King James?
I know that with what I have said here someone is going to bring up this question so I might as well answer it here.
When the Bible was translated the Apocripha was accepted reading because of its historical value, although only the Catholics accepted it as Scripture. The translators therefore put it between the Old and New Testiments and gave it a name the basicly means "phony", they also wrote a preclude ive heard saying that they did not believe that it was at all Scripture.
They did not as the corrupt Alexandrian manuscripts do intigrate it into the Bible.

Chapter five
The translators of the King James
I thought that as I mentioned a few of the NIV translators I might as well mention a few of the King James translators.
John Bois-kept complete account of the translators precedings, was skilled in Hebrew and Greek, his biographer says he was reading through the Greek New Testiment at five, and was expert in all forms of Greek and had one of the largest Greek librarys ever.
Lancelot Andrews-learned a new language every year while he was a boy during his families one month Easter vacation. He was fully conversent in 15 European languages and had great ability in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chalde, Syriac, and Arabaic.
William Bedwell-expert in latin, Arabaic, and Persian and prepared lexicons in these languages and the Arabaic lexicon he wrote is still in print, if you go to a library if they have a lexicon in Arabaic its probably the one he wrote.
Miles Smith-the man who translated all the writings of the church fathers into English, most of the translations of the church fathers still inprint today are his. He also was a noted Orientalist and was the amn who wrote the Translators Preface.
Sir Henry Saville-was a scientist as well as a Bible scholar and his works include an 8 volume edition of the works of Chrysostom.
All the translators were great scholars and were fluent in the Biblical languages, the cognate languages, the writings of the church fathers, as well as other pertinent matter and were accomplished writers in English.
(An interesting note here, I am told that the Jews in Israel use the King James version of the Old Testiment when they want to read the Bible in English, also whenever a Jewish scholar wants to translate a word from Hebrew to English, their Hebrew to English dictionary is the King James Bible. They look to see how the word they wish to translate was translated in the Old Testiment of the King James and then they use that same word.)

Chapter six
Note about Kittles lexicon
Kittles Greek lexicon was used by the NIV translators, it is a lexicon of New Testiment words and the NIV translators used it to determine word choices. Mr. Kittle was a Nazi and a member of Hitlers cabnet, his job was to produce a bible that would convince Germanys Lutheruns to send Germanys Jews to the gas chamber. So the NIV editors were using a anti-sematic, Nazi lexicon.

Chapter 7
Was King James a homosexual?
With what I said about the homosexuals on the NIV committe someone is bound to say "well King James was a homosexual so wh ywould you use a Bible approved by a homosexual?" So I might as well head off that here and now.
King James 1 of England, the man who authorised the Bible that bears his name was thought by many to be one of the greatest if not the greatest kings that England has ever seen. At a time when only the churches of England had the Bible in English his desire and goal was that instead of keeping his people in spiritual darkness as other monarchs and leaders were he would give his peoplke the Bible in their language. He was fluent in Latin,Greek, and French and even wrote a track called "counterblast to tabacco" that wa written to help thwart the tabacco trade in England. A man like this would certainly have enemies, one of them Anthony Weldon had to be excluded from court, Weldon swore that he would have revenge, in 1650 TRENTY-FIVE years after James death(so he obviously couldnt defend himself) he saw his chance and wrote a paper calling him a homosexual. The report was largely ignored since there were still enough people alive who knew it wasnt true. It was only recently that people hoping to dicredit him and the Bible that bears his name so that Christians would turn to a more "moder" translation revived it.
It also should be mentioned that the Roman Catholic church was so desparate to keep the true Bible out of the hands of the English people that in 1605 a Roman Catholic named Guy Fawkes under the direction of a Jesuit priest named Henry Garnett attemted to blow him and all of Parliment up bt putting 36 barrels of gunpowder under the Parliment building, they would then take over the country and reestablish it as a Roman Catholic country. Needless to say the Bible would have been a casualty of this.
It seems that anyone attacking him joins an unholy lot.

Chapter eight
Is the NIV easier to read then the KJV?
First of all lets look at the copyright law, by law new versions can only be copyrighted as "deriative works" and words must be changed wether they need to be or not.(not that any in the King James do) I saw two results of a study done using the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale, one said that the King James is 5th grade level and the NIV is 8th, the other, done by Harvard said the King James to be 6th grade and the NIV to be 11th-you can take your pick of which one you like better.
Here are six words in the NIV(and there are hundreds but I dont have the time to post them all) that are more complicated then the words used in the KJV:
NIV KJV
supporting
liagment- Ephesians 4:16- jint

conscripted- 2Chronicles 2:2- told

indulge in rose up to
revelry- Exodus 32:6- play

repusentation- Hebrews 1:3- image

designated- Hebrews 5:10- called

obsolete- Hebrews 8:13- old
Clearly the KJV is easier to read.
Another of the critisisms leveled against the King James is its use of "thee", "thou", "thy", and "ye". These word are used to make it clear who is being talked to. The word that the new bible versions like to use is "you" this can cause confusion because "you" can be plural or singular, thus these "archaic" words help make the subject of who is being talked to clear. By the way the King James uses the word "you" over two thousand times, it only uses the other words when an exact definition is needed.

In conclusion I would like to give thanks to the authors of these books:
New Age Bible Versions -Gail Ripplinger
God wrote only one Bible-Jasper Ray
KJV 1611: Perfect!-Roy Branson
The Answer Book-Samuel Gipp
An understandable history of the Bible-Samuel Gipp
Which Bible is Gods Word?-Gail Ripplinger
Lets Weigh the EvidenceBarry Burton
The Modern Bible VersionsGary Flynt
Does God Have a Contraversy with the King James?H. Williams
Reasons why the KJV is superior J. Zwingel

[Ed Edwards]

Leadin post: "The NIV removes 63,625 words, ..."

This statement is deceptive.
It presupposes things I don't care to
presuppose. It presupposed that
a King James Version, 1769 Edition, is
the absolue final authority which is
the only possible standard for judging any
Bible-like structure.

In fact, a better assumption is to
take the Textus Receptus (Received Text)
in the original languages. If one starts
there, one really cannot compare number of
words. The number of words comparison
is a waste of time for:
1. the person doing the counting
2. the person reposting the count
3. the person reading the count

Word counts are a waste of our time
and the storge space of the Baptist Board.

[img]graemlins/wave.gif[/img] Praise Iesus [img]graemlins/wave.gif[/img]

[DeclareHim]

Chapter 2 -errors in the KJB Version oh I'm sorry it was NIV wan't it.

Jude verse 25 "To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen." KJV 1769 Version

Jude verse 25 "To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through JESUS CHRIST our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore Amen." NIV

In Mark 1:2 by using Isaiah they let the reader understand which prophet the Bible is speaking of. The Originals and even the earliest MSS we have say most of the verses you listed weren't in there.

1cross+3nails=4given [img]graemlins/saint.gif[/img]

<edited to correct non-captalisation of Bible>

[ September 03, 2004, 08:38 AM: Message edited by: C4K ]

[Ed Edwards]

Originally posted by DeclareHim:
Chapter 2 -errors in the kjbVersion oh I'm sorry it was NIV wan't it.

Jude verse 25 "To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen." KJV 1769 Version

1cross+3nails=4given [img]graemlins/saint.gif[/img]

Yep, they done took JESUS CHRIST out of the
KJV. Please don't take my wonderful
Lord and Savior: Jesus Christ, out of your
Bible - boo hoo.

[DeclareHim]

Chapter 1

All this time and you still didn't do your research the KJV doesn't use Sodomy or any form of the word in the NT guess what NIV doesn't either. WOW that means there both sodomy bibles. . Now on the other hand the 'phrase' the KJV uses for sodomites is "abusers of themeselves with mankind"

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idiolaters, nor adulterers, nor effiminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind." 1 Corinthians 6:9 KJV

"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be decieved: Neither the sexually immoral nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor HOMOSEXUAL OFFENDERS. 1 Corinthians 6:9

Now which is more clear 'abusers of themselves with mankind' or 'homosexual'. The NIV. Thats which. Don't tell me Virginia had any thing taken out if she would have left it abuser of themeselves with mankind people wouldn't have known what she was talking about. I guarantee you if I went up to a person today on the street they would say that it is talking of someone who abuses others. The Greek word here "ar-sen-ok-oy'-tace- a sodomite: abusers of self with mankind."
SO the kjVersion chose the most unoffensive way of putting it. Oh well you got an excuse lets hear it.

1cross+3nails=4given

[DeclareHim]

Chapter 4

this is a flat out lie. The KJV translators included it in their daily Scripture readings so they must have thought it was oh well maybe just a wild guess Scripture. MV's don't even stick the apocrypha in their Bibles because if it's not Scripture it shouldn't be included in God's Holy Word. If I had a KJV 1611 I couldn't say I believe it was God's Word from cover to cover because that would include the apocrypha.

1cross+3nails=4given

[DeclareHim]

Chapter 7

James 1 and the Puritans

"James brought with him to England very definite ideas about religion and the 'divine right of kings' to with unlimited power. He believed since kings were appointed by God." "they were above all men and their laws." yea great king. By the way the above was a quote from a A beka text book. Ran by PCC a rabid KJVO college. Here is another quote by James 1 on the same page " As it is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do so it is high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do or to say that a king cannot do this or that." World History and Cultures in Christian Perspective A Beka Book page-319.

If you still believe that KJ was a good king you are an confused person. More proof KJ outlawed all other versions of God's Holy Word except for the KJV 1611. The Geneva Bible of 1560 didn't contain the apocrypha the 1611 did KJ made the people read HIS Bible and not the Geneva 1560 which by the way didn't contain the apocrypha.The Mayflower Compact contained Scripture from the Geneva not the KJV. Seperatist refused to use a Anglican Bible. I could go on with more examples but why I have done proved my point.

1cross+3nails=4given [img]graemlins/saint.gif[/img]

[DeclareHim]

Chapter 8

What can I say trust me NIV=Easy read KJV=Tough Read.

1cross+3nails=4given

[C4K]

I'm sorry Thumper, but your paper contains nothing that has not appeared and been refuted here in the past.

If you are truly interested in research perhaps you should just do a "search" of the issue on this board.

I appreciate that you will not answer this post.

This issue, not either side of it, is dividing the brethren, and I am saddened to see that we have two young posters here, one on each side, who are carrying on our sad legacy

[rsr]

It is a matter of record that in 1978 Bob Jones Senior sent a letter warning them that she had been dismissed from Bob Jones for attemting to seduce their female students into lesbian affairs. With these two homosexuals on the commitee it is no wonder that the words "sodomy" and "sodomite" have been removed from the NIV.

Proof, please. And she had nothing to do with the translation

the doctrine of the Trinity is removed in 1 John 5:7 where it removes verse 7 and splits verse 6 for a false verse 7.

There has always been dispute about this reading. Luther omitted it; Erasmus omitted it until he was pressured by the church.

(An interesting note here, I am told that the Jews in Israel use the King James version of the Old Testiment when they want to read the Bible in English, also whenever a Jewish scholar wants to translate a word from Hebrew to English, their Hebrew to English dictionary is the King James Bible. They look to see how the word they wish to translate was translated in the Old Testiment of the King James and then they use that same word.)

Proof, please.

I saw two results of a study done using the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale, one said that the King James is 5th grade level and the NIV is 8th, the other, done by Harvard said the King James to be 6th grade and the NIV to be 11th-you can take your pick of which one you like better.

Flescsh-Kincaid is based solely on the length of words; it does not take into account syntax or archaic speech. You really need to research your sources.

First of all lets look at the copyright law, by law new versions can only be copyrighted as "deriative works" and words must be changed wether they need to be or not.

Yes, let's look at the copyright law, which you do not understand in the least. The NIV was a new translation of the underlying (copyrighted) texts, not just an attempt to get around the copyright law. The NIV could not infringe upon the KJV copyright (and that's another story often told upon this board, adding that the KJV copyright has not been recognized in the United States, though it is still operative in the U.K.)

Another of the critisisms leveled against the King James is its use of "thee", "thou", "thy", and "ye". These word are used to make it clear who is being talked to. The word that the new bible versions like to use is "you" this can cause confusion because "you" can be plural or singular, thus these "archaic" words help make the subject of who is being talked to clear.

This is not typically a charge raised by knowledgeable supporters of MVs. Yes, the English of the the KJV is more precise on the use of "thee" and "you," but that is true of modern English and is not their fault. The KJV (and NKJV) are valuable in this respect, for study, but it doesn't make for reabability for the average reader of English.

In conclusion I would like to give thanks to the authors of these books:
New Age Bible Versions -Gail Ripplinger
God wrote only one Bible-Jasper Ray
KJV 1611: Perfect!-Roy Branson
The Answer Book-Samuel Gipp
An understandable history of the Bible-Samuel Gipp
Which Bible is Gods Word?-Gail Ripplinger
Lets Weigh the EvidenceBarry Burton
The Modern Bible VersionsGary Flynt
Does God Have a Contraversy with the King James?H. Williams
Reasons why the KJV is superior J. Zwingel

You have just destroyed your case. Most, if not all, of these people have been proven, repeatedly, to rely upon special revelation, numerology, ad hominem attacks, circular reasoning, lying quotations and other unChristian methods to make their case.

You will have to do better than that. Have at it.