Posted By admin on November 27, 2008

Manuscript Bible Leaf

How do I tactfully let my son know he is reading the wrong Bible (NIV) to my grandchildren ?

The King James Version is the one he should use, but when I visited him I noticed he was using the New International Version. This version leaves out many passages, because it is based on corrupted manuscripts.

I just answered a question about the textual streams behind the modern versions, like the NIV, and the stream behind the KJV. You can go read my answer and send it to him if you like.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080601224858AAViaGW&r=w#M71qKFfOLTmaX1MY4kJN

Of the modern versions I really don't like the NIV. It is what's called a "dynamic version," as opposed to "word equivalent versions." A word equivalent version tries to translate word for word from the Greek text. The KJV puts any words they add into italics to let you know they've added something for smoother reading.

The NIV is a dynamic translation and is kin to a paraphrase. The translators determine what is being said and re-write it in their own words. Case in point, in the KJV Matt. 28:1 reads, "In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first [day] of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre." The NIV has shortened all that to "After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb."

The problem with that is dawn in that verse is a verb for beginning, but they translated it as a noun for sunrise.

Moreover, Hebrew days run from sunset to sunset, so that when the Sabbath ends and the first day begins is a sunset, not sunrise. People who adhere to the Wednesday crucifixion view point this out.

Whether or not you agree with that interpretation, you would have no way of examining it with the NIV which has interpeted it as dawn and removed all those words and re-written it to fit their interpretation. The NIV will sometimes flip whole sentences, putting one sentence ahead of another to make the reading clearer, in their view. So, the NIV is a re-written translation from an interpretive bias. If one must use a modern version, the New American Standard Version or the Revised Standard Version are better since they try to do a word equivalent translation, although like the NIV, they use a more corrupt textual stream than the KJV does.

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