Why is the NIV so Dangerous?
Jeremiah
The prophet admonishes us to seek
the old paths, but the generations of today cry out for change. During the span of our life time change has
become the rule of the day. In science,
in business, in society change is continuous, it is demanded, it is short lived
and frequently it is radical. One of the
major reasons for this continual upheaval is the changes in our culture that
have taken place during the past fifty years and that seem to be accelerating
even as we enter the 21st century.
We came out of the economic
depression of the 1930’s into a world war.
Out of a world war into a period of economic abundance such as our
parents or their parents had only dreamed about. The sixties brought rebellion against
authority, any and all authority, the seventies brought rebellion against God and
the established order both in the church of our Lord and the denominations that
surround us. This progression has
continued until today where we have a situation where the morals of this
country are closer to that of
God
Said: Genesis
Satan
Said: Genesis 3:4 “4And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall
not surely die: 5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
And such has continued throughout
the history of mankind. Man has changed
the word of God, man has ignored the authority of God, man
has refused to follow God’s commandments, and devised false doctrines and
teachings to suit himself rather than God.
What better way for Satan to capture the souls of men than to corrupt
the inspired, “God Breathed” word and deceive men into accepting this corrupted
scripture as pure and true.
Again we turn to the prophet
Jeremiah for an example:
Jeremiah 5:30-31 “30A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in
the land; 31The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule
by their means; and my people love to
have it so: and what will ye do
in the end thereof?”
Jesus condemned the chief priests
and elders of his day because of they raised their traditions to the same level
as the word of God:
“….Thus have ye made the commandment of
God of none effect by your tradition.
7Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias
prophesy of you, saying, 8This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and
honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from
me. 9But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matthew
15:6-9
And today this has been made easier
for many by modern version writers, so called translators; that have re-written
God’s word in many cases to suit themselves.
Modern versions that have been merchandised; propagandized and have
literally taken over the market for Bibles in today’s world.
The Bible versions available in
English today can basically be classified into two categories the sound and
those that are not sound. Those that are
sound, reliable word for word translations of the words inspired by God and
recorded by His penmen are the King James Translation, the New King James
Translation, the American Standard Translation of 1901, and I’m hearing some
positive things about a new English Standard Translation. All others should be viewed with some degree
of skepticism, some used with a degree of caution and some avoided entirely. The worst are “Good News for Modern Man, or
Today’s English Version”, “The Living Bible Paraphrased” and something called
the “Easy to Read Version”. That is unless
you include the “Cotton Patch Version” and, yes, such does exist. It contains more blasphemy than Bible and is
an insult to the Negro race. Heading up
this list of the worst is the New International Version. Yes, the same one that has been marketed and merchandised
so successfully by Zondervan Corporation in
1.)
First
but not most important because of its foundation.
The foundation from which our sound, reliable Bibles were translated
consists of several thousand manuscripts and partial manuscripts that have been
analyzed and accepted by reliable language scholars and Bible scholars over a
period of several hundred years. This
“Traditional” or “Received” text, called the “Textus Respectus” was then used
to generate the most accurate word for word translations of scripture that men
could devise.
The New International Version, on the other hand, is based almost entirely
on an “eclectic” Greek text based primarily on two manuscripts. One manuscript is the Vaticanus, also known
as “B”; and the other, Sinaiticus, also known as Aleph, which is the first
letter of the Hebrew alphabet. While it
is thought that these two manuscripts are two of the oldest in existence are
they the most reliable? “Far from it.”1 David
Otis Fuller, “Which Bible”, p.301 is quoted by Brother A. G. Hobbs in his
writing on this subject as a reliable resource and states the following: “Both these documents are of uncertain
ancestry, of questionable history, and of suspicious character.” “They both were in the hands of the
Catholic Church. Vaticanus “B” was found
on a shelf in the Vatican Library. How
it got there no one knows for certain.
Sinaiticus was found in a waste paper basket in the monastery of St.
Catharine on
“As pointed out by Herman Koskier, in “Codex B and its Allies”, p.1,
Vol. II these two manuscripts differ from each other 3,036 times in the gospels
alone; and more than 7,000 times throughout the New Testament. When two witnesses do not agree, it is
evident that they are not witnessing to truth.”3
These two witnesses that are used to form the basic foundation of the
NIV have the same problem as the men that the chief priest and elders called to
testify against Jesus Christ had before their council after he was taken for crucifixion:
“55And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against
Jesus to put him to death; and found none. 56For many
bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together.” Mark 14:55-56
If that were not enough to condemn
these two manuscripts back to the waste basket there is more. One of the marks of the NIV is their
rejection of Mark 16:9-20 as
scripture. One who has analyzed this
manuscript tells us why:
“In the Sinai copy the double page
containing the end of Mark and the beginning of Luke was removed at an early
date and replaced with the four sides rewritten to exclude Mark 16:9-20. By slightly
increasing the size of the letters and spaces the writer was able to extend his
shortened version to the top of the column preceding Luke 1. He filled in the remainder of his last line
with an ornamental flourish to make sure that no addition could be made without
being immediately evident. ***These two manuscripts are shown to be false
witnesses.
***The majority of
ancient copies, the majority of ancient writers and the majority of ancient
translators all testify to the genuineness of these verses. (The Authenticity of the Last Twelve Verses
of the Gospel According to Mark, Trinitarian Bible Society,
So men who are were in a position to
know tell us that at least one of these manuscripts has been altered, corrupted
to remove Mark’s account of the resurrection of Jesus and Jesus words in:
Mark
2.
Secondly I would submit for your consideration that the NIV is not a
translation but a commentary.
If you have one of these so-called
Bibles please just go to the Translator’s Preface. I will be quoting from a KJV/NIV parallel edition
with a copyright of 1985.
“The first concern of the
translators has been the accuracy of the translation and its fidelity to the
thought of the biblical writers. They
have weighed the significance of the lexical and grammatical details of the
Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. At the
same time, they have striven for more than a word for word
translation. Because thought
patterns and syntax differ from language to language, faithful communication of
the meaning of the writers of the Bible demands frequent modifications in
sentence structure and constant regard for the contextual meanings of words.”5 But what
is this really – it is their self-proclaimed license to re-write God’s word to
suit themselves.
Jesus said:
“32And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free.” John 8:32
“17Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is
truth.” John 17:17
“13Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he
will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but
whatsoever he shall hear, that
shall he speak: and he will
show you things to come.” John 16:13
And we find
recorded concerning the Old Testament scripture:
II Peter
Brethren what is the medium by which
Jesus and his disciples, as the Holy Spirit guided them; that was used to communicate
God’s will? Words! Words!
The Book that we use to direct our lives, provide us spiritual guidance,
convict and convert the sinner from his ways was given to us in words! God breathed, Holy Spirit directed words
recorded by God’s chosen vessels! Jesus
said:
“47And if any man hear my words,
and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to
save the world.” John 12:47
“He that rejecteth me, and receiveth
not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken,
the same shall judge him in the last day.” John 12:48
“10Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the
Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I
speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” John 14:10
“8For I have given unto them the words which
thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have
known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst
send me.” John 17:8
Revelation
22:19 “19And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his
part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
Words! But the liberal theologians, the writers of
the NIV have taken the words of the copies of the original autographs written
by God’s inspired men and have given us what they think is the thoughts behind
the words that the biblical writers used.
In their own words they “have striven for more than a word-for-word
translation.” In their minds they have
done God one better! They claim that the
original words that God’s penmen used cannot just be translated but must
frequently be modified or changed; and this they have done but they didn’t just
limited themselves to sentence structure.
The liberal
theologians, Brooke F. Westcott, Fenton J. Hort, and their cohorts of the late
19th century took an “eclectic” text; one that has been pieced and
patched together with some verses from here and some from there, not following
any given Greek New Testament text or group of texts except the two unreliable
texts noted earlier and generated their own Greek text. The liberal theologians of the 20th
century New York International Bible Society have taken this cobbled up Greek
text based mainly on two very suspect manuscripts and provided for us, not what
God said, but what they think God intended to tell His people! Consequently I submit to you that in this
version of the Bible we do not have a translation but rather a commentary. A commentary being called a Bible designed by
the messengers of Satan to confuse, mislead and destroy the Word of God in the
minds of men. Oh, many of the changes
are subtle, a word here, a word there, something added there, something omitted
here, a verse missing here another explained away with a footnote over here. Consequently to the average person, who has
not studied it closely, it really still looks like good spiritual food. But hear this analogy, rat poison looks like
good food to the rat too, and its only
3% poison. But it’s deadly just the
same. How much change can man make to
the Word of God before it ceases to be good spiritual food and becomes
spiritual poison?
3.)
A few
of many examples available:
First John
Calvin’s doctrine of original sin:
Psalms
51:5 (KJV) “5Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive
me.”
Psalms
51:5 (NIV) “SURELY I WAS
SINFUL AT BIRTH, SINFUL FROM THE TIME MY MOTHER CONCEIVED ME.”
“This is a perverted interpretation to fit the false doctrine that infants are born in sin, whereas sin is transgression of the law. (I John 3:4). In Ezekiel 18:20, we read: "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father..." Jesus said: "Except ye be converted; and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3).
In an effort to further the idea of
"Adamic" or "inherited" sin, the NIV renders
"flesh" as "sinful nature" in Romans 7:18, 25; 8:2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12; 13:14; I Corinthians 5:5;
Galatians 5:13, 16, 19, 24, 6:8; Ephesians 2:3; and Colossians 2:11, 13.
Man is made in the image of God, and God is the Father of
our spirits. (Hebrews 12:9). Human beings are not sinful by nature. That is something that has to be
learned. Men go astray. (Psalms 58:3). We are not born astray.”6
Second
– Direct Operation of the Holy Spirit in conversion:
I Corinthians
The Holy Spirit through the pen of
Paul is telling us that the natural man, the carnal man, the man of the world,
will not receive the things of God because he doesn’t understand them and
they’re foolishness to him. If the will
of God had never been revealed to mankind, we could not know it. Mankind can look upon God’s creation with
wonder but never see God in it. The
nature; the existence of God, the will of God for mankind had to be given to us
through the revelation of God through the Holy Spirit. And it was. It was given by God directly to
the patriarchs and to us through inspired men directed by the Holy Spirit who
wrote the Scriptures for us. But what
does the writers of the NIV do with this verse.
I Corinthians
This is the direct operation of the
Holy Spirit. “The man without the Spirit,
the man does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, but they
are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them….” This teaches that we cannot even teach
someone the Word of God until the Holy Spirit has prepared them to accept it!
Third – Salvation by Faith Only:
Romans
With the spiritual heart, our minds,
we believe unto righteousness,
with our mouths we confess unto
salvation. We’re not there yet, we’re
approaching righteousness, we’re approaching salvation but we have not gained
righteousness, we have not gained salvation just by believing and confessing
Christ.
Ephesians 1:7 “7In whom we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;”
Our redemption, our forgiveness for our sins, comes through the blood of
Christ, we do not contact his blood by believing and
confessing
Romans 6:3-4 “3Know ye not, that so many of us as were
baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4Therefore
we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life.”
It is in our baptism into the death
of Jesus Christ that we make contact with the blood of Christ. It is in our baptism that the old man’s sins
are washed away (Acts
Romans 6:17-18 “But
God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 18Being then
made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”
But what does the New International
Version teach?
Romans
The NIV teaches that we are
justified by our belief and saved by our confession; nothing is unto, belief
generates justification and confession generates salvation. This is salvation by faith only,
denominational doctrine that cannot be found in the true Word of God.
Ephesians
Galatians 2:16 (KJV) “16Knowing that a man is not justified by the
works of the law, but by the faith of
Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified
by the faith of Christ, and
not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be
justified.”
Paul writes that we are justified by
“the faith of Christ”; that is the entire body of teaching and doctrine of
Jesus Christ. In order that his readers
could not misunderstand; Paul repeats that statement in the latter part of the
verse. But what does the NIV teach:
Galatians
Salvation is changed from being
through “the faith of Jesus Christ” that body of teaching; that doctrine found
in the New Testament scriptures to being “by faith in Jesus Christ.” This is a subtle to many perhaps; but spiritually
deadly because it teaches the false doctrine of salvation by faith only.
The New York Bible Society’s New
International Version based upon a very poor foundation of an “eclectic”
cobbled up Greek text that is known to be poor, unreliable and suspect by true
linguists and Bible scholars. It is a
paraphrase, a commentary; not the translated word of God but rather what these
liberal theologians invented by taking the words God gave to his writers of
scripture, modifying them, changing them, perverting them to teach all manner
of denominational doctrines never found in the original texts. They have incorporated denominational
doctrines that they wanted it to teach making the very Bible that millions in
this world and many of our brethren are using a tool of Satan.
Our shepherds at Sunset have kept this perversion of God’s Word out of
our classrooms so far and I commend them for that stand, Now perhaps you have some understanding as to
why the New International Version of the Bible is so dangerous to heaven bound
children of God.
Invitation
1 The Handley Herald, Handley church of
Christ, via CFF, A. G. Hobbs, Fort Worth, Texas, 1982
2 ibid
3 ibid
4 ibid
5 The NIV/KJV Parallel Bible, Copyright 1985
by the Zondervan Corporation
6The Handley Herald, Handley church of
Christ, via CFF, A. G. Hobbs, Fort Worth, Texas, 1982