Rant of the Week

The NIV Bible

 

N. T. Wright has written of previous NIV editions:

When the New International Version was published in 1980, I was one of those who hailed it with delight. I believed its own claim about itself, that it was determined to translate exactly what was there, and inject no extra paraphrasing or interpretative glosses.... Disillusionment set in over the next two years, as I lectured verse by verse through several of Paul's letters, not least Galatians and Romans. Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said.... [I]f a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about.[18]
 (From Wikipedia, on the NIV

And that's that.  I don't have too much to add, except that, now that I am older, I wonder just how responsible we should hold parents and church leaders for the  deception.  It's not as if this is an accident.  And it's not as if they don't think they have a higher calling than to ensure that the cornerstone of their faith is translated without deceit.  It's this casual, thoughtless adherence to the principles of propaganda.  And how can you not wonder in what other localities of faith and sacrament and ritual they are lying?

 

All Contents Copyright © Bill Van Dyk  2012 All Rights Reserved