NIV
 

Bible Versions:   What

Difference Does it Make?

 

Are there good reasons why we should be concerned about the proliferation of Bible versions, or is it “much ado about nothing”? What is the “bottom line,” where “the rubber meets the road”?

Pontius Pilate asked the crucial question of the ages:

“What is truth?” Somewhere in the world there has to be something we can point to and say, “This is true, this is real, I can stake my life on it”

We say, “This is true love,” or “He has true grit,” or “She is true blue.” All express confidence and dependability.

 

So when you have different versions using words with different meanings, which can you say is the “truth?” For example, is “faith” one of the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5:22 as the King James says or is it “faithfulness” (NIV)? (Compare also Eph. 5:9)

 

When you hold the KJV in one hand and the NIV in the other you can no longer say with complete confidence, “I hold the TRUTH in my hands.” You must decide which one is really true or declare both may be wrong.

 

If you hold up one and say, “Thus saith the Lord” you are obliged to throw the other one in the trash for it is now “untruthful” and unreliable.

If you fail to choose one or the other, your power to witness effectively is gone. You become just another babbling voice  spouting theories without authority. If you choose the wrong one, then you are guilty of teaching a lie.

 

Since God is not the author of confusion, the confusion in the church over Bible versions cannot be of God. For those who care to look at the proofs, the KJV is obviously God’s faithful TRUTH.

 

First, because it is based on, and agrees with, the majority of Bible manuscripts, over 5,000 in number. The other versions are based on just a few manuscripts that appear to have been rejected by the early church because of many defects.

 

Second, because of the technique used in the translation.  KJV translators used a method called “formal equivalence.”  They were primarily concerned with finding exact English wording to match the Greek or Hebrew. They carefully avoided injecting their own theology into the wording. Their goal was to put into English exactly what God said.

 

  The other Bible versions are produced by a translation technique called “dynamic equivalence.”  Here the translators don’t try to find exact English wording to match the original language.  Instead they try to figure out what God meant and organize the English any way they wish to convey that meaning. Right away, you can see how a translator’s own theology could color the result.  He will .interpret the meaning in light of his own beliefs.

Though the KJV faithfully gives us what God said, the other versions are man’s opinion of what God meant. This is why the KJV is the only Bible we can hold up with confidence and say, “This is what God says.” The others are only what “Doctor so-and-so” thinks God said.

 

Researchers  such as  Riplinger, (New Age Bible Versions), Gipp, (An Understandable History of the Bible), Grady,  (Final Authority) Burton, (Let’s Weigh the Evidence) and others have proven that dynamic equivalence produces defective translation.  Variations in meaning can be traced directly back to the beliefs (or disbeliefs) of many of the translators who worked on the “modern” versions.

 

Satan’s first strategy in the garden of Eden was to cast doubt on God’s Word. Today, he poses the same question, “Yea, hath God said…?” Do you have a Bible which you can shake in his face and say, “Yea, thus saith the Lord…”?

                                      -Battle Cry, July/Aug., 1998

 

 

Is the NIV Preparing the Way

for ‘Another Jesus?’

 

Author finds NIV chips away at

vital doctrines about Jesus

 

 

“What shall I do with Jesus?” is the central question of the ages. Every false religion cooked up by Satan downgrades Jesus one way or another. So, what do the new Bible versions do with Jesus?

 

Chick Salliby determined to find out. He began comparing verses in the KJV with the most popular modern version, the NIV. In dozens of places he found subtle, but consistent omissions and alterations which chip away  at  doctrines concerning Christ’s redemption, deity, virgin birth, miracles, priesthood and second coming.

 

For  example,  Christ’s statement of purpose in Luke9:56: “For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” is completely omitted in the NIV. The same sort of statement is left out in the NIV version of Matt. 18:11.

 

In other places, the NIV seems  to be chipping away at the doctrine of the deity of Christ. In Rev. 1:13 John saw, in the midst of the candlesticks, “Someone like a son of man” (NIV) instead of “One like unto the Son of man” (KJV). The “judgement seat of Christ” in Rom. 14:10 (KJV)   becomes   “God’s judgement seat”(NIV). In Acts 3:13,  God’s  “Son  Jesus” becomes “servant Jesus.” In his book, If The Foundations Be Destroyed, Salliby lists nearly 150 verses which have been altered or simply left out.

 

Sure, there are lots of other scriptures left in which may say basically the same thing. But are we seeing the beginning of a pattern? If this version leaves out a few verses and later another version comes out omitting a few more,  will  some  future generation lose all proof of who Jesus was and what He came to do? Is this Satan’s ultimate  strategy? Salliby discovered another curious thing. Of the 147 words or verses which he found omitted in the NIV, 146 were also left out of the New World Translation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses! This is the Bible which they carry while trying to convince you that Jesus was just a manifestation of Michael the archangel in human form, a mere created being.

 

The heart and soul of Christianity is that Jesus was God and therefore able to redeem us by His death when we had no other hope. How do we know this? The Bible tells us so. If some future Bible is not abundantly clear on this doctrine, then true Christianity will be no more. It will become just part of Satan’s witch’s brew of religions which all teach that man must be good enough to earn his own salvation.

                                          -Battle Cry, May/June, 1998

 

 

Who Killed Goliath?

 

In spite of the overwhelming evidence in Scripture of the outcome of David’s dramatic defeat of Goliath, The New International Version, 1984 US edition, couldn’t get it right. In II Samuel 21:19 it states: “In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.”

 

Contrast that to the King James Version which gets it right: “And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.

 

 

Try Answering These                      From Your N.I.V.

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

Using the New International Version Ô Bible, answer the following questions. Do not rely on your memory. As the Bible is the final authority, you must take the answer from the Bible verse (not from footnotes but from the text).

  1. Fill in the missing words in Matthew 5:44. “Love your enemies, ________________ them that curse you, ________________to them that hate you, and pray for

them that________________ and persecute you.”

  1. According to Matthew 17:21, what two things are

required to cast out this type of demon?____________.

  1. According to Matthew 18:11, why did Jesus come to earth?__________________.
  2. According to Matthew 27:2, what was Pilate’s first name?__________________.
  3. In Matthew 27:35, when the wicked soldiers parted His garments, they were fulfilling the words of the prophet. Copy what the prophet said in Matthew

27:35 from the NIV.

  1. In Mark 3:15, Jesus gave the apostles power to cast out demons and to:__________________.
  2. According to Mark 7:16, what does a man need to be able to hear?____________________.
  3. According to Luke 7:28, what was John? (teacher, prophet, carpenter, etc.). What is his title or last name?____________________________.
  4. In Luke 9:55, what did the disciples not know?_________________________________.
  5. In Luke 9:56, what did the Son of man not come to do?_____________________________.

According to this verse, what did He come to do?

______________________________________.

  1. In Luke 22:14, how many apostles were with Jesus?_____________________________.
  2. According to Luke 23:38, in what three languages was the superscription written?_______________________________.
  3. In Luke 24:42, what did they give Jesus to eat with His fish?__________________________.
  4. John 3:13 is a very important verse, proving the deity of Christ. According to this verse (as Jesus spoke), where is the Son of man?___________________________________.
  5. What happened each year as told in John 5:4?____________________________________.
  6. In John 7:50, what time of day did Nicodemus come to Jesus?___________________.
  7. In Acts 8:37, what is the one requirement for baptism?_________________________________.
  8. What did Saul ask Jesus in Acts 9:6?__________________________________.
  9. Write the name of the man mentioned in Acts 15:34.______________________________.
  10. Study Acts 24:6-8. What would the Jew have done with Paul? What was the chief captain’s name? What did the chief captain command?_______________________________.
  11. Copy Romans 16:24 word for word from the NIV.
  12. First Timothy 3:16 is perhaps the greatest verse in the New Testament concerning the deity of Christ. In this verse, who was manifested in the flesh?___________________________________.
  13. In the second part of First Peter 4:14, how do [they] speak of Christ? And, what do we

Christians do?___________________________.

  1. Who are the three Personsof the Trinity in First John 5:7?
  2. Revelation 1:11 is another very important verse that proves the deity of Christ. In the first

part of this verse Jesus said, “I am the A_______          and O____________, the___________________

and the_________________:”

 

 

Conclusion

 

 Little space is provided for your answers, but it’s much more than needed.  If you followed the instructions above, you not only failed the test, you receive a big goose egg.

(Ed.  These are all missing in the NIV) So now what do you think of your “accurate, easy-to-understand, up-to-date Bible”?

If you would like to improve your score, and in fact score 100%, you can take this test using the Authorized (King James) Bible.

                                                     By Rex L. Cobb

 

 

 

 

 

 Used by Permission

Chick Publications

P.O. Box 662

Chino, CA. 91708

 

 

 

 

          Translators are moving us toward a “generic” Bible, acceptable to all religions. Soon we will have a Bible fit for the New Age.

 

Author of New Age Bible Versions, Gail Riplinger gives example after example of how these Bibles come from translators who have no faith, and why these Bibles will produce “believers” who have no faith, either.

 

What’s missing the most? …the deity of Christ!

 

Further suggested Reading:

 

New Age Bible Versions

By Gail Riplinger

 

Let’s Weigh The

Evidence

By Barry Burton

 

 

 

 

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