New International Version: What today's Christian needs to know about the NIV (1)

In the mid-1950s, Howard Long set out to witness to a business associate, only to have that associate break into laughter. The laughter came as the man read "the gospel for himself -- directly from the pages of the Bible".1 It made Howard angry, not that the man laughed at the Scriptures, but that Howard couldn't give him "a Bible in [his] own language".2
Howard's children, too, had trouble understanding a Bible written in something other than everyday language. "'We've translated the Bible into a couple thousand tongues,' Howard said to his pastor. 'Someday we're going to translate it into English'."3 Little did he know that his frustration would give birth to one of the most popular translations in the English language.
The New International Version was, in the words of James Powell, President of the International Bible Society, "'really God's project ... His fingerprints are all over it, from the original dream to the final production'."4 Apparently many people agree. The International Bible Society, in league with several publishers in North America and the United Kingdom, has packaged the NIV in every style and binding imaginable, and for every group of people under the English-speaking sun. There are expensive, luxurious leather editions and cheap paperback editions, versions for children and versions for college students, whole Bibles and individual verses, Bibles with 'Holy Bible' stamped in gold on the cover and Bibles that are only discovered to be Scripture when read by those familiar with the NIV. In its relatively short lifetime the NIV has become the basis of commentaries, interlinears, systematic theologies, and concordances. Colleges and seminaries distribute it to their students and require it in the classroom. Churches of many denominations and doctrinal persuasions use it in pew and pulpit. Bookshops claim that it is outselling the Authorised (King James) Version and everything else that claims to be Scripture.
Many versions of Holy Scripture claim to be literal translations (e.g., the AV, the Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible); others claim excellent readability (the paraphrases such as the Living Bible and Phillips New Testament), but the NIV claims both literalness and readability. The latter is definitely not in dispute; the NIV is written in a modern English that anyone -- rich or poor, young or old, saved or unsaved -- with a child's education can understand. The NIV is legitimately compared to a newspaper for comprehensibility. But with regard to the former, the literalness of translation, the NIV has come under increasing scrutiny, and in many ways has been found wanting.
It should first be noted that, had Howard Long interpreted his colleague's laughter in more biblical terms, the NIV might never have come to be. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him" (1 Corinthians 2.14). Unless the Holy Spirit is working in a man's life, that man has no reason to react positively to the Word of God because of what it is -- God's Word. Those in spiritual darkness will hide anywhere from the light, even in laughter.
This, however, may not have been the case with Howard's children. They could very well have been born again. Just as it is the parents' responsibility and honour to bring their children to an understanding of salvation through Christ alone, so it is their responsibility and honour to help their children understand the rest of Scripture. That can be done no matter what translation the parents use. A child can learn to read with understanding the most difficult language, usually more easily than an adult can, as has been proven over and over in past centuries with dead languages such as Latin and Koine Greek. While it is true that the NIV requires less adult supervision and guidance when being read, it may also deprive the parent of opportunities of spiritual interaction, opportunities that may never come again.
Philosophy of Translation
The problems with the NIV, however, are more basic and far-reaching than this. The problems begin at its very core -- the philosophy of translation held by its translators.
The NIV translators began with a very noble goal. Their wish was to produce "an accurate translation" with a high degree of clarity and literary quality, one that meets standards of modern English but at the same time preserves "some measure of continuity with the long tradition of translating the Scriptures into English".5 To fulfil this desire entails, first, the belief that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the very Word of God, inspired by God and inerrant even down to the individual words. On the basis of this belief, the words of Scripture are translated as literally as possible, with the goal being to reproduce in English what is written in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek of the original texts. The resultant translation should differ from the original texts and other literal translations only in idiomatic expressions, word order, and alternative definitions of words; the operating principle of this formal equivalence translation is "as literal as possible, as free as necessary". This philosophy of translation has been the standard of most translators throughout the centuries (discounting, of course, those who have paraphrased the Scriptures); the major differences between conservative translations of the past century have been in the Greek text used and the cultural or theological biases incorporated into the translations.
In recent years, however, there has arisen a group of scholars who no longer believe in the importance, and often the inerrancy and inspiration, of the individual words of Scripture. These men believe instead that it is the thoughts or the truth behind the words that is important. (In the inerrancy controversy, this theory "explains" such supposed problems as the diversity between Scripture and science. It is not what Genesis 1 says that is important, but the "truth" behind what it says.) This view is called the dynamic view of Scripture; transferred into the realm of translation, this is referred to as dynamic equivalence. The aim in dynamic equivalence translation is not word-for-word accuracy, but thought-for-thought equivalence. Although the NIV translators would avoid using the term dynamic equivalence in reference to their work, their aim was for "more than a word-for-word translation;" their goal, instead, was for "fidelity to the thought of the biblical writers". They sought by "frequent modifications in sentence structure and constant regard for the contextual meanings of words" to produce a translation that would speak to people in that people's own culture.6
The basic idea of the dynamic equivalence theory is to ask the question, "How do we think Paul would have written his New Testament letters had he written them in English?" Or, "How do we think a first-century reader would have understood the writings of Paul?" The dynamic equivalence translators want to produce the same response and reaction in twentieth-century readers. Thus, to them the thoughts, phrases, or truths expressed in man's writings are more important than the actual words. Their desire is to give modern man what Paul and his colleagues would have written if they were writing today.
How can a man's thoughts be known apart from his words? Further, if his words do not express his thoughts, especially in Scripture, how can truth be known at all? Where can man find truth if not in the very words of God to man? How can man know what Paul's thoughts were apart from what he wrote? How can man know how the first-century readers responded, apart from what has been written about their responses? The attempt to answer these questions through dynamic equivalence can produce all sorts of heretical extremes. Happily, the NIV translators held to the basically conservative end of the dynamic spectrum. However, it is distressing that, despite signing statements that they believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, they decided to use a theory of translation that in essence denies not only the inerrancy of Scripture, but also the need for Scripture to be inerrant.