About the New International Version of the Bible
When Evangelical Protestants received the Revised Standard Version (RSV), which first appeared in whole in 1952, it was criticized by conservative Evangelicals. Certain texts regarding the virginity of Mary, and other Old Testament passages whose Christian interpretation referred to Jesus did not follow traditional Evangelical translation. The New International Version project was begun after a meeting in 1965 in
The New York Bible Society (now the Colorado Springs-based International Bible Society) was selected to do the translation. The New Testament was released in 1973 and the full Bible in 1978. It underwent minor revision in 1984.
Features The NIV is an explicitly Protestant translation. The deuterocanonical books are not included in the translation. It preserved traditional Evangelical theology on many contested points for which the RSV has been criticized. Apart from these theological issues, the manuscript base of the NIV is similar to the RSV, using older Greek New Testament texts rather than the later Textus Receptus. Translation Philosophy The core translation group consisted of fifteen Biblical scholars. The translation took ten years and involved a team up to 100 people from the The intent of the translators was to produce an accurate and readable translation that would fall between formal equivalence (colloquially known as "literal" or "word-for-word") and dynamic equivalence (colloquially known as "meaning" or "thought-for-thought"). The text used for the Old Testament was the Biblia Hebraica Masoretic Hebrew Text. Other ancient texts consulted were the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, the Latin Vulgate, the Syriac Peshitta, the Aramaic Targums, and for the Psalms the Juxta Hebraica of Jerome. The text used in translating the New Testament was the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament. Recent archaeological and linguistic discoveries helped in understanding traditionally difficult passages to translate. Familiar spellings of traditional translations were generally retained. Circulation According to Zondervan, publisher of the NIV, the translation has become the most popular modern English translation of the Bible, having sold more than 215 million copies worldwide. It is especially popular among American Evangelicals. It continues to be one of the top ten selling Bibles. There are numerous study Bibles available with extensive notes on the text and background information to make the Biblical stories more comprehensible. Among these are Life Application Study Bible and the Zondervan published NIV Study Bible. Criticism King James Only critics criticize the NIV for using eclectic texts instead of the later Textus Receptus. Some Christians dislike the NIV because they consider it a loose translation that lacks a word-for-word translation style.