New NIV Has Everyone Talking

Like the weather and country music, everyone has a thought to weigh in on the new NIV.    The ultimate test of its success will be measured by the numbers of people who commit to print copies when those release in March, but meanwhile, here at T-Minus-Five-Months, if nothing else, this must be driving a huge volume of traffic to BibleGateway.Com, no doubt including people who had never used the site before.

On the other hand, if you are a regular BibleGateway user, you’ll note that if NIV (old) was your default translation, it has automatically been reset for you to NIV (new).   This is indicated by a ©2010 notation, even though most of know the project as NIV 2011.   (I guess you can’t copyright into the future, though it didn’t stop Larry Norman from doing it on one of the Crosstones albums.)

see photo info at end of article

On Monday, a search for “New NIV”  (in quotation marks) yielded approx 1,200 mentions using the Google Blog search alone, but less than a hundred during the timeframe the text was actually released online.    There was a lot of speculation ahead of time apparently, or else a lot of people got advance copies, which I doubt.   The best test for you, the reader, is to look up verses with which you are intimately familiar, and then discern for yourself if this is the translation for you.

While I have no reason at this point not to like it, I continue to be impressed with my NLT, right up last night’s reading of Isaiah 55.    It continues to feel increasingly comfortable.    The new NIV — to be referred to, by the way, as simply the NIV — is 95% a reiteration of the previous edition.   Only 5% is revised.

Most of the online comments at this point are rather cursory.   How do you assess a Bible in just a few hours?   But N. J. Mackison (I hope I got the name right) does the best job I saw last night with a variety of observations, including the change from “saints” to “holy people.”   This one is definitely worth a mouse click.

Kevin Davis takes an objective look at how the new translation deals with the gender-inclusive issue.   There’s a similar post at the Better Bibles Blog.

Denny Burk includes the video introduction by Douglas Moo, and notes correctly that Zondervan et al have had some rather bad experiences updating the NIV in the past, and really need this one to work.

Darryl Dash, who lives about 90 minutes west of me, has the video also, and goes one better with an interview with Dr. Moo.   Don’t miss this one.

Nick Norelli shines the spotlight on a well known passage in Philippians 2.

The blogger simply known as Dave laments the eventual loss of the TNIV, as I’m sure others will.

Jimmy Snowden is a HCSB user who weighs in on the new version and also why he is not an ESV reader.

Charles Halton is upset that the Committee on Bible Translation didn’t like any of the suggestions he sent them in an open letter.

The blogger at Evangelical Textual Criticism incorrectly observes that BibleGateway has removed the old NIV, though we found it at 10 PM at the end of the translation list.

Robert Jimenez notes that “flesh” has replaced the term “sinful nature” and also looks briefly at the gender issue.    Cory Howell gets into this in more detail, including a look at the term “son of man.”

…That’s an overview of where things stood at 11 PM last night (EDT) on day one of the new translation.   Oddly, when I checked Alltop Church and Alltop Christian — the two Alltop blog aggregators to which I belong — I couldn’t bring up any mention of NIV in the post titles.

If your blog, or one you’ve read on this topic isn’t mentioned here, there’s lots of room in the comments.  Just don’t include the link to this one.

PHOTO INFO:  Kenneth L. Barker’s classic book has nothing at all to do with this article, but this post desperately needed a graphic.