They Did WHAT? 

As we have seen already, both the Hebrew scribes and the King James Translators were extremely cautious in their translations and ALL lived their lives in accordance with the highest standards of Godly conduct and moral standards. The Word of God was never taken lightly and personal opinion was never considered to be a proper translation method.

It is not the attempt of this lesson to provide gossip or to destroy anyone's faith. It IS, however the scope of this lesson to provide you with factual information in order for YOU to make a sound judgment.

If you have honestly read the preface to the NIV, you have discovered already that by the Translation Team's own words, IT WAS NOT THE DESIRE of the translators to provide a WORD FOR WORD translation. 

Instead, they attempted to discern the "thoughts" of the original writers (i.e. "What was Paul REALLY thinking when he wrote his letters?).  They also placed (again according to their own statements), their personal thoughts and feelings concerning the translation of the Word of God rather than a LITERAL word for word translation. 

Despite the claims of an "eclectic" method, the NIV translators have overwhelmingly shown a prevailing preference for the Westcott-Hort texts, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO MATTERS OF FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINE.  In other passages that do not involve fundamental doctrinal issues, the editors used the Majority (Greek Textus Receptus) text.

In many verses containing essential doctrine, the NIV translators used the MINORITY (Westcott-Hort) texts and it appears that every opportunity was seized to promote New Age philosophy and to DEMOTE Christ.

The translation also was designed to appeal to (and not to "offend"), a wide variety of religious sects. It appears that the hidden agenda of the NIV was to alter critical biblical doctrine and to readjust men's thinking in order to conform to that of this world.

While the claim that the King James Version had too many "archaisms", it is interesting to note that the NIV often uses even more archaic words!

A quick comparison of many of these will quickly show that the argument for "replacement of antiquated, archaic word" is null and invalid. 

Take for Example:  the old archaic word "displeased" as found in 1 Samuel 18:8.  This old, outdated, antiquated word, displeased, has been replaced by the more modern, easier to understand word:  GALLED.  

Yet another old, outdated word, "Green", as used in Song of Solomon 1:16, has been replaced by the more up to date, modern word:  VERDANT". 

Oh, it gets much worse from here. 

Do you understand what a Lieutenant is?  Esther 3:12 uses the word Lieutenants:  Pretty Easy to understand, right?  The NIV replaces that old archaic word with the supposed correct word for today:  "SATRAPS".

I hope by now you get the picture.  These are by no means a full list, but to see some more of the "archaic" (according to the NIV translators) King James words that have been replaced by more modern, 'commonly used' words, look at the following chart that shows some of the "Archaic" words that the NIV translators "corrected" for out better understanding:

ARCHAIC WORD CHART 

It's pretty amazing, isn't it?

CONCERNING REAL HOLINESS

Let me ask you this: What kind of lifestyle would you expect from any person who was charged with translating the Word of God?

From the scriptures themselves, one would expect them to live a godly, blameless life, ACCORDING THE MOST HOLY OF STANDARDS set forth in the Word of God. Isn't it safe to say that you WOULD NOT EXPECT OPEN, BLATANT SIN to reign in their lives? Is that Right?

Well, normally that would have been a correct statement, however, with the NIV translators, this is not the case at all. One has to simply redefine sin and sinful actions (according to a majority of the "world's" scholars) in order to become righteous (in our own eyes). Read Proverbs 12:15.

Let's Examine Westcott and Hort for a moment before we move on.