Friday, June 04, 2010

Chopped Up NIV

I lost my bible that I love.  Hopefully, it's just lost somewhere in the house but I haven't seen it in awhile.  :( 
 
Soooo, I went through my book case and found my old bible that I had totally dissected back in 2002.  As I'm looking through it, I have loved seeing all the notes I've written in it.  :)  So I calculated it and my oldest was 21 months old and my second was 9 months old.  I only had two babies!  I was 22 at the time.  Wow!  I can't imagine. SO MUCH can happen in such a short amount of time.  Now I'm 30 and I have six children.  It's so sweet finding old bibles because it's almost like finding an old diary because of all the notes in it. 
 
I had to share a few notes I found that I remember being very interesting to me that I have forgotten about.
 
What is the difference between old testament and new?  This is what I found.
 
Old Testament = Law (standard), (Self Discovery)
We are not as righteous (alone) as we think.
The law is a framework that exposes sin.
 
New Testament = Grace (undeserved favor or acceptance)
We now know that we need the blood of Christ to save us.  The Old Testament only proved that we are unrighteous.
 
(Note I wrote)  "Thank you, Lord, for my salvation.  Only by your grace I am saved."
 
Anyway, later on I had discovered something about the NIV after I had read all the way through.  I was really disappointed.  Many scriptures were CUT out. MANY.  I went through and found tons of and tons. Sometimes the scripture was there but half of it was chopped off.  Here is an example right out of my NIV bible.  This is out of Mark 11.
 
(25) "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. (27) They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him."
 
Did you notice I didn't write in verse 26?  In the NIV it's NOT there at all.  Why would this important verse be omitted?  I was sad as I flipped through and found many missing.  Naturally, I went out and bought a NKJV instead because I didn't want a chopped up bible. I still keep the bible of course because I have many notes written all through it. 
 
Anyhow, I just had to share with you my discovery!  At that time I was totally sad and freaked out.  I was highlighting all the parts that were missing and I was angry.  This is a sin to do this.  We are never to add or take away from scripture.  By the way, it's not anything dumb thats taken out.  It is VERY important scriptures.  I looked into the history to find out who put together the NIV version and it is from a Catholic Cardinal.  Ever since then I have bought different versions but this is the only version I found that takes out scriptures. 

3 comments:

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

There are other versions as well. You can't go too wrong with the King James, but any that are endorsed by odd churches (ex. Jehovah's Witnesses; they have their own version!) I would stay away from.

I haven't researched all the links on this, but thought you would be interested in a 'fer instance:

http://www.4jehovah.org/jehovahs-witness-nwt-errors.php

Iccle One said...

I so did not know that, thanks for sharing it. I've just looked it up in my NIV and I see what you mean, 26 isn't there in the body of text! In mine there's a footnote and 26 is there saying "in some manuscripts it has...."

It's a slightly difficult passage though, because it's saying that if you don't forgive others then God won't forgive you - but God can forgive everything if we come with heart felt repentance. I'll have to look up what the other versions say, but have to run to work now!

Anonymous said...

I was reading this post and though my native language is not English and I don't know much about the English Bible translations I decided to leave a comment.

Some of the earlier manuscripts were a little bit different (usually minor differences, such like extra words: "and" or something like that, that doesn't have an effect on the content), but in some cases there have been some verses missing from other manuscripts. I read mainly 1992 Finnish translation and there the verse 26 is included in the body of the text, and there's a footnote to the bottom of the page, where it says that some of the older manuscripts don't have this verse. But since the early christians decided that it's reliable information, I don't see a reason why they should leave it out of the Bible now.
When I have sometimes met Jehova's witnesses, I have asked them to check from their Bible Isaih 40:3. Even though they have changed the Bible to fit their purposes (such as that Jesus and Holy Spirit are not God), they haven't done trough out job!! At least in their Finnish translation it says that it is Jehova that they should be making way indicating clearly that Jesus Christ is the Lord and God! (See also Luke 3:4-6)
Much blessings to you and your family!