December 31, 2018
As I told you yesterday, the Bible translation that I’m going to be using is the New International Version, or the NIV as it is commonly known. I originally bought this version many years ago, because it is written in plain, easy to understand English. When I first bought it and was still questioning the accuracy of Biblical translations, I was made aware of my ignorance when I read the preface.
I learned that this Bible was made by over a hundred scholars that used the best available Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. The goal for this translation was to put the Bible into contemporary English. They, of course, wanted it to be an accurate translation. But they also wanted it to be easily used by people for reading, teaching, and preaching, as well as other uses.
The biblical scholars that worked on this project were from colleges, universities, and seminaries. They were from many different denominations and from many different countries. There were participants from the Anglican Church, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Church of Christ, Mennonite, and many others. They lived in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The entire Bible went through three revisions, during which each translation was examined for its faithfulness to the original languages. These revisions involved thousands of hours of research and discussion about the meaning of the text and the best way of putting them into English. In 1978 the first printing of the entire NIV Bible was published. There were additional revisions made in 1983.
This is a very brief description of how this version came to be. I hope that this blog will either introduce you to the Bible or reacquaint you with it. I also encourage you, if you aren’t already, get involved with a church! If you don’t have a church, ask people that you know, which church they attend. Go, “church shopping”. Try out different churches. Find one that teaches the Bible, follows the Bible faithfully, and encourages you to live out God’s Word. Find one that provides support systems in their women’s and men’s ministries. Do they offer classes? Do they have small groups? Do they have children’s, middle school, high school, and college ministries? Do they do life together? Reading the Bible through once, is never going to be enough. It’s just a start. You’ll want to dig in deeper. You’ll want to explore it and live it. I can’t wait to take this journey with you!
Oh! And, Happy New Year!
Study the Word 