By David W. Daniels

The NIV has undergone a sex change. The new version, called "Today's NIV" or TNIV for short, is supposedly a "gender-accurate" version of the NIV Bible. What makes it "gender accurate"? It removes most occurrences of seven masculine words: father, son, brother, man, he, him and his.

For instance, the TNIV changes father to parent, son to children or people, brother to brother and sister, someone or person, etc. But this is of major concern to modern Bible scholars, since the most reliable Greek and Hebrew manuscripts actually use the masculine terms as they are found in the King James Bible.

Over 100 Evangelical ministers and scholars have signed a document rejecting the TNIV as a bad translation. But even they are missing the point. Most of these leaders still accept the NIV as a good Bible version. They only dislike the TNIV because of the changes that have been made to the NIV.

But the NIV is not God's words in English, either. God gave His words through godly apostles and prophets who wrote them down. Those Bible books were passed on by faithful believers, many of whom were persecuted for their faith and for their Bible.

But the devil had made a counterfeit. His "scholars" in Alexandria, Egypt perverted God's words horribly. The mutilated manuscripts from their "school" have become the foundation documents used by the translators of all the modern Bibles including the NIV.

Over a hundred years ago, Bible "scholars" concluded that Psalm 12:6-7 was wrong. God did not, indeed, preserve His "words." They decided that only the original documents written by the apostles and prophets were God's Word. Any copies of them were not reliable.

So the only reliable Words of God were lost. Now, they claim, all we have are copies of questionable accuracy. In the scramble to determine the "best" manuscripts, they ignored the thousands of manuscripts supporting the Textus Receptus used by the King James translators.

Instead they settled on just two manuscripts from the Alexandrian heresy, the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus. These became the foundation of the Westcott and Hort Greek text from which all modern Bibles derive.

Yes, the TNIV is a badly written Bible. Yes, it does take out God's clear masculine words and replace them with "gender-neutral" ones. But the NIV and modern Bibles are phonies to begin with. Don't follow the latest fad. The way to be sure you have God's preserved words in English is to stick with your King James Bible. In it God kept his Psalm 12: 6-7 promise. It is the only one we can use to confidently declare, "Thus saith the Lord!"

For a complete treatment of the perversions of the NIV, see IF THE FOUNDATIONS BE DESTROYED, by Chick Salliby, available from Chick Publications. Or, read the answers to many of the difficult questions asked about Bible versions.