The Literary Merit of the New International Version

The standards of expectation for any new translation of the Bible are perhaps higher than most people realize. To justify its existence, a modern translation must not merely be as good as existing versions—it must be better. The literary merits of the New International Version can be evaluated in terms of clarity, effective diction, vivid expression, respect for the principles of poetry, and smoothness of rhythm.

The prime literary virtue of the NIV is clarity. For example, “Sheol” is translated as “the grave,” and the statement “he will not let your foot slip” conveys the realism of the journey to Jerusalem better than saying that God will not let one’s foot “be moved” (KJV, RSV). The sixth and ninth commandments of the Decalogue are rendered “you shall not murder” and “you shall not give false testimony.” “Dishonest scales” and “accurate weights” are an improvement over “false balance” and “just weight” (KJV, RSV). The lover in the Song of Solomon is “faint with love,” not “sick of love” (KJV) or “sick with love” (RSV). And I hope it will dispel some follies to read that “it is good for a man not to marry” instead of “not to touch a woman” (KJV).

The NIV fares less well in the area of diction. Given the time-honored scale of high, middle, and low styles, the NIV tends toward the low or ordinary. Its dialogues, especially, are filled with colloquial or informal diction, including contractions: “I’ll work for you seven years,” Jacob tells Laban, and the latter replies, “It’s better to give her to you than to some other man.” The exclamation, “How beautiful you are, my darling!/Oh, how beautiful!” (Song of Sol. 1:15) is prosaic and trite; “Behold, you are beautiful, my love;/behold you are beautiful” (RSV) is poetic and other-than-ordinary, as indeed the lovers themselves are. In Revelation 3:20 the words of Christ suggest almost an intrusive salesman or the neighborhood brat spoiling a Sunday afternoon nap: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.”

With this inclination toward an everyday idiom, the NIV loses the exaltation and grandeur and eloquence that the King James possesses in such abundance. Gone from the NIV are the “behold” and “lo” and “yea” and “even” constructions that give the King James and Revised Standard such power. Psalm 27:14, which is enlivened in the KJV with “wait, I say, on the Lord” and in the RSV and “yea, wait for the Lord!” is tamed down in the NIV to “wait on the Lord.” “O magnify the Lord with me” (KJV, RSV) is defused to “Glorify the Lord with me.” “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity” (RSV) has more vigor than “wash away all my iniquity” (Ps. 51:2). The King James definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1–2 is exhilarating; the NIV reads more like a political platform: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.”

At the level of style, the NIV tuned its lyre too low. There are several reasons why the Bible should be written in a style that conveys exaltation, dignity, and grandeur: Its elevated sentiments and experiences transcend the commonplace, its emotional intensity requires an exalted idiom, its ceremonial use in public worship calls for dignity, and the King James tradition has established a moderately formal style as the norm. Once the novelty of modern colloquial versions wears off, I fear that we will find that this type of familiarity, too, breeds contempt.

A characteristic weakness of modern translations is that they rob the Bible of its vividness, showing a preference for the abstract. When judged by the criterion of vividness and concreteness, the NIV is good but not outstanding. The “creeping things” of early Genesis have become, abstractly, “creatures that move along the ground.” “My heart overflows with a goodly theme” (RSV) is toned down to “my heart is stirred by a noble theme” (Ps. 45:1). The evocative “bottomless pit” of Revelation has evaporated into “the Abyss.” And the preacher’s doleful insight into the futility of life under the sun is lost in horrible abstraction “Meaningless! Meaningless!”/says the Teacher./“Utterly meaningless!/Everything is meaningless” (Eccles. 1:2).

Still, there is much to commend. Joseph’s “coat of many colors” (KJV), robbed of its evocativeness by the RSV’s “long robe with sleeves,” makes a partial comeback with “a richly ornamented robe.” And, as in the KJV (but not in the RSV), the psalmist’s soul “pants” for God “as the deer pants for streams of water” (Ps. 42:1).

A chief literary test for any translation of the Bible is its treatment of the poetry. Poetry uses language in a way that ordinary prose discourse does not. Specifically, it uses concrete images, figures of speech, archaisms, conventional language (or “poetic diction”), and inverted word order. The NIV, while of course preserving most of the figures of speech, shows a decided tendency to “normalize” the poetry in the direction of prose, too often ignoring the way in which poetry gains its effects by deviating from ordinary prose.

To illustrate, I have paired some passages from the King James (and in one instance the Revised Standard) and the NIV, respectively: “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”/“when you eat of it you will surely die”; “house of bondage”/“land of slavery”; “graven image”/“idol”; “I shall not want”/“I shall lack nothing”; “still waters”/“quiet waters”; “you are the fairest of the sons of men”/“you are the most excellent of men”; “on their hands they will bear you up”/“They will lift you up in their hands.” In each case, the NIV has done one thing or another to give us a prose Bible, even in places where a poetic Bible is more appropriate.

Rhythm is one of the most important features of the Bible. A successful rhythm is one that ebbs and flows smoothly, avoids abrupt stops between words and phrases, and provides a sense of continuity. For a book that is read aloud as often as is the Bible, and for a book whose utterances are so frequently charged with strong feeling, smooth rhythm is a major ingredient, and its absence makes itself felt at once when one listens to an oral reading.

Like most modern translations, the NIV is weak in the area of rhythm. There will, of course, never again be a translation to match the pulsating and incantatory rhythms of the King James, but the Revised Standard managed to retain much of its fluidity by preserving many of the “and” connectives. The NIV often deletes them, and the result is a style that is staccato and abrupt when read aloud.

To illustrate, I will again give pairs of passages, the first from the RSV and the second from the NIV: “in all that he does, he prospers”/“whatever he does prospers”; “great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised”/“great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise”; “he does not deal with us according to our sins”/“he does not treat us as our sins deserve”; “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live”/“I will sing to the Lord all my life.” Whereas the RSV has enough unaccented syllables to keep the phrases flowing, the NIV loads its lines with too many words that require a full stop between them.

The proliferation of modern translations raises literary problems. The Bible is a communal book and a shared possession. It is, moreover, an oral work, having been continuously uttered aloud and listened to even when there have been written copies. The Bible is also the most aphoristic book ever written, filled with memorable statements that live in the consciousness and rise to the lips.

To be all of these things, however, and to permeate the thought and speech of believers, people must read the same Bible. One can imagine what the status of Shakespeare or Milton studies would be if people used half a dozen different versions. For Protestants the King James Bible has until recently been the common Bible. It has become too archaic for most modern readers, but given its historical importance and literary excellence, the best modern translation is one that retains the King James wording and phrasing wherever possible. That translation is the RSV, not the NIV, and except for the superior clarity of the NIV in some instances, the RSV is, in my view, a much better literary achievement and more worthy of acceptance as the standard modern Bible.

G. Douglas Young is founder and president of the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem. He has lived there since 1963.

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