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The Inner Story of the New International Version: Reflections of an Original NIV Translator, by Murray J. Harris. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2023. 90 pages, softcover. $16.00. ISBN 9781666787849. Reviewed by Douglas J. Kuiper.

The King James Version (KJV) was virtually unchallenged as an English Bible translation until 1885, when the complete translation of the Revised Version (RV) was published. But only when the New International Version (NIV) appeared in 1978 did the KJV lose its status as the most widely used English version.

Most men were involved in producing the NIV are now dead. This prompted Murray Harris, one of the translators who is now in his eighties, to tell his story of the creation of the NIV. Harris’ book is both a history of the translation of the NIV and his personal reflections on the NIV. The book is short and easy to read.

Chapter one explains the project’s origin. The impetus for the NIV came from within the Christian Reformed Church. Harris notes that “At every stage all the major Protestant denominations were represented in the committees. This ensured that the translation was free of sectarian bias and paved the way for its acceptance by a wide range of churches” (11). Chapter two regards Harris’ personal involvement in the work, chapter three explains the principles that the translators used, and the next two chapters relate how the Committee on Bible Translation did its work.

The first five chapters demonstrate that translation work is difficult and time-consuming. The NIV translators worked in teams of two, three, or four, translating an average of three verses per hour. Their work involved asking many questions about word meanings and idioms in both the original and receptor language. Harris illustrates the difficulty of translation work by referring to different ways English versions translate John 1:1 (20-24).

Harris includes several case studies to illustrate what kinds of decisions the translators had to make (38-60). One case study regards the translation of the Greek monogenes (John 1:14 and elsewhere), which the NIV translates as “one and only” (the KJV has “only-begotten”). Harris explains that the committee understood the verses that contain the word to refer to Jesus’ divine person, in which sense He is indeed the “one and only son.” Yet, in the mind of this reviewer, the translation “one and only” is seriously deficient. It fails to convey the idea of being begotten, which the Greek monogenesspecifically conveys. The NIV translators were content to translate the general idea of the verse, sometimes at the expense of the specific meaning of individual words.

In the second part of the book Harris evaluates the NIV. In chapter six he evaluates the NIV in four areas: the 2011 revision of the NIV regarding its use of gender-inclusive language; the NIV generally in n relation to the KJV; and the NIV in two places in which he disagrees with the NIV’s translation (Heb. 12:2a and 2 Cor. 5:19a). In chapter seven he addresses the word most difficult to translate: the Greek doulos, often translated “servant,” but more properly “slave.” Harris is convinced that the word “servant” does not do justice to the Holy Spirit’s meaning in Romans 1:1, Philippians 2:7, and other verses; only “slave” can suffice. Chapter eight is brief, consisting of “concluding observations.”

While promoting the NIV, Harris evaluates the KJV. He acknowledges that the KJV sets a high bar in its “sheer literary beauty,” “memorable cadences,” purity of English, and influence on the English language (67). But Harris attacks the KJV regards its textual basis (68), and makes unwarranted and untrue statements about the KJV.

First, Harris chides scholars who say that the KJV New Testament “was based on the textus receptus (received text)” (68), because the term textus receptus refers to a 1633 Greek edition, while the KJV was published already in 1611. But these scholars are not abusing historical facts; rather, they are recognizing that the 1633 Textus Receptus is essentially, even though not identically, the same text as that which underlies the KJV New Testament. Harris would help the reader, if he wants to pursue his challenge to the KJV on this point, to show what significant differences exist between the 1633 Textus Receptus and the KJV’s Greek textual basis. [1]

Second, Harris alleges with a broad brush that “where there are substantial (and not merely stylistic) differences between the KJV and the NKJV and modern English versions of the NT, it is not a case of modern translations omitting verses or passages but of the KJV adding these sections from certain late manuscripts” (55). This assertion is bold, aggressive, and wrong.

Harris’ only support for his assertion is 1 John 5:7b-8. Many are of the view that the Reformation-era textual critic Desiderius Erasmus was going to leave these verses out of his Greek text because he could not find them in any Greek manuscript. When he was shown that they were in a Latin manuscript, he “backtranslated” them from Latin into Greek. But even if one grants Harris’ point in the instance of 1 John 5:7b-8, this does not warrant such a broad and sweeping statement. It is like finding one bruised apple on a tree and using it to convince others that every apple on the tree is bruised.

This attack on the KJV is dangerous: laymen assume that scholars are right when scholars speak to matters that laymen do not understand. But when the scholars are wrong, the laymen have been deceived. And Harris is wrong. Textual critical observations, based on sound premises, can demonstrate that the KJV have not added anything. Again, the “late” manuscripts on which the KJV New Testament is based are consistent with the vast majority of manuscripts available today. And his statement ignores one more point that many textual critics ignore: at bottom, the date of the manuscript is less important that the date of the reading to which that manuscript bears witness. Many readings not found in Aleph and B, and therefore not in the “earliest and best manuscripts,” nonetheless have witness in the church fathers and in other Bible versions that predates Aleph and B.

A weakness of the NIV is that its translators adopted the flawed premises of the Westcott-Hort theory of textual criticism. The implicit acknowledgment of this point by one who was involved in the translation work is appreciated: candor is good.

^[1] See Paul D. Wegener, The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1999), 270.