New International Version (NIV)
The most widely read modern English Bible. It aims for the sentence an English writer would have written, which makes it easy to read and sometimes hides how strange the original wording is.
The NIV was translated from scratch in the 1960s and 70s by scholars from several countries and denominations. The committee wanted a Bible that no single church tradition owned. It has been revised twice, in 1984 and 2011, and the committee still meets to review the translation.
It sits in the middle of the range translators argue about. A word-for-word translation follows the grammar of the Hebrew or Greek even when the English comes out strange; a thought-for-thought translation says what the sentence means and lets the grammar go. The NIV does the first where it can and the second where it has to, which is why it reads smoothly and why people who want to see the seams reach for something else.
The 2011 revision is the one you are reading here. Its most argued-over change was to say "brothers and sisters" where the Greek says "brothers" but is addressing a whole church, and to make similar changes elsewhere. Some readers welcomed that as more accurate to who was being spoken to; others preferred the older wording. Knowing the change exists is usually enough.
- How it translates
- Balanced — closer to the original wording than a paraphrase, freer than a strictly literal translation.
- Reading level
- About a seventh-grade reading level.
- Best for
- Reading whole books at a time, reading out loud, and being the version most people around you already have.
Worth knowing: Where the Hebrew or Greek could go two ways, the NIV usually picks one and reads well. You get a clear sentence, but nothing on the page tells you a choice was made. If a verse matters to you, read a more literal version beside it.