I am no KJV nor NIV advocate, but I do know this much -
No matter how "accurate" or "inspired" the translation of the KJV is, it (the KJV) is still written in a language that's four centuries old, replete with ancient grammar and syntax. If you want to see an idea of how much the "english" language has changed over time, take a look at side-by-side comparison of the prologue from the Canterbury Tales, in 1400AD english and 1996AD english. 1611AD is a lot closer to 1400AD than it is to 2003AD.
At some point (and I think we've reached it already), the language preserved in the KJV will become like Latin, i.e. a dead language requiring specialized skills to read it. Why not just cut out the middleman? If we have to be trained to read our Bibles, why not learn to read the Greek or Hebrew texts? And if you can read it, what's wrong with making a fresh, accurate, and literal translation of the original texts?
The NIV deletes the word inspiration from the text altogether and substitutes "God breathed".
That's what "inspiration" means. Don't believe me, check the dictionary. It's from the Latin inspirare, which means "to breathe." Thus, "God-breathed" is a legitimate, literal translation.
Those who use the Authorized Version are looked down upon by the apologists for the NIV as ignoramuses... Those who use the Authorized Version are looked down upon by the apologists for the NIV as ignoramuses, who do not understand the Hebrew and the Greek and therefore are in no position to judge. Unable to answer the arguments of the defenders of the Authorized Version, they turn to pouring scorn on their scholarship or lack of scholarship. In reality their argument is blatantly false for they are really affirming that all who use the NIV have the scholarship to make the right judgment.
Absolutely not true. I claim that the NIV is a serviceable translation, not the evil counterfeit y'all claim it is. And I argue that the NASB is more precise than the KJV, though some of the textual notes are screwy. I have no problem with people using the KJV -- it's a good translation, and the better for being 400 years old and with fewer manuscripts than the newer ones. What I take objection to is the arrogance of forcing everyone to use the KJV. The NIV/NASB are better suited for today's audience -- the diction choice is far more comprehensible to the modern mind. The English language has changed quite a bit in the past 400 years: imagine if I go up to my college buddies and say, "Wot thee what thou doest this eve?" How many of them are going to know what I just said?
God has delivered His Book to the custody, not of the scholars, the universities, colleges or seats of learning, but only to His saints.
As opposed to the state? Let's not forget who financed the KJV.
Can any ordinary saint know what is a proper version of God's Word? Can any ordinary saint who has no knowledge whatever of the original languages know what is a proper version of God's Word or which is absolutely reliable? The answer is "yes" or else Jude verse 3 is error. Jude verse 3 is not error but divinely revealed truth. The attempt to bamboozle the ordinary saints of God with irrelevant controversy must be demonstrated. The ploy to take from the saints their divinely appointed role of custody of the Book and place it in the hands of scholars must be exposed for what it is, a device of the devil himself.
I have access to everything I need. I have self-taught myself enough Greek to work my way through the definitive works like Kittel. I know enough about textual criticism to hold my own against liberal professors at a secular university. I posssess no formal theological training, yet I have all the resources I need to check the rendering of any translation -- and they cost me at most $200.
"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (I Corinthians 2:14).
Is the article arguing that a Christian who cannot understand KJV diction is somehow deficient spiritually? That's not what 1Cor 2 is talking about -- that's explaining the paradigm difference between the Christian and the unbeliever. That assertion is not spiritual discernment, its hubris.
Moreover, the NIV perpetuates the big lie that the quotations are from Isaiah the prophet even although in its additional notes it makes clear that one of them is from Malachi
That's because the NIV is correct in its translation of Mk 1:2. Yes, the majority reads "in the prophets." But siginificant earlier texts and extrabiblical sources have "in Isaiah the prophet." The sources backing up this are early and geographically widespread, covering the most important Alexandrian, Western, and Casarean witnesses: aleph, B, L, delta, theta, f, 33, 205, 565, 700, 892, 1071, 1241, 1243, 2427, it (such as a, aur, b, c, d, f, ff2, l, q), g sy(rp),pal, cop, geo, arm, Irenaeus (Greek), Origen Serapion, Epiphanius, Severian, Cyril-Jerusalem, Hesychius, Victorinus-Pettau, Chromatius, Ambrosiaster, Jerome (who has a variant of this reading), and Augustine. Given such an early and geographically diverse support, it is more plausible to attribute the variant to the "helpful scribe" correcting a perceived inaccuracy, rather than an introduced error -- especially when one considers that in that era, attributing it to "Isaiah the prophet" meant little more than that was what scroll it would be found in. The minor prophets were not always cited, but often referred to by the major prophet their book was placed with. Another example of this was in Matthew 27:9, which attributes a quote from Zecariah (Zec. 11:11-12) to Jeremiah. (It's that way in the KJV too.)
The thing is, it takes work to check this stuff out. The Isaiah thing sent me all over the web, spending about 20 minutes on it (and I knew where to look.) It's easier to just reject the translation out of hand and revert to KJV-onlyism. But that's just intellectual laziness.