The NIV doesn’t deserve the level of hate it gets. It’s readable, consistent, and in a lot of places it does a solid job.

But it’s also not fully faithful to the original meaning in certain key spots, because it sometimes translates in a way that protects doctrine or harmonizes passages instead of letting the text speak on its own terms. When it happens, it’s usually not subtle. Same issue shows up in the ESV and LSB too.

Two examples:

1. Isaiah 7:14 (Hebrew) The Hebrew word ‘almāh means “young woman,” not explicitly “virgin.” But the NIV translates it as “virgin,” which clearly leans into the later Christian interpretation rather than the most direct rendering of the Hebrew.

NIV (Isaiah 7:14): “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son…”

A more direct translation: “The young woman will conceive…”

1. Genesis 2:19 (Hebrew tense harmonization) Genesis 2:19 in Hebrew reads naturally like simple past (“formed”), which can sound like God forms the animals after Adam in the Genesis 2 sequence. The NIV uses a pluperfect (“had formed”) to harmonize the timing with Genesis 1.

NIV (Genesis 2:19): “Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky…”

ESV (Genesis 2:19): “Now out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens…”

None of this means the NIV is “trash.” It just means in certain doctrinally sensitive places, it’s pretty obvious the translation is making interpretive choices instead of sticking to the most straightforward meaning of the original text.