In a previous post, I discussed how the NIV deliberately mistranslated 2 Thess 2:15 and 3:6, as well as showing that scholars such as N.T. Wright are very critical of the NIV, especially when it comes to its translation of the Pauline corpus. Another example of a mistranslation in the NIV is Phil 3:14:
The NIV renders the verse as follows:
I press on onward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
The Greek of the text reads:
κατὰ σκοπὸν διώκω εἰς τὸ βραβεῖον τῆς ἄνω κλήσεως τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ.
The term τῆς ἄνω κλήσεως τοῦ θεοῦ is not correctly rendered by the NIV; instead, it refers, not to Paul being called to heaven, a lame attempt to mistranslate the Bible to support the false concept believers immediately go to heaven after their death (cf. this discussion of 2 Cor 5:6-9 and Phil 1:23), but that the calling of Paul originates from God. Peter O'Brien, a Reformed Protestant and New Testament scholar, commenting on this passage, wrote:
κλησις can be understood in its customary Pauline sense of the divine calling to salvation, particularly the initial summons, while the prize is that which is announced by the call. On any view του θεου indicates that it is God himself who issues the call, while εν Χριστω Ιησου probably signifies that it is in the sphere of Christ Jesus himself that this summons is given. In the immediate context the prize (το βραβειον) is the full and complete gaining of Christ for whose sake everything else has been counted loss. (Peter T. O’Brien, The New International Greek Testament Commentary: Philippians [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991], 433)
What further militates against this understanding of Phil 3:14 is that the context is about, not the intermediate state of believers, but the resurrection (cf. Phil 3:21).
Yet again, the NIV has shown itself to be an unreliable (and rather deceptive) translation. If Evangelicals (correctly) reject the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation for its deliberate mistranslations which often affect the theology of the text to support JW theology (see the NWT rendition of John 1:1c and Col 1:16, for instance), they should reject the NIV for what it truly is—a mediocre translation that should be substituted with a scholarly translation of the Bible (e.g., the NRSV).
