BIBLE TRANSLATION PIT FALLS - part 2

I couldn't believe what I saw (not)

One day the spirit brought the passage to my attention where ages us says "this one can only come out through prayer and fasting". Jesus was referring to casting out a demon. As we should, when the spirit brings a passage to our mind we should always look it up. So I opened my habitual NIV and this caught my attention:

Mark 9:29 NIV
He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer. ”

Where was the rest? I knew it existed. I knew I had heard it, read it somewhere before. For sure. I could not have made it up. So I consulted another translation and there it was:

Mark 9:29 KJV
[29] And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

I was horrified. I felt a slight betrayal (not from God of course, but from men) followed immediately by a feeling of "why?". Moments after that I thought to myself: "goodness, what other parts of scripture has the NIV thrown away.

I often react to things like this rather dramatically at first and then discern better what the implications are in the next couple of days. My wife is a great anchor for me in these situations. In this case, for instance, she said the reason the NIV may have omitted this passage was that it was that some translations of the original manuscripts may not have had this part of the verse. This may be the case or not. We can easily find this out but, regardless, this explanation did not suffice for me. I just wouldn't let this go and, later, I realized why: there simply was no good reason to omit this in a "new" version of any Bible.

My rationale, and prompting of the Spirit, both pointed to this. The weakest argument I can make supporting that the NIV should never have omitted this is as follows. If there are two groups of manuscripts - proven to be genuine - and one has "prayer and fasting" while other has only "prayer", then it is not only I. Everyone's best interest that we include both "prayer and fasting".
This is not an omission of a key verse. This, unfortunately had a graver consequence. It is that it implies that the message is actually different than what it is. It devalues the word. For when I'm reading "prayer and fasting" on one scripture and then read only "prayer" in this New International Version which I am consciously aware of having been prepared by scholars of much greater intellect than myself, I may erroneously assume that

(a) Jesus may not have said "fasting",
(b) Jesus may not have meant "fasting",
(c) Jesus may have said something that combined both ideas.

But if point "c" we're to be the case then why omit "fasting"? Why not keep both "prayer and fasting" like most earlier translations have it?
So this devalues the great gift of fasting from, at, least, this passage. And when that happens, beware.

Why the omission?

In the end, there was no good reason, ever, to omit "fasting". No matter which way you sliced it the end result was negative.

Something that so caught my, by this point, very receptive intellectual sense was that the study publication of the NIV (the study Bible with all those notes) made not even any reference to the fact that "fasting" existed in other manuscripts. This was very odd, for study Bibles have copious amounts of notes, footnotes and references to material far less important than this.

Also, this was no small passage. After all it was not a matter of leaving out the words "six" or "ceremonial" or "thirty" in the following passage here used as an example.

John 2:6 NIV
[6] Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

Mark 9:29 is a key instruction on spiritual warfare. The implication of not following it properly equated that of sending a couple of soldiers into a particular attack which calls for, and can only be undertaken successful with, the use of a tank.

This discovery on the NIV's Mark 9:29 took place after a time when I had had a major breakthrough through fasting. Indeed all my major breakthroughs have taken place after fasts. I'm not saying this is the only way they happen but I am sharing my experience which (a) is real, (b) is biblical and (c) which I have first hand knowledge of.

According to some scholars Jesus gave us three main commands:
1. to pray;
2. to love God through loving others;
3. to fast.

One of the most easily forgotten weapons among modern churches. Fasting is extremely powerful. Indeed it is a real secret weapon in spiritual warfare but,unfortunately, it is not given due credit or attention so it becomes "secret" in a negative way.
The point is it is crucial for our lives and some things can only be done through fasting. Jesus says it himself.

It’s worse

Let's do this. Let's throw out everything I said until now.
Just read Matthew 17:21 in the NIV. This is referring to the same (or very similar) story as Mark 9:29.
Go ahead. Look it up for yourself. Matthew 17:21. It is there isn't it? Except there is nothing after the indicator for verse 21. It just blank! It's not there at all. This time the prayer went right down the tube with the fasting. Good night!!!

So this is the comparison (I included the verses before and after for greater emphasis to my point):

Matthew 17:20-22 KJV
[20]  [...] nothing shall be impossible unto you. [21] Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. [22] And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men:

Matthew 17:20,22 NIV
[20]  [...] nothing will be impossible for you.” [21] {BLANK}
[22] When they came together in Galilee [...]

Incidentally, I also discovered this after another fast.

To be persistently alarmist is wrong and unbiblical. Scripture is not meant to be reduced to one or a few passages, it is to be taken as a whole. Sure I have taken way more positive out of the NIV than negative. If I was in an island and it was all I had, God bless it. However, nothing excuses from changing, dramatically, a message by deliberately omitting verses in the world's most popular Bible translations.
This is why I strongly urge you to cease using the NIV. Essentially, you don't have to and why would you if it undermines your full and sometimes correct understanding of God's word.

The gift that keeps on taking

The worse problem is that the NIV has many revisions and with each new one, the scriptures get more and more blurred and altered. So far the 2012 edition is the most skewed.

Why, why, why? I can only think of this quote from the 1962 film “Lawrence of Arabia”:
“Big things have small beginnings.”

This is the end of the line for me. I will not speculate. I stop with the facts and with a list of Bible verses that have been completely eliminated from the NIV.
I have no theory, that I could in good conscience safely put forth, as to the reason these verses are not in the most widely circulated Bible version on the planet.

However, see for yourself and ask yourself: "is there any sane reason why the following are omitted from the NIV?"
Or
"Is there a pattern to the passages that are omitted in the NIV?"

Ummmm!...

NEXT TIME
Let's get to the meat.
I will share Bible passages which are missing in the NIV.