Why NIV?

There are over sixty ‘translations’ of the Bible in the English language alone – some very technically accurate translations, that can be difficult to read, and others which are acknowledged paraphrases, which try to get the message of the Bible across in an ‘easy to read’ format.

And English itself is not an absolute. Apart from different pronunciations of words (both within a country as well as between countries), you will also find differences in spelling, for example, ‘neighbour’ (UK English) and ‘neighbor’ (US English).

In his book How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Zondervan), Douglas Stuart recommends the NIV as ‘as good a translation as you will get’, and a ‘translation by the best scholarship in the evangelical tradition’.

The NIV is certainly a ‘readable’ translation!

Being involved with work with several denominations, I have seen that the NIV is being used across many fellowships – so, the NIV has been used as the reference version for these puzzles.

(Note: it is the NIVUK English that is used throughout.)