ALL of the translations are just that: translation. Each one depends to some extent upon the education and understanding of the translators. We own quite a few translations of the Bible. There are a number of differences in each one.
But, first of all, every one is faithful to the basic message of God -- that man has sinned and has a sin nature; that God loved/loves us for His own reasons and because of that has provided the answer for His own eternal justice in Himself as Jesus Christ; that those who believe in Christ are no longer judged by the law but are under grace; that Christ is the only way in which this can be accomplished -- 'good works' are futile in either obtaining or maintaining salvation; that the Holy Spirit will raise believers up to be the image of Christ Himself and that Christ will come again as Judge and King and that we will be with Him eternally. All the Bibles emphasize that He was born of a virgin, crucified, died, was put in the cave, and was resurrected by His own power and authority as God.
The NIV is a very good translation, by the way, often making clear passages which changes in our own use of the English language through time have made a little unclear in the older translations, such as the King James. However there are also places where the King James, and other older translations, because they didn't understand what was meant, simply translated the words as they were and thus stayed more faithful to the true intent.
However NONE of our Old Testaments from the King James (and earlier) on, are in sync with the New Testaments, and that is because they all depend on the Masoretic translation done about 100 AD. The Masoretic translators did a number of things to their own satisfaction rather than stay faithful to the older texts. For instance, they systematically dropped the cipher for 100 from a number of the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11. When those years are added, the earth is more than 8000 years old, which puts biblical ages in line with such things as Egyptian chronologies.
The Masoretic also changed a number of the prophetic statements about the coming Messiah, evidently to try to disprove that Jesus was the Messiah (there was another contender at the time...). That is why so many of Matthew's and others' statements quoting the Old Testament do not appear word for word, and sometimes not at all, in our Old Testaments.
It is interesting that when we go back as far as we can, we hit the Alexandrian Septuagint, translated about 250-300 years before Christ. This matches the New Testament quotes exactly. There are some very interesting differences in that ancient text (it was translated by Hebrew scholars from paleo-Hebrew to classical Greek). For instance, the Alexandrian LXX (Septuagint) indicates that Cain was deeply repentant for his act of slaying Abel and that God's mark on him was a mark of forgiveness so that he would not be slain in retribution by his relatives (all the people alive at the time would have been rather close relatives!). Thus the 'mark of Cain', far from being a bad thing might very well have been a good thing!
That is just one of the many things we have found when cross-checking various translations. The translations to stay away from definitely are the NEW 'NIV' which, as mentioned above, mangles meanings with sexually neutral pronouns, the New World Bible of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the like. But the standard NIV is actually quite good in most areas, and certainly is in doctrine.
Where it differs significantly from some of the older translations is an indication of the fact that the NIV translators actually had access to older manuscripts than did the translators of the King James. Thus there are some differences. But none of the differences affect basic doctrine or the reality of the Person of Christ.
They almost always have to do with bits of science and history.
In short, it is not hard to show where the old King James is 'wrong' in some areas and it is not hard to show where the NIV is 'wrong' in some areas, and since none of us have access to the ancient scrolls, wherever they may be, fighting about it is an exercise in futility. Paul knew what he was talking about when he stated so bluntly that he chose only to know Jesus and Him slain (and risen again).
