RE:///One good thing is they stopped using the term 'sinful nature' in Romans 7:5. That's probably the best example of a mis-translation messing up doctrine that there ever was.///
This is true!!
'The NIV reconsidered A fresh look at a popular translation'
1990 Kerugma,inc by Earl Radmacher BA and MA from Bob Jones University and ThM and ThD from Dallas Theological Seminary and Zane Hodges BA degree from Wheaton and ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary
p.113-117
VERSE 3
In this verse we meet, for the first time in Romans 8, a typical NIV interpretive translation. The Greek word for "flesh" becomes "sinful nature," as it does also in Romans 7:5, 18, 25 and in many of the verses following this one (8:5, 8, 9, 12, 13). yet it is not handled this way consistently, as we shall see. The result of the NIV's freewheeling treatment of this basic Greek word is confusion compounded by confusion!
Is it in pursuit of "clarity" and "intelligibility" that the NIV opts for "sinful nature" rather than the more literal, and familiar, rendering "flesh"? If so, it is more than doubtful that actual clarity has been achieved.
What indeed does the term "sinful nature" signify? Since the English word "nature" has more than one basic meaning, which one should the English reader understand here? Of themeanings offered by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969 edition), we have at least these options:
1. The intrinsic characteristics and qualities of a person or thing.
7. Theology. Man's natural state, as distinguished from the state of grace.
9. The aggregate of a person's instincts, penchants, and preferences: "She was only strong and sweet and in her nature when she was really deep in trouble" (Gertrude Stein).
10a. A particular kind of individual character or disposition; temperament: "In spite of her small vanities, Margaret had a sweet and pious nature" (Louisa May Alcott).
11. The natural or real aspect of a person, place or thing. (All italics are as in the dictionary.)
No knowledgeable user of contemporary English can believe that the word "nature" is self-explanatory in a phrase like "sinful nature." The very reverse is the case.
We might ask whether the word "nature," in connection with "sinful," refers to some intrinsic feature of man's makeup, or does it simply refer to an aggregate of characteristics which he displays? Does it reflect his "temperament" only, or is it something metaphysical in its essence?
How are we supposed to know the answer to any of these questions when we read the NIV phrase "sinful nature"? And why didn't the NIV leave well enough alone and simply translate the Greek word by "flesh," as did the KJV and NKJV? Such biblical/theological terms are better left for expositors to explain.
Nevertheless, we get the NIV's commentary on the Greek word "flesh," but before the light can dawn for us we must have a commentary on the commentary! The NIV's adoption of the phrase "sinful nature" is conspicuously ill-advised. It does not seem to have been carfully thought through at all.
Additionally, we might ask whether the NIV is precisely on target when it reads, in this verse, as follows:
For what the law was powerless to do in that [it was weakened by the sinful nature].
Compare with this the NKJV:
For what the law could not do in that [it was weak through the flesh].
The two renderings are not quite identical. The phrase "it was weakened by the sinful nature [= flesh]" might not mean exactly the same thing as "it was weak through the flesh." The NIV leaves the impression that, somehow, man's sinful nature sapped the law of strength which it otherwise possessed, as when one might say, "The man was weakened by his exertions." But does Paul mean to imply this?
Probably not. Ther is nothing in paul's thought about the law, either in Romans or elsewhere, to suggest that the law in some way became weaker than it once was. Rather, the law had an inherent incapacity to meet man's need because it had nothing to offer the sinner by way of deliverance from his sinful condition. When Paul says that "the law was weak through the flesh," he means to indicate that the law was ineffectual in coping with man's sinful condition.
The NIV adoption of a passive verb phrase in English to render the active verb phrase in Greek is certainly not a case where "faithful communication...[demands]...frequent modifications in sentence structure". On the contrary, it is an undesirable "modification" and potentially misleading.
Finally, the NIV concludes verse 3 as follows:
And so he condemned sin in [sinful man].
But the words "sinful man" translate exactly the same Greek ward (sarx, "flesh") that the NIV rendered "sinful nature" earlier in the verse. Thus the underlying verbal connection between "sinful nature" and "sinful man" is lost in the NIV, except for the word "sinful" which is a paraphrase to begin with.
In the previous sentence in this verse we also read "sinful man" where the NIV translates "by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man." This time, however, there is a word for "sin" in the Greek text which, more literally, reads: "in the likeness of (the) flesh of sin." The NKJV renders: "in the likeness of sinful flesh."
Observe, then, the NIV treatment of three uses of "flesh" in verse 3:
NKJV
through the flesh
the likeness of sinful flesh
sin in the flesh
NIV
by the sinful nature
the likeness of sinful man
sin in sinful man
Whatever else may be said, it is clear that the NIV is either correct in its interpretive renderings, or it is mistaken and misleading. unlike the NKJV, which does not attempt to interpret the word "flesh" for its readers, the NIV does so and thus asks the readership here, as in so many other places, to trust the expository acument of its translators and editors.
But is the NIV really accurate here? And can the reader in fact pick up the obvious Pauline tie between "flesh...flesh...flesh"? Of course he cannot, and the loss of this element in the intended Pauline meaning must be compensated for by some other significant gain from the NIV renderings.
But the gains are dubious at best. At worst, they are not gains at all, but losses. let us consider the issues involved.
The reason Paul likes the word "flesh" as a term for describing man's inward bent toward evil is because he sees this bent as situated in man's physical being--in his body. This is quite clear from Romans 7:22-25. To erase the word "flesh" from the text is to destory this implicity pauline link with man's physical experience.
Moreover, the phrase "in the likeness of sinful man' misses the fact that Paul is indicating that the incarnation of the Son was indeed physical, or bodily, but that it was also sinless. It was"in the likeness of sinful flesh" that He came. That is, He came in flesh which was not sinful. As Paul would later say, He was "manifest in flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16).
but the statement of teh NIV that He came "in the likeness of sinful man" loses the direct implication of physicality found in the word "flesh." yet, in first-century Christianity, this was an important issue since some intellectual and religious currents of thought resisted the notion of a divine being actually living in physical flesh (see 1 John 4:2,3; 2 John 7).
Moreover, the NIV follows this use of "sinful man" with a second use of the same expression to translate the simple word "flesh." But does Paul mean only that "sin in sinful man" is condemned, or does he mean to affirm that "sin in man's physical being" is condemned? The latter is almost certainly his intended thought. Paul thus anticipates our ultimate freedom from a physical body in which sin dwells. And, as he will say later in the chapter, "the glorious freedom of the children of God," in a coming day, will be the model for the freedom of all creation from "its bondage to decay" (verse 21).
Thus the loose, paraphrasing way the NIV treats the Greek word for "flesh" in verse 3, fails to accomplish any significant clarification. Instead, the NIV reader is left at a serious disadvantage when it comes to entering more fully into the Pauline concepts expressed in this verse.
The NIV's showing in Romans 8:3 is deeply disturbing to those who wish their translation to give them careful and reliable guidance into the original author's outlook and perspective.
