An interesting phenomenon I noticed while in the US was that a number of churches I had visited in New England DID NOT read the New Internationl Version of the Bible, and insisted upon reading the old King James Version. What stirked me was that while claiming to be Protestants (which is, by definition, strict followers of the Scripture rather than the Pope) reject the New International Version as being falsely translated. Now that Icant understand, considering that the NIV Bible was made after comparisons of Masoretic, Greek text (I forget how to spell the name fo it), Samartian Tanakh, Dead Sea Scroll, Aramic Texts, etc; in comparison, the translation had far less work and number involved in it, and translation in the KJV has been found to be faulty, so I am lost when it comes to this. Why are they rejecting the correct translations from the original manucrpits? Why do they insist on using an outdated versoion of the Bible?
By old King James, I assume you don't mean the real 1611 edition but rather the later 1769 edition. These are significantly different. A lot of people at my grandfather's church were KJV-only types, so he got a few 1611 edition facsimiles to show them that they had never seen and would not understand the version they insist upon using. I now have one of them.
Languages evolve, which means older translations can be harder to understand. There are nuances in the language that are generally lost, but those familiar with older writing styles can find things in older versions that are not conveyed as well in newer ones. English was slightly more declined centuries ago, so it is at least a little clearer to what each pronoun referred.
Mostly, people like to stick with the version on which they were raised. People like the sense of security that comes from tradition. This is especially true if those people were compelled to memorize verses in their childhood, and would be unfamiliar with other translations.
Older language also gives the impression of being more formal and serious. In fact, the original 1611 edition King James Version was purposefully written to sound archaic at the time, as if it were written in the early to mid 16th century instead of early 17th. The Geneva bible is 51 years older but sounds much more modern, and is generally considered much more eloquent. That hasn't been in print for a very long time, but was the favorite text among non-Church of England Protestants from the time it was released until decades after the US was founded. It is the version quoted by the Puritans and by John Dunn.
NIV is certainly not the "correct" translation. Our resident theologian, Plotinus, considers it intellectually dishonest and designed specifically to back up certain evangelical churches' teachings. He prefers the Revised Standard Version, which is much closer to KJV than to NIV.
NIV, TNIV, LT, NLT, etc., prefer a "thought for thought" (Dynamic Equivalence) translation instead of "word for word" (Formal Equivalence). This might be better for explaining things to people with poor reading comprehension skills, but it also makes the job of the translator very subjective. I tend to think that dynamic equivalence translations should not be called translations at all, as they are really paraphrases in which the translators often give their impression of what the text should say rather than actually trying to help the readers figure out what the text means for themselves. NIV isn't as bad as a lot of other dynamic equivalence translations/paraphrases, but it still isn't very good. More literal translations have much richer meanings, and familiarity with them can help you learn the nuances and idioms of the original language. It is quite natural and appropriate for those with the most respect for the authority of the scripture would want to read something close to the original and would reject dynamic equivalence translations.
I have personally found many bible verses have several alternate translations that seem equally valid and generally complementary rather than contradictory. NIV usually seems to convey only one meaning of the verse, and usually picks one of the shallowest or least likely ones. I do not consider it a translation at all, just a paraphrase. It isn't nearly as bad as looser paraphrases like the New Living Translation, but that isn't saying much.
It also tends to break things down into very short sentences and restate subjects that are only implied in the original, and could be interpreted different ways. This facilitates taking things out of context. In the original language, most chapters of the bible are single sentences. To be fair, the English language isn't really capable of constructing sentences like a declined language such as Greek did, but newer translations tend not to even try to stay close to the original.
I personally prefer to read my Vulgate rather than an English translation, as Latin Grammar is very similar to Greek and so much more capable of translating the text literally (and, of course, I know Latin pretty well but only know a few words of Greek). Obviously that is better for the New Testament than the Old, but it takes into account the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament which you could not spell; literally, "the seventy," a reference to how many good it containing, including the Apocrypha) as well as the best Hebrew texts available at the time. (It is an early 5th century translation, but mine is a Stuttgart edition so it takes into account some more recently found texts too.) The style of translation used back then has been described as "painfully literal," which I prefer. I usually carry a New King James Version to compare it to in case I don't know what a word means. I'm not a big fan of NKJV, but this one was a gift and contains pretty good commentary. Regardless, it is vastly superior to NIV.
My pastor highly recommends the English Standard Version. ESV is a rather new translation, first published in 2001, with a version with the Apocrypha first released in January of this year. It is a Formal Equivalence translation that is supposed to be a middle ground between the readability of the NIV and the accuracy of the RSV (being closely based on the latter), aiming for as precise and literal a translation as possible without sacrificing accessibility. I have found it to be far closer to my Vulgate than any other English translation, and no harder to read than NIV. ESV probably is the best choice for most of those who know only contemporary English.
Incidentally, said pastor is a Korean-American, as are at least a slight majority of those who go to the same non-denominational church as I do when at Georgia Tech. (This summer I've been commuting and so going to my family's church instead, but I've come to really dislike its new pastor and don't consider myself a member or a Southern Baptist anymore.)
, most notably the Boxer Rebellion. Christianity was and still is associated by many with imperialism. Unlike China, Korea was mainly suffer from the invasion of Japan, therefore Koreans do not have this sentiment against Christianity. On the contrary, Christianity served as a flag against Japanese colonial rule, many prominent Christian sacrificed their lives for this course, notably An Jung-geun who assassined Japanese Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi.
