WARNING! NIV1984 being Sunsetted from internet resources, users to be redirected to NIV2011

Many Christian internet users visit online Bible study resources, like BibleGateway.com, as handy reference tools. For those who use Biblegateway.com, be aware: they are phasing out the NIV1984 completely. Follow this link for Biblegateway.com's explanation (this page no longer exists). If you have links to the NIV or the NIV1984 on your blogs or web pages, they will soon be redirected by Biblegateway.com to the NIV2011, without notice. Other online Bible study resources, while not yet having completed their changeover, will be doing so very shortly. If you like having access to your NIV1984, the only place you will have complete access to it, henceforth, is in the actual physical book on your shelf.

To the NIV user who has not yet made a decision on which translation to begin using: if you plan on using online resources, YOU ARE OUT OF TIME. Now is the time for you to make a decision, as the NIV1984 will no longer be available online, anywhere. If you, while being reluctant to use it, nevertheless simply allow these sites to forward you to the NIV2011, then understand, you are allowing the publisher, Zondervan, to make your decision for you. Don't be such a weakling. Make a positive decision instead of accepting the default.

As for Intrepid Lutherans, we use two resources. One is Biblia.com, which we use in combination with a tool called RefTagger. This tool is inserted into our blog template, where it automatically recognizes unlinked Biblical references in the text of each page, and creates a link to the reference. Hovering over the link, a user is supplied a pop-up style-sheet that displays the reference (up to maximum character count), while clicking the link brings one to that reference on the Biblia.com website. There are many Bible translations to choose from. Currently, we have selected the New King James Version (NKJV) as the translation referenced using this tool, but could also use the English Standard Version (ESV), the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), and others. It is a handy tool for blogging. It assists blog authors who don't want to go to the trouble to add the reference markup themselves (RefTagger does it automatically), and for commenters who want to make Biblical references, but don't want use up their character count with hypertext markup. Here are some examples of its use. Hover over the references to see the beginning of the verses in a pop-up window, and you can click on the verse to see the whole reference, work with it in context, or explore other related verses:

John 1:1-5
John 1:1-5 NKJV
John 1:1-5 ESV
John 1:1-5 NASB
John 1:1-5 HCSB
John 1:1-5 NIV

The second resource we use is BibleGateway.com (although we could just as easily use Biblia.com for everything). We use BibleGateway.com most frequently when we want to direct a person to Scripture references in a specific translation, like the NASB or the KJV. Not only is the latter the personal preference for more than one of us, it is important to reference it when quoting historical sources, like Hoenecke, Krauth, Kretzmann, etc., who worked from it, or whose translators worked from it. In addition, we have found that the presentation of Biblical references on BibleGateway.com is simply more pleasant to the eye, and that the website is more intuitive to navigate for the average reader. Biblia.com is more of a research tool.

So, dear reader, if you are an internet user and an NIV user, and haven't yet made your decision on whether to go with the wretched NIV2011 or not, NOW is the time to make that decision. On your own. Personally. If you need assistance, we at Intrepid Lutherans have written a number of posts on the subject and collected them in a list at right, under the heading "ISSUES WITH THE NIV 2011".