NIV Tested Positive for Virginia Mollenkott?? 🤔🏳️‍🌈 – Feb 28, 2025

At the time the NIV was being translated, Virginia Mollenkott had a husband, a son, and a reputation for being a sincere evangelical Christian. She was also not an author or translator of the NIV. She was consulted in minor ways on style, but had no say in the final readings in the text.

Has the NIV has “gone Woke” in recent years, or has it tested positive for the agenda since the very beginning?? Was there a conspiracy to gradually make the NIV favor homosexuality? Did the loud protest of the ridiculous KJV-onlyist help shape the course for future compromise? Were the cries against Virginia Mollenkott used to mask the real agenda? How are “they” exploiting our fears? How much can we trust the KJV-only gossip mill? 🤔

We’ve been told by the gatekeepers of KJV-onlyism that Virginia Mollenkott was on the original NIV committee and that she orchestrated the removal of scriptural condemnations of sodomy/homosexuality from its translation. Should we really be surprised that it has no basis in fact?

Check out this transcript from the Ankerberg Show where Kenneth Barker NIV translator goes toe-to-toe with two leading proponents of KJV-onlyism.

“Ankerberg: New Age Bible Versions?, by Gail Riplinger criticizes the new translations in many ways and one of them has to do with the NIV, Dr. Barker. And she says that your translation can’t be trusted because of the translators that you had on the committee. She says there were homosexuals and lesbians; and she also asserts that because there were lesbians on the committee, the translation work they did, they were able to silence all of God’s warnings against sodomy in the Bible. Is this true?

Barker: No, it isn’t, John. And I think I can save a little time by just quickly reading what I wrote about that in the book, Accuracy Defined and Illustrated on pages 123 and 124. “Some have claimed that the NIV condoned sodomy [that is, homosexual sins]. The alleged reason for this is that some NIV translators and editors were homosexuals or lesbians. These charges have no basis in fact.

“Here are the facts. In the earliest stages of translation work on the NIV [in the early 1970s], Virginia Mollenkott was consulted briefly, and only in a minor way, on matters of English style. At that time she had the reputation of being a committed evangelical Christian with expertise in contemporary English idiom and usage. Nothing was known of her lesbian views. Those did not begin to surface until years later in some of her writings.”

I’ll just inject a parenthesis here, as she has said in the interview that you did with her, Joe, on tape and I’ve heard that with my own ears, she herself has acknowledged that that did not become known or public knowledge until about the year 1983. And, of course, the NIV was finished at the end of 1978.

“If we had known in the early seventies what became public knowledge only years later, we would not have consulted her at all. But it must be stressed that she was not a member of an NIV translation committee. She was not a translator, she was not an editor, she did not influence the NIV translators and editors in any of their final decisions.” Not one.

“[It] is also asserted that the NIV allows for homosexual and lesbian practices because it translates ‘sodomites’ [in the King James] as ‘male shrine prostitutes’ in 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; and 2 Kings 23:7. This is simply a problem of arriving at the correct meaning of the Hebrew word qadesh[plural quedeshim], as it is in most of the passages here. Apparently the KJV/AV translators thought it meant ‘sodomites [homosexuals],’ so they rendered it that way. Today, as all modern commentaries and Hebrew lexicons indicate, we know that it means male ‘shrine prostitutes.’ There is also a feminine form of the same Hebrew word that means ‘female shrine prostitutes.’ Such religious prostitution was a prominent feature of the pagan immoral ‘worship’ of the Canaanite fertility gods and goddesses. Of course, that practice is thoroughly condemned in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament.”

Then just this final short paragraph.

“Homosexual and lesbian practices are condemned just as clearly and strongly in the NIV as in any other English version. See the NIV renderings in Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:10; and Jude 7.”

Ankerberg: What do you think, Joe?

Chambers: I interviewed Virginia Mollenkott for about 45 minutes. She told of the long period of time in which she worked with the NIV as a stylist and a consultant. She told of large passages of Scripture sent to her for her opinion, for her involvement. She said often they would actually change words because she felt they were better.

Here’s a letter written from her last year, June 12, 1994, “I worked as NIV stylistic consultant for several years.” She said very clear that there was a reduction of condemnation of sodomy in the NIV, and I can quote 1 Corinthians 6:9 as a proof. Let me give it to you, and I’ll read it both in the King James and the NIV. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminates, nor abusers of themselves with mankind.” Now, the last phrases have been changed: “Nor male prostitute, nor homosexual offender.” And even Virginia agreed that “homosexual offender” could be a homophobic reacting against a homosexual just as surely as it could be a homosexual in their acts of sin. So that those Scriptures clearly reduce…. And, of course, sodomy is removed from the entire Old Testament, as he admitted, and sodomy was certainly more than being a male prostitute, although they were male prostitutes.

Barker: We did not translate it male prostitutes. We were talking about the word qadesh, quedeshim, when we were saying that. You’ll find plain homosexual references in all the verses that I listed at the end of what I read a moment ago. I don’t see how anyone could say that we watered down homosexual and lesbian practices when we plainly condemn in this passage male prostitutes and homosexual offenders. That is totally beyond me.

Chambers: “Nor abusers of themselves with mankind.” That phrase being reinterpreted “nor homosexual offenders.”

Barker: The study note on that says, “Paul here identifies three kinds of sexually immoral persons: adulterers, male prostitutes, and males who practice homosexuality. In Romans 1:26 he adds the category of females who practice homosexuality.” What could be clearer?

Ankerberg: What you’re saying is, “homosexual offenders” covers all three of those categories.

Barker: Yes. Yes, it does.

Chambers: But it doesn’t cover it and communicate to the people like “abusers of themselves with mankind.” That includes, men, women, or whatever.

Barker: Well, I think it does.

Ankerberg: Well, how about Leviticus 18:22 where they say, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman”?

Chambers: Now that’s in the NIV?

Ankerberg: Yes.

Chambers: Okay. I would accept that as being against it, but he still removes the word sodomy.

Ankerberg: Well, my point is, if Virginia was on the deal and she was supposed to be responsible for doing this, why didn’t she get that one too?

Chambers: Nobody said she did it in every case.

Barker: Sodomy is simply an antiquated word for homosexuality, homosexual and lesbian practices.

Chambers: The only people who would call it antiquated would be the sodomites themselves. They don’t like it, of course. They like the word “gay.”

Barker: No, it’s just that you don’t hear it much anymore, Joe, in modern American usage.

Chambers: But modern Americans…

Gipp: Sodomy is against the law in many places. I mean that word sodomy

Farstad: It is used in a legal sense.

Gipp: Yeah, you can’t say that it’s antiquated. I mean, we’re talking 1995 and it is used legally and you can say to somebody, “Sodomy is wrong. Here is a law that is against sodomy.” If you change our law to say “shrine prostitute,” every homosexual is going to say, “I got no problems.”

Barker: There you keep bringing up shrine prostitute. You see, that was point two in a statement. In all the other references that I mentioned, including the one John mentioned, we were not talking about the words translated “shrine prostitutes,” we were talking about translations in the NIV that mention specifically homosexuality. What does sodomy mean? It means homosexuality.

Gipp: Right. And what did you do with sodomy when you translated it?

Barker: There are some places where sodomy is translated homosexuality; there are other places when it’s the translation of qadesh and quedeshim, for which you also have qadeshah, the feminine of it, where it is clearly referring male and female shrine prostitutes…

Gipp: That’s what I just said, shrine prostitutes.

Barker: …where we translate it that way. But, don’t forget all the other Hebrew words that are not those words that are translated homosexuality.

Gipp: You have changed sodomite to shrine prostitute in several areas.

Barker: Because that’s what it means.

Ankerberg: Alright. James, final word.

White: I hope everyone notices that the King James Only advocates will always use terms like “changed,” “deleted,” so on and so forth. In this entire thing we have seen very plainly that it’s a circular position. It starts with its own assumption. It starts with its own finish. And, therefore, anything that differs from the King James is obviously a change, a deletion, a perversion, or whatever. We cannot, if we are going to be honest with ourselves before God, argue in circles. God does not call us to argue in circles. This argument that was just put forward, it would be just as easy for me to sit back and say, “Well, the King James doesn’t say anything about homosexuality.” I don’t see the word there, so therefore it must be alright. That’s a ridiculous argument, and yet it’s the standard that’s being used.”

(The King James Controversy Revisited – Program 7, September 26, 2013)

The segment from the Ankerberg discussion is a 9-minute clip which focuses on modern versions’ teaching on homosexuality. The full recording of this discussion (which I believe was recorded in 1995) is also available on YouTube. Start at 1:57:17. See also Dust Off the Bible’s article on Was The NIV Corrupted By Homosexual Translators?

From what we have seen, many one the uninformed side of the KJV-only proponent spectrum accuse her of being the perpetrator of what they see as Woke corruptions. While the more deceptive (from whom the uninformed heavily borrow) opt for a carefully worded game of guilt by association. Thus they skillfully avoid saying what they know is technically inaccurate, while maintaining the unneeded suspicions they have spread.

Question: Have the compromises we see today been influenced by the protests of KJV-only proponents? Let us know what you think below.

God bless!

Joseph Armstrong

bibleversionconspiracy.com

This content was originally published on our Buy Me A Coffee page on Feb 28, 2025. https://buymeacoffee.com/josepharmstrong/niv-tested-positive-mollenkott