who I was with last night discipling had two Gideons New Testaments - one was NIV and the other NKJV. He somehow knew in his heart that the NKJV was the version that was really translating faithfully.

The truth is that the NIV translators used the principle of "dynamic equivalence" meaning - we won't translate the words used in the original literally, instead we will tell you in another way "what it really means" - according to us, that is. Trust us, we are scholars.