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When Evangelical Protestants received the Revised Standard Version, certain texts regarding the virginity of Mary and other Old Testament passages whose Christian interpretation referred to Jesus did not follow traditional Evangelical translation. The New International Version project was started after a meeting in 1965 in Palos Heights, Illinois between the Christian Reformed Church, National Association of Evangelicals, and a group of international scholars. The New York Bible Society (now the Colorado Springs-based International Bible Society) was selected to do the translation. The New Testament was released in 1973 and the full Bible in 1978. It underwent minor revision in 1984.

The NIV Bible is an explicitly Protestant translation. The deuterocanonical books are not included in the translation. It preserved traditional Evangelical theology on many contested points for which the Revised Standard Version has been criticized. Apart from these theological issues, the manuscript base of the NIV is similar to the RSV, using older Greek New Testament texts rather than the later Textus Receptus.