'Gender-accurate' NIV forthcoming
___GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.--"Sons of God" will become "children of God" and "brothers" will be translated "brothers and sisters" in a so-called "gender-accurate" update of the New International Version of the Bible.
___Zondervan and the Internationa
l Bible Society announced publication of Today's New International Version Jan. 28. It will be an adaptation of the popular New International Version.
___The new version will change 7 percent from the NIV, officials of Zondervan and the Bible society said.
___Change such as making "sons of God" read "children of God" will be done only when scholars determined the original text did not intend a specific gender reference, officials said. References to God and Jesus will remain masculine.
___"We firmly believe that to effect positive change in our world, we must communicate with today's generations in the English they are being taught and that they speak," said Peter Bradley, president of the Colorado Springs-based Bible society. "To accomplish this mission, we must make certain that Scripture is presented in a way that is unquestionably accurate and perfectly clear."
___Other changes in the new version include describing Mary, the mother of Jesus, as "pregnant" rather than "with child." Jesus will be called Messiah rather than "Christ" when the text refers to belief in his messianic status. But he still will be called "Jesus Christ" when Christ is used as part of his personal name. Also, some references to Jews will be more specific, using phrases such as "the Jews there" or "the Jewish leaders."
___The new translation of the New Testament will be released in the spring and the complete text, including the Old Testament, is scheduled to appear in 2005.
___The regular NIV also will continue to be published.
___Some conservative evangelicals quickly criticized the new translation.
___While translating team officials call Today's New International Version a "gender-accurate" product, critics charge it is "gender-neutral."
___"Accuracy and clarity are prime with us," said Larry Lincoln, communications director for the International Bible Society, copyright holder of both the new translation and the 1984 NIV.
___The new translation, he said, uses generic language for men and women "only when the text was meant to include both men and women."
___But Randy Stinson, executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, charged the new translation contains "absolute mistranslations."
___Among examples he cited was the latter part of Revelation 3:20, which the new translation renders as, "I will come and eat with them, and they with me."
___"Them" and "they" replace the words "him" and "he" in the traditional NIV.
___"The removal of 'him' and 'he' completely drains the passage of the individual nature of the relationship between a person and Christ," Stinson asserted.
___Meanwhile, two Southern Baptist seminary presidents are among a group of 26 scholars who issued a statement saying they "cannot endorse" the new translation "as sufficiently accurate to commend to the church."
___Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Paige Patterson of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary joined in the statement that declares there are "troubling translation inaccuracies" in Today's New International Version. The inaccuracies, they charge, relate primarily to "gender language ... that introduce(s) distortions of the meanings that were conveyed better by the original NIV."
___The International Bible Society reportedly was on the brink of introducing a "gender-accurate" update of the NIV in 1997 but was stopped by howls of protest from conservative evangelicals, who represent a major market share for NIV sales.
___The conservative weekly magazine World hammered the Bible society on the issue, eventually forcing the Bible society to announce it would "forgo all plans" to revise the NIV.
___The latest announcement differs from the 1997 matter in that the new translation will not replace the traditional NIV.
___The Bible Society defends the new translation against charges of inaccuracy and political correctness.
___The new translation "uses a generic language only where the meaning of the text was intended to include both men and women and these changes reflect a better understanding of the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek," Bible Society spokeswoman Judy Billings said.
___It "does not neuter any passage of Scripture," she added.
___Based on news service reports
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