April 1, 2002
Bible translation historically a dangerous job
___By Bill Cessato
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Perhaps the checkered history of Bible translation can best be described as, well, of biblical proportions.
___Burnt offerings, declarations of heresy and denunciations of evil pepper not only the pages of the Old and New Testaments but also the lives of some individuals who translated the Good Book.
___One gruesome tale, according to Christopher de Hamel's "The Book. A History of the Bible," involves William Tyndale.
___Tyndale, during the heyday of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, asked to compose a version of the Bible in English. The Roman Catholic bishop of London balked. Tyndale moved to Germany, continued his translation work for more than a decade, and, ultimately, was arrested in 1535 and deemed a heretic the next year.
___His fate: First, strangled. Then, burned at the stake.
___Modern controversies around Scriptural translation seem tame in comparison.
___"Tyndale was burned at the stake for his Bible translation work," said Karen Jobes, associate professor of New Testament at Westmont College. "Things have come a long way since then."
___Indeed. Yet Jobes and her colleagues from the Committee on Bible Translation--a 13-member team of translators from various Protestant denominations--have created a new stir in unveiling their revision to the best-selling New International Version titled, Today's New International Version.
___The TNIV New Testament, making its debut this month, changes 7 percent of the NIV New Testament text. The complete Bible hits the market in fall 2005.
___Specifically, the TNIV, copyrighted by the International Bible Society and published in North America by Zondervan, has drawn criticism over its handling of certain gender terms.
___"When the NIV was originally translated, ... readers were more used to understanding the generic masculine," said Jobes, the one woman on the translation committee. "Today, however, it gives many readers pause wondering whether a masculine reference is actually meant to be gender-specific or gender-inclusive."
___"So, the Committee on Bible Translation decided to use gender-inclusive language wherever the original was so understood, and retain the masculine where the original is gender-specific," Jobes explained. She noted that edits to gender terms account for less than 30 percent of the overall changes.
___For example, in the NIV, Acts 17:22 reads, "Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: 'Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.'" The TNIV switches "men" to "people."
___"In Acts 17:22, Paul uses a conventional form of address without implying a particular biological gender," according to a TNIV explanatory note. "The phrase here is 'andres Athanaioi' ('Andres' is a form of 'aner'). While the term 'aner' usually refers to a male human being, it was occasionally used as a generic term for human beings."
___But several critics have countered the new interpretation.
___"The TNIV has eliminated numerous examples of words like 'father,' 'brother,' 'son,' 'man,' and 'he/him/his' in passages where a male aspect of meaning was present in the original Greek text," said Randy Stinson, executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
___"Some of the changed gender terms in the TNIV are cases where feminine or neutral English words are used to represent the Greek word 'aner,' which is always masculine in the original," said Jack Cottrell, a professor of theology at Cincinnati Bible Seminary who, along with more than 35 evangelical scholars, issued a "Statement of Concern" about the TNIV in February.
___ "It means a 'man' in the sense of a 'male,'" said Cottrell. "It does not mean a 'human being.'"
___Such back-and-forth over translating decisions has a long history.
___"Translations never win immediate, widespread acceptance," said Peter Thuesen, an assistant professor of American religious history at Tufts University. "This is for two reasons.
___"First, new versions usually depart from language made familiar by liturgical or devotional use," he explained. "The second reason is that most conservative or evangelical Protestants still regard the Bible as the infallible word of God. When a book is treated as infallible--however that is defined--then its translation becomes a matter of grave importance."
___Thuesen, for instance, points to the Revised Version, which appeared as the New Testament text in 1881 and as the whole Bible in 1885.
___One sticking point centered on the ouster of 1 John 5:7--"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." Though earlier scholars believed the verse to be a late addition, the Revised Version translators deleted it first, prompting claims they denied the doctrine of the Trinity.
___The Washington Post, like newspapers nationwide, entered the fray. On May 23, 1881, the nascent daily--then four pages long--devoted roughly 3,000 words, through an editorial and two news articles, to the revision.
___"It is not too much to say that the Jerusalem Chamber revisers have spoiled the New Testament," said the Post's editorial. "They have corrected a holy work into a religious classic. ... Let modern scholarship be held in subjection to divine inspiration. Let us not be civilized into religious barbarism. Let us say the Lord's Prayer as we are used to say it, and keep the Bible that we have."
___Nearly 70 years later, according to Thuesen, another controversy blew up around the 1952 Revised Standard Version, especially over its treatment of Isaiah 7:14. The RSV translators, after re-examining the Old Testament Hebrew verse, changed "virgin" to "young woman."
___Since the Isaiah passage was traditionally cited to foreshadow Jesus' virgin birth, writes Thuesen, some conservative Protestants alleged that the RSV translators were undermining Mary's virginity. Anti-RSV publications like "The Devil's Masterpiece" and "The New Per-Version of the Bible" soon appeared. One pastor even held a widely publicized rally at which he burned the RSV page containing the Isaiah verse.
___Now, the impending TNIV release has rekindled the longtime debate about Scriptural translation. How the current gender disagreement plays out remains unclear.
___Mark Strauss, 42, an associate professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary who signed an IBS and Zondervan statement supporting the TNIV, predicts the dispute will die down with time.
___"I think, with the next generation, this issue will greatly subside," said Strauss, author of "Distorting Scripture? The Challenge of Bible Translation and Gender Accuracy."
___"Whereas my generation and the generation before me are very used to masculine generics, the younger generation uses them far less often," he said. "The TNIV is a very conservative translation which sounds very natural to modern English ears."
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