April 1, 2002
Conservatives see devil in details of new NIV Bible
___By Tony Cartledge
___N.C. Biblical Recorder
___COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (ABP)--The International Bible Society will publish a new Bible translation to sell alongside its popular New International Version, but many conservative evangelical leaders are hoping no one will buy it.
___The new translation, to be called the Today's New International Version, or TNIV for short, was announced in January by the IBS and its publisher, Zondervan. The New Testament will become available this spring, with the Old Testament slated for release in 2005. Promotional copies of the New Testament currently are being distributed to retailers and to 50,000 pastors, educators and church leaders.
___According to the IBS, the TNIV changes 7 percent of the 35-year-old NIV to reflect both "the development of language and advances in scholarship" and "changes that are occurring in everyday English."
___A 15-member Committee on Bible Translation tweaked its earlier NIV in a number of areas, but critics focused quickly on changes to make the TNIV more "gender accurate" by translating masculine terms generically when the reference seems to include both men and women. For example, "man" might be replaced with "person," or "mankind" with "humankind." The singular "he" could be changed to "they" or "people" if the context indicated a universal application. Likewise, "brothers" could be translated as "brothers and sisters."
___To opponents of the TNIV, the changes smack of political correctness and a bow to feminism.
___"This new publication is nothing more than acquiescence to feminists who are more concerned with the so-called language of equality than they are with the message of the gospel of Christ," said Jerry Falwell in his National Liberty Journal.
___The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, an organization that promotes strict gender roles, published a short list of 26 translation changes it considers problematic, and a longer list of 100 it is concerned about. Its website (www.cbmw.org) offers a free booklet on "What's wrong with gender-inclusive translations."
___Baptist Press, the public relations arm of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, responded to the IBS announcement with a string of articles about the TNIV, most of them reflecting either caution or criticism. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler told BP that "those who champion a feminist agenda will cheer the announcement of the TNIV," but "the moment we begin to translate the Bible so that it will be less offensive to one group or another, we insult the very character of the Bible as the eternal, inerrant and authoritative word of God."
___In the same article, Ken Hemphill, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said, "Our mission is not to make the Bible relevant to culture but to bring culture under the rubric of Scripture."
___James Smith, editor of the Florida Baptist Witness, warned readers against the TNIV in an editorial. "Evangelicals hold to the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16) that includes every single word of the original texts," he wrote. "It's quite arrogant and extremely dangerous when human beings believe they can edit God's own words."
___The IBS defended its updated translation in a five-page "open statement" describing members of the translation committee as "renowned, conservative linguists and biblical scholars from the most trusted institutions in the world."
___"The TNIV upholds the same standards of accuracy, clarity and meticulous scholarship of the NIV," the statement said. "There is an academic, linguistic rationale for the translation of every passage."
___The intensity of conservative opposition to the TNIV grows out of an earlier uprising. In 1997, some evangelical leaders rallied to quash an IBS plan to market a "gender-neutral" update of the NIV.
___World, an ultra-conservative Christian magazine based in Asheville, N.C., led the charge, touching off an avalanche of criticism from leading conservative evangelicals, including some Southern Baptists.
___The conflict relates to an ongoing discussion among Bible translators. Some hold that any translation should reflect the most literal meaning of the underlying words, a philosophy sometimes called "formal equivalence." Many conservatives favor the New American Standard Version because it is a largely literal translation.
___Others prefer an approach known as "dynamic" or "functional" equivalence, in which the translation's main goal is to convey the original language's intent, even if it means a change to the specific wording or underlying idiom. The popular Today's English Version, published by the American Bible Society, follows this approach.
___Translations such as the NIV tend to take a middle ground, staying as true to the text as possible while making changes deemed necessary to clarify underlying meanings.
___The current debate thus is largely a matter of perspective. TNIV advocates say the changes in the translation of gender terms are a straightforward attempt to seek maximum clarity by keeping up with the evolving English language. Critics say the IBS has crossed the line from translation to interpretation.
___In reality, all translations involve some measure of interpretation. For example, the NIV translates Acts 20:30 as, "Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them." The TNIV substitutes the indefinite pronoun "some" for the word "men," assuming that both men and women are capable of distorting the truth.
___An article on the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood website, however, argues Paul could only have been addressing men because he was meeting with the "elders of the church" (20:17). Those who follow a literalist interpretation assume on the basis of other texts that women were excluded from being church elders.
___The NIV translation of James 3:1 warns, "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers." The underlying Greek has only the word meaning "brothers," but translators working on the TNIV added "and sisters," based on the assumption that both men and women could aspire to teaching. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood finds fault both with the addition of a word not in the text, and with the implication "that James thought women could be Bible teachers in the early church."
___"Unnecessarily changing the words of the biblical text in order to accommodate those who think certain phrases are offensive is dangerous and irresponsible," wrote Randy Stinson, executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. "The question one must ask is, 'What will be next?'"
___Steve Johnson, IBS president for communication and development, insists the issue is not accommodation, however. "The overriding concern of the Committee on Bible Translation is always accuracy and clarity," he said in a response to Baptist Press. "While there may be differences within the body on the specific rendering of Greek and Hebrew, the influence of social agenda into any translation is never permitted.
___"We regret that, once again, the issue of providing God's word to the next generation of English-speakers has become an issue of division in the body of Christ."
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