Best-Selling Bible for Conservative Evangelicals to Undergo Revision
The top-selling Bible in North America will undergo its first revision in 25 years, modernizing the language in some sections and promising to reopen a contentious debate about changing gender terms in the sacred text.
The New International Version, the Bible of choice for conservative evangelicals, will be revised to reflect changes in English usage and advances in Biblical scholarship, it was announced Tuesday. The revision is scheduled to be completed late next year and published in 2011.
"We want to reach English speakers across the globe with a Bible that is accurate, accessible and that speaks to its readers in a language they can understand," said Keith Danby, global president and CEO of Biblica, a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Christian ministry that holds the NIV copyright.
But past attempts to remake the NIV for contemporary audiences in different editions have been plagued by controversies about gender language that have pitted theological conservatives against each other.
The changes did not make all men "people" or remove male references to God, but instead involved dropping gender-specific terms when translators judged that the original text didn't intend it. So in some verses, references to "sons of God" became "children of God," for example.
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1 comment:
I'm surprised (and a bit disappointed) at how these stories are misrepresenting the nature of the gender-language debate in relation to the TNIV. I think it's likely the spin is coming from Biblica, not the journalists themselves.
For example, "The changes did not make all men "people" or remove male references to God, but instead involved dropping gender-specific terms when translators judged that the original text didn't intend it."
That doesn't explain TNIV changes like Isa 19:16 where NIV (and the Hebrew) says "like women" but TNIV reads "like weaklings."
The gender-inclusive language of NLT didn't create such a firestorm of controversy.
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