Bible Translation as Battleground
Problems in Gender Changes from the New International Version to the New International Version Inclusive Language Edition
by John Piper
For two months [April and May] a serious debate has been going on among evangelical leaders concerning the use of gender-inclusive language in English Bible translation. The controversy was unleashed by an article in World magazine alerting the public to apparent plans on the part of the International Bible Society (IBS) and Zondervan Publishing House to revise the NIV with inclusive language. A glimpse of what this would look like was possible because the New International Version Inclusive Language Edition (NIVI) was already issued in Britain.
The NIVI is not published or sold in America. Nevertheless the Committee on Bible Translation for the NIV in America is ultimately responsible for its revisions of the NIV through a five-person British committee who did the actual rewording of the NIV for the British NIV Inclusive Language Edition. Until the IBS, who own the copyright of the NIV, announced on May 27,1997, that they were not moving ahead with an inclusive language NIV for North America, plans were being made to consider a similar inclusive language revision of the NIV for North America. Owing to public opposition, this trajectory was altered.
Nevertheless, Zondervan and IBS had already published in North America a simplified edition of the NIV called the New International Readers Version (NIrV), which is basically an inclusive language edition rendered for those with a third-grade reading level. The NIrV is not identical to the NIVI in its gender-neutral renderings, but clearly shows the direction that Zondervan and the IBS were moving until public resistance led to the May 27 decision. The news release of IBS (May 27, 1997) also pledges to “begin immediately to revise the NIrV in a way that reflects the treatment of gender in the [present] NIV.”
The loss of crucial collective singulars (e.g. adam):
• NIV Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea . . . 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
NIVI Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea . . . 27 So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Some uses of the “son of man” are not preserved:
• NIV Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
NIVI Numbers 23:19 God is not a human, that he should lie, nor a human being, that he should change his mind.
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