Christianity Today reported recently on the controversy surrounding the latest version of the NIV Bible.
Seems the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution against the 2011 version, which is slated to replace the now venerable version from 1984. Too much gender neutral language, apparently, the same complaint that was lodged against the Today's NIV, which had a stated goal of producing a more language inclusive translation.
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood joins the SBC in its contempt for the new version, which they believe is an inaccurate translation because of the gender neutral issue.
I should point out that no version of the NIV uses gender neutral language for God -- in any aspect of the Trinity. God is still father, Jesus is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is a he. But the CBMW believes that some of the NIV's neutral translations should have been translated using male terms because they would be more accurate.
More particularly they object to the translation of I Timothy 2:12, where Paul says he doesn't allow women to have authority over men. The NIV uses the word "assume" instead of "have." They detect an egalitarian bias in this translation.
For the uninitiated, there are two kinds of conservative Christians -- those who believe men and women are equal before God but have different, God-ordained roles in the church, and those who believe men and women are equal. Period. The former are complementarians, the latter egalitarians.
The CBMW cares not that the committee that produced the translation stoutly denies any bias, pointing to members who hold a complementarian view that were OK with the translation. Nope, the bias is there, the naysayers insist.
I spent some time with the old NIV and the newest NIV and applied the little bit of Greek training from seminary that is still useful and found some translations I thought were better in each edition. The worst part for me was the use of the execrable singular "they." You know: Anyone who believes they are better than someone else is a fool. Ick.
Now, I spent 12 years of my life studying five languages other than English. And I've spent a good deal of time studying English and how to communicate in it. With that background, I'll say this.
All English translations are by their nature a compromise. Translators have to figure out how to translate the context of words from another language and time into English that is understandable to a modern reader.
Context determines whether the use of a word is slang or whether a phrase is an idiom without an exact equivalent in English. The historical and cultural context imbues words with meaning as well. Go back and read a King James Bible to see how this works.
The most "literal" translation keeps these concepts in mind. Find a good interlinear Greek-English Bible, and you will see the translators sticking in English words that aren't in the Greek or Hebrew text because they are implied by the word being translated, and it's the only way to make a sentence intelligible in English.
I never recommend one specific Bible translation because of this. I also don't dog on translations. The translators are doing their best, given their training and available tools to produce a translation that will speak to readers.
What we should do is have a variety of translations at our disposal, a feat that's relatively simple now through the Internet. We should read the same passage in two or three -- or more -- versions, noting the differences and ask ourselves what insight we can gain from those differences. Done prayerfully, the exercise could lead us to a deeper appreciation for the message of the passage.
And really, isn't that the point of reading Scripture?
