Tuesday, 08 September 2009

  • Gender Free NIV Bible

    On the one hand, I'm not at all surprised that there is yet another version of the Bible coming out.

    On the one hand, I do like reading through several versions. Translating a language really is not a one-for-one deal because culture plays into to it, sentence structure affects it and language are dynamic. The English we speak in the U.S. today is slightly different from that of even 50 years ago. (SaintVI has an amusing post title "When Apples Were for Eating" that illustrates this point well.) I think it does us well to look at a few translations to get a more complete understanding of the meanings.

    On the other hand, I really am cynical regarding making a buck on Jesus. I do think businesses have every right to earn a profit, but I always have that nagging 'moneychangers in the temple' feeling when I see the extent to which we sell our faith.

    Anyway ... what caught my eye is that the NIV, the choice of the Evangelical community, is going gender neutral.  Not full castration, mind you, just in certain parts. I guess that's what makes it a little different from the recently released Today's NIV Washington Times article: that makes a great illustration point.

    "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-based Christian ministry that holds the NIV copyright.

    But past attempts to remake the NIV for contemporary audiences in different editions have been beset by controversies about gender language that have pitted evangelicals 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. Supporters say gender-inclusive language is more accurate and makes the Bible more accessible, but critics contend they twist meaning or smack of political correctness.

    So how about you? Do you prefer a "He"-man Bible or a gender neutral one?

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Comments (31)

  • ellicepark@xanga

    interesting and unnecessary unless someone really can't get over using the word man. people kind of should know that man can mean person.. ie mankind--for humankind.
    but yeah im w/ u on that money haggling in the temple thing.
    but then again. if it communicates. ie like the kind of person i just mentioned.. it might be better that way, so that they can understand the gospel which is first and foremost the most important thing to get.. not whether the text says 'he' or 'she' or 'he-she'
  • Toadias@xanga

    I am as sympathetic to the male dominated nature of the scriptures as anyone. I was roasted and told that I had committed blasphemy on Revellife.com when I suggested that God has a female side. So  my issue  with  the gender specific translation has nothing to do with that.

    My issue is with the words you use when you call a Bible a "translation".  To me translation means that to reproduce the original words and meanings as accurately as possible. The NIV is a dynamic equivalent translation and that means it is not matching word for word. But that does not absolve them from translating "man" to "man". There are paraphrases for the purposes of rewording the paragraph so that we can relate better.

    I primarily read the NIV, but I read the classic NIV. I originally went out that read their apologetics for the translation. I really like the translation. But I do not feel it is there place to remove gender and call it translation.

  • MissPixieGlitter@xanga

    i would prefer the gender-neutral one.
  • aznpride4christ@xanga

    I think I would prefer the gender-neutral one. Is it the TNIV? i actually was given one and it does drop a lot of the gender-specific "man" and "he"'s. I understand the worries it might cause to the Christian community, though, if political correctness becomes the basis for establishing what is or isn't true about Scripture. But i believe (or at least hope) that the people who are behind the translations have a real desire to make Scripture understandable to everyone or they wouldn't bother to spend months and month rereading the original translations and making Scripture as relational as possible.  It's been helpful to me if only because I know that a lot of times i feel a little left out if a Bible passage refers to a male specifically. haha. perhaps it's more out of a desire to be included that i would prefer it than for any other reason. But considering my own spiritual life and struggles, having a version of scripture that keeps me away from the awkward "I know it says "he" but it means everyone... hopefully" moments is just really uplifting. 
  • westernsoul

    Who are they offending?  Why does this version seem necessary?  I'd like to take a survey to see how many people think we need to have a gender neutral Book.  It seems to me to be perverting the Bible with the times-- the feminist movement.    
  • walking_the_narrow_road@xanga

    That is completely unacceptable and makes me angry. The Bible itself warns about twisting the words of God, so people make new Bibles that do change the words of God. Please tell me how that makes sense?!?!?!?!!!! What God said is what God said and humans have no right to interfere and try to "fix" it. Do you honestly think that God made some sort of mistake in what he said or that we can be wiser than God? People WILL get offended by the Bible. People get offended when someone mentions the word "God." Changing the word of God is NOT the solution to bringing more people to the faith. That's just fake and a lie.
  • walking_the_narrow_road@xanga

    @westernsoul - AMEN.
  • deepestrecesses

    Sick.


    Such an unnecessary adventure. Regardless of the importance of keeping the scriptures accurate and true to the original wording (to the best of our abilities, at least), this just seems like another evidence that the "Christians" are so busy trying to improve on God that they forgot that his works are already perfect. 


    I understanding creating a translation (accurately renderred) every 50 or 100 years; language evolves.  NIV has had like 3 in my lifetime (and I'm not even close to 50).


    just my thoughts on it.

  • Charity_the_So_Called_Artist@xanga

    Yay another "Bible" to spend money on. *facepalm* This is stupid and unnecessary. I'm not buying it, nor will I ever buy anything NIV to begin with. I'll use the modern translations as a "thesaurus" or something, but I'll never leave my King James Version. :) And I'm a girl. :P

  • Roadkill_Spatula@xanga

    When I was studying Bible translation, the approach we learned would have produced a basically 'gender-neutral' translation in those passages where a specific gender is not implied, as described in the post. The New Living Bible and The Message are both written this way.

    It's not a distortion of the original; this sort of thing happens in translation all the time. For instance, the Spanish hermanos is often best translated 'siblings' even though its basic meaning is 'brothers', because it can include sisters. Likewise abuelos can mean 'grandparents' as well as 'grandfathers'. Nearly all Spanish relationship terms, professions, etc., are masculine in the plural if they include both genders.
  • another_rebel_without_a_cause@xanga

    @walking_the_narrow_road@xanga - You have absolutely no idea what the original words were. They changed it in areas where biblical scholars aren't sure that's what was intended, not a complete change. This isn't twisting the original work; it's trying to correct innaccuracies in translation. If you want to read the original works, then learn Biblical Hebrew and Ancient Greek and go to the scrolls.
  • squanto_07@xanga

    i think all christians should learn Hebrew and Greek so they can truly read what the bible says. so much is lost in translation its nearly criminal to translate.
  • designandart@xanga

    I don't have a problem with it. The term "Man" includes woman anyway. The woman is the man with the womb and the female is the male who carries the fetus. At least that's what I've heard. Of course there are vast differences between men and women but maybe spiritually we're the same.
  • Shy___Away@xanga

    @walking_the_narrow_road@xanga - If the previous NIV version was the true word of God, does that mean that all the other versions weren't? Does that mean that the King James version is a lie, and is twisting the words of God? It seems to me that any English speaking/reading person has no place saying what is and what isn't the word of God, because really, only the original Hebrew and Greek texts were said to have been "inspired" by God. You have no idea if the NIV is really what God said, or if it's what the people that translated it wanted it to say. Jeez man, calm down.
  • subSacred@xanga

    I like the TNIV. I don't know how necessary it is, but all of the gender neutral references in it are appropriate and communicate what is most likely the original intended meaning. It's not new knowledge that many male terms were used to refer to people of all genders (as is still the case in many languages), it is just recently people developed enough balls to translate them as such.

    @walking_the_narrow_road@xanga - There's no twisting of the Word of God going on. The Bible wasn't written in English, and we can't treat it as if it were. Every English translation that we've had involved some attempt to "fix" it, because so many elements of speech are difficult to transfer between different languages, especially from different times.

    @designandart@xanga -Ha, so my wife can use the men's room?
  • CoZMuN@xanga

    I think it's unnecessary because I think just about everyone knows that the bible was written how many years ago? And back then society was a male based society. I think the bible should be as accurately translated as possible without all the sugarcoating to try and make people feel better who aren't even  offended by it.
  • ShimmerBodyCream@xanga

    Very Cool.
  • Pass_the_Aura@xanga

    Next time I get the urge to buy a "new" Bible, I'm calculating the list price and then sending a donation in that amount to Wycliffe Bible Translators, so they can make a new translation in a language that, y'know, doesn't even have one.
  • stephenhky@xanga

    although sometimes it is hard to translate the bible exactly, but twisting the gender thing obviously change the words of the original Scripture
    i prefer a more literal way of translation
  • ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake@xanga

    @Roadkill_Spatula@xanga -  Another good example of that, is the word ninos means a group of boys. ninas is a group of girls. What do you call a group of kids of mixed gender? ninos, the exact same as boys. 


    So ;et's suppose that the Bible was originally written in Spanish. We come across a section of scriptures, in where they use the word ninos. Does this mean a group of boys, or a group of mixed gender? The only thing that we can do is read the context, and try and determine if the group is mixed gender. if we can determine that, then we can either go gender neutral, or masculine.
  • bananaleaf_soapbox@xanga

    My preferred translation, the Good News Bible, did this sometime ago.  I understand the reasoning--there are many people who are offended by masculine language used for general meanings.  And there's nothing wrong with changing a Bible to gender-neutral language per se; after all, it is a quirk of the English language that we do not have a singular third person pronoun that is gender neutral.  To avoid saying "he" or "she," this translation often changes it to a plural "you."  For example, "If anyone steals from his neighbor, he must pay the price" becomes "Any who steal from their neighbors must pay the price."  This does not change the meaning of the passage, so I have no objection to that in general.

    But sometimes in order to make passages gender neutral requires making some convoluted sentence constructions.  When I get to passages with lots of these types of sentences, I end up stopping my reading of the gender neutral version and go dig out my ragged, barely-holding-together old version and read it with the singular pronoun "he" just to avoid the awkward language.


    Some other issues:  The Good News Bible translates the usage of "brothers" in the New Testament letters to "friends," which I think loses some of the meaning of the family of God.  I believe TNIV says "brothers and sisters" which retains the family meaning, but gets awkward after awhile.  Besides, this is a case where the culture was masculine and the letters would have been addressed to the men, so why not acknowledge that cultural norm?  Also, the Good News Bible eliminated the use of "fellow" as in "fellow Israelite," which I thought was ridiculous, because I don't see the word "fellow" in this context as being masculine at all.  But when I mentioned this to a college friend, she felt very strongly that it was, and was rightly deleted.

    All of these are simply issues that arise when trying to translate from one language into another.  This is made even more difficult by translating something from two millennia ago, so that you're not only dealing with language and culture differences, but with something from another time in history altogether.  There is no perfect way to do this, and people who call one translation The Word Of God and another Not The Word Of God for small reasons like these apparently don't understand translation issues.

    For those who read in the original Greek and Hebrew...think how much English has changed in 100 years...how much in those original language writings has changed in meaning since then?  It doesn't seem to me that that would be a guarantee of proper understanding in itself, without the historical cultural knowledge.  But I'm sure it's a lot closer than reading in English.
  • MDrabing83@xanga

    Well...the Bible is for EVERY ONE, that's what God intended, not just men....though it addresses all people as men in the Bible. I prefer to not change the Bible's words except for the way that we speak now vs. how they used to speak (KJV vs. NIV, for example). & I know we call God a "He" but we were all made in His image, so who knows what He looks like or who He is? He could be both man & woman together for all we know.
  • afreaka_boy@xanga

    My two cents: Why? Why is Zondervan planning on releasing a NEW AND IMPROVED NIV when the TNIV was released just a few years ago? Have they really done a thorough translation? Have they looked at all the old manuscripts and papyrii that have been found? Have they researched the Aramaic writings from the post Babylon era? Or are they just going through the old NIV and changing a few things (Like the pharmaceutical companies do with their new and improved versions of medicine)

    I do a lot of Bible research, I have copies of all the major translations and several paraphrases. I have the Latin vulgate, Luther's German, Young's Literal, and even the Textus Receptus.The entire Bible was written in a form that even the common unlettered man could understand. Jesus spoke in a manner that the farm workers, the teamsters, the fishermen, the street sweepers, and even the swineherds could understand, He spoke their language, with their expressions and their gutter elegance. He spoke cleanely and purely, He spoke from the heart, He spoke with all sincerity and with all authority. He spoke to me two thousand years ago and every hour I find something new in His words. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

    Now honestly? These minor changes bug me because I see it as trying to interpret the very words Jesus spoke. Even more honestly? It bugs me about the merchandising and capitalistic spirit behind these new translations and paraphrases. "Freely you have received, therefore Freely Give".  The words of our Bible were shared freely with all back in the old days, without asking for anything in return. When they first started copying the letters and writings of the early church down, people would labor and meticulously copy page for page, word for word, blot for blot, and then hand out the copies they spent their time and money on. Then they would start again, only to give away their labor to any and all who asked. Now I am tremendously injured and even peeved at the very audacity of the modern Bible Sales Departments. I would understand asking for reimbursement for the charges in printing (press, paper, ink, binding, cover, etc) I would even understand for asking for reimbursement for shipping. What I don't understand is how they have the moxie to ask for more. What would cost $4 in ink, paper, and faux leather to produce comes with a $39.99 pricetag at your local Christian bookstore.

    Now I don't care what version of the Bible you have as long as you read it. What I do mind is how it seems that Bible publishers seem to be in competition with each other rather than working together to spread His word.  I would second Pass_The_Aura's recommendation to donate to Wycliffe (or the IBS). I grew up in an area where there might be one or two Bibles in the entire church, worn and used to the point that Genesis and Revelations were giving way to Numbers and 1st Peter as the first and last books, a place where people would gladly give an entire year's earnings to buy such a used, second-hand, ripped and torn, marked up, missing the cover and other pages, while it seems that here in the US, we are concerned about MARKET SHARES! Does this seem wrong with any of you? The Bible is not like owning the latest car. You don't just trade it in for a newer model or a different color. Outside the US, even owning a Bible will at least get you ridiculed from now to Easter Sunday 2023, if not beaten, made homeless, imprisoned, abused, and shot (you and your entire family). If you don't believe me, ask your local Christian immigrant from the Eastern Europe bloc what it meant to own a Bible before 1989. Ask your local Arab Christian what it means to own a Bible in the Middle East right now, and Ask your local Chineese Christian about conditions today for someone who even goes to church over there.

    What I want to see is Bibles sold at cost, I want Bibles given to all who need them or don't have them - in fact this summer in my town, we went out and gave away over 2000 bibles to people who did not have one in their house, at our cost. I want to see a stop to the spread of Jesus Junk and a start to the caring and love, the bravery and the pain, the cost and the loss that signifies The Church overseas.

    Now I don't mind if Rev Life posts this as a full article, I just want people to start thinking about what and where their money is going and for what purpose. Lets stop squabbling over these petty issues such as gender neutrality and start working on what is actually important.
  • Morningstarrising@xanga

    I don't see this as being offensive at all.  It's not that they're changing the original language the Bible was translated from -- it's just simplifying certain phrases.  Like someone else posted above, in other languages, you use the same term for a group of boys/girls as you do for just a group of boys.  So when contextually appropriate, the NIV translators have gone with the mixed gender.  I don't see a problem with that.  It's not like they made God female or anything like that.
  • Roadkill_Spatula@xanga

    @ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake@xanga - Exactly.

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