Bible Translation Stirs Gender Debate

Feb. 11, 2005-The release of a new Bible translation this week pushes to the forefront a hair-splitting debate among evangelical Christians. Depending on whom you ask, the Today's New International Version Bible is either a way to connect with a new generation or a paean to the feminist agenda.

It's an update of the New International Version, the best-selling Bible of all time. The NIV, published by Zondervan in 1978, has surpassed the King James Version in popularity. One in three Bibles bought is an NIV.

For evangelicals, it's the pew Bible of choice. And many don't want it changed. Yet Zondervan insisted it was time for an update. The English language has undergone warp-speed changes in the last 30 years, they say, and the TNIV reflects a more "gender accurate" language than its predecessor. It took 45,000 changes to the text to do that.

That doesn't mean the Bible has been "neutered," Zondervan is careful to add. God is still referred to in the masculine. But where the original language was meant to include both men and women, translators have changed "man" and "brothers" to "human beings" and "brothers and sisters."

That's helpful for the generation that has grown up learning English in an inclusive way, said Paul Caminiti, vice president and Bible publisher for Zondervan. Since the 1970s, many textbooks have used gender-inclusive language. Schoolchildren may get marked down for using exclusively masculine pronouns. As a result, many 18- to 34-year-olds are "used to hearing English in what is now taken to be the correct way," Mr. Caminiti said. That means with inclusive language.

Critics, however, say the TNIV interprets Scripture with an agenda that many evangelicals do not support.

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the translators went beyond trying to clarify meaning.

"They have an agenda-to attempt to force egalitarian and even feminist perspectives on readers in the name of translation," he said.

"This is spin city if I ever saw it. Many evangelical scholars do not buy it for a moment."

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