Zondervan has finally done it. They reneged on their promise to leave the NIV text alone, and are updating the TNIV (written with an ideological bent towards gender-neutral language) to become the new NIV by 2011. You can believe that it's going to be even better at obscuring biblical doctrine than the TNIV was.Haven't we been through this before?
Lord, hasten the day when the ESV receives wide recognition among your Anglican children (now that it also has the Apocrypha).
9 comments:
Actually, the statement released by Zondervan and Biblica suggests that the NIV-2011 will not be gender-neutral, except perhaps in the places that the ESV itself is gender-neutral (e.g. "people" instead of "man"). They want to update the NIV with some of the advances made since 1984 and a few instances of updating language, but it doesn't seem that they are going to be gender-neutral. Otherwise, the TNIV would have sufficed.
I think they've already shown that they're willing to push the line and that they feel free to renege on promises already made. I hope you'll forgive me if I don't share your optimism for the new version.
I agree with Kevin, from what I've read (both online in the the local paper), it looks like Biblica (the Colorado Springs ministry that actually owns the copyright) is looking to update the language to reflect changes in English usage.
They are promising a more 'open' revision process, and will be using the Committee on Bible Translation, the independent group of conservative scholars to oversee.
They helped translate the original NIV in 1965, and should prevent the changes pushed by other scholars in the TNIV. Zondervan says that once the translation is released, they will no longer publish the TNIV.
The Apocrypha? Are you kidding me?
To be considered for broader use than within Protestantism, they needed to translate the Apocrypha. They did it at the same time as the rest of the ESV, it just didn't get to press because the push was from within the evangelical community.
At my ordination to the diaconate, we had a reading from Wisdom of Ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus ch. 39:1-16. Yes - there were other OT and Psalm and Epistle and Gospel readings - but this text was apt.
Well if you are going to read from the Apocrypha you might as well read from Athanasius or Chrysostom.
Oh and by the way I think the plethora of English translations is becoming a pox on the Church.
It's a scandal that we clamor for a new one (either more hip, or more towards our ideological bent - whatever the stripe) while there are thousands of people groups who can't hear the Word of God in their native tongue.
Judgment will begin in the house of the Lord.
There are times I read from the early church fathers. There are times I read from Calvin and the Reformers. I read all of those and more for public edification - but none take the place of the Word of God in the canonical OT and NT.
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