Lutherans Latest to Reject New NIV Bible Over Gender Language
September 6, 2012 2 Comments
Good… The more the merrier. It’s a very poor translation of the Scriptures.
The updated NIV Bible has gained another critic: the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. In a recent report, a panel of Lutherans cautioned against use of the new NIV over gender-related issues.
“The use of inclusive language in NIV 2011 creates the potential for minimizing the particularity of biblical revelation and, more seriously, at times undermines the saving revelation of Christ as the promised Savior of humankind,” the Commission on Theology and Church Relations Executive Staff stated in an August report.
“Pastors and congregations of the LCMS should be aware of this serious weakness. In our judgment this makes it inappropriate for NIV 2011 to be used as a lectionary Bible or as a Bible to be generally recommended to the laity of our church.”
The New International Version is reported to be the world’s leading contemporary English Bible translation as it is known for being easy to understand. It was announced in 2009 by global ministry Biblica that the popular translation would be revised for the first time in 25 years.
The updated NIV (completed by members of the Committee on Bible Translation, an independent body of global biblical scholars that has the sole authority to update the text of the NIV) was released in 2011 and has drawn criticism largely over its revised gender language.
Critics include the Committee on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Southern Baptist Convention, which officially rejected the revised NIV last year, saying it “alters the meaning of hundreds of verses, most significantly by erasing gender-specific details which appear in the original language.”
Conservative Lutherans are the latest to express caution against use of the 2011 NIV.
The Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the LCMS has long recognized that language evolves. It also acknowledged the intent of the Committee on Bible Translation to try to communicate the meaning of the Bible’s texts in English as it is used today.
But the commission took issue with some of the substitutions for masculine singular pronouns.
“While there may be many examples in which such substitution does not change the sense or inherent intent of the passage,” the commission reported, the approach is advised against because “of its potential to alter significantly the meaning of passages.”
Among the changes made in the updated NIV is the substitution of “he,” “him,” and “his” for “they,” “their,” and “them.”
The commission provided two significant examples where such a revision proved to affect the meaning of Scripture “adversely”…
There is more with examples here.
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Yes, I was sent a nice copy of the NIV Update ’11, last year (Thinline, Black, Top Grain Leather). For me anyway, the NIV ’11 Update, is close to the older TNIV, or Today’s NIV, 2001, 2005. I don’t see a lot of difference between the two. But I confess to liking to read the old NIV ’84 at times. But I have all the revisions, the TNIV and the ’11. I think Zondervan is still printing the ’84 edition? Indeed the Update NIV ’11 is not selling too well, as I understand it. But, the NRSV, which even Roman Catholicsm has given the Imprimatur, is in the same boat, with inclusive language. There the translation for Son of Man in Ezekiel, is ‘O moral one’, even the TNIV and the NIV ’11 does not do that!
I hope myself, that all the historic churches would come to see the blessing of the ESV, which itself was modestly revised in 2011.
I don’t like the idea of changing the actual word of God to placate feminists. In the example given by irishanglican where the words, “The Son of Man” in Ezekiel is changed to “O moral one” are not equivalent and Jesus called Himself, “the Son of Man”. If there is a connection between the meaning of the term in Ezekiel and the same term used by Jesus, how would anyone be able to see it?
Also, the words that God chooses to write His instruction book to us are often true on many different levels, including the Contemplative level. I doubt that the feminists ( either male or female)who wanted the words of scripture changed to inclusive language are aware and knowledgeable of all the different levels that God puts into His scriptures, but they have the audacity to change the words!
Maybe they have forgotten or don’t believe what the Apostle St John wrote in Revelation 22:18,19 about the negative consequences to anyone who changes the words of scripture.