PETA congratulates NIV committee and asks for more
The new 2011 edition of the New International Version (NIV) was released this week, and public feedback came from a surprising source. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) congratulated the translation committee for making the new version more gender-inclusive, but asked them to make the next version species-inclusive. “The group is asking translators of the New International Version (NIV) to remove what it calls ‘speciesist’ language and refer to animals as ‘he’ or ‘she’ instead of ‘it.’ ”
Let’s overlook for the moment the question of whether this particular change would make sense; I’m sure we all had a reaction to that first paragraph one way or the other. Instead, let’s look at something more significant. The PETA folks implied that the NIV translation committee deliberately changed the text of the Bible–not to make it more accurate, but to satisfy an agenda of gender inclusiveness. The question is: Should agendas such as gender inclusiveness be part of any Bible translation effort?
Now before some who are in love with their favorite translation claim that no more translations or updates are ever needed, we should acknowledge that the English language changes. As the NIV translation committee says on their website: Who would have guessed in the 1970s that, within a few decades, an ‟alien” would mean, thanks to the influence of ET and other movies and TV shows, an ‟extraterrestrial being”? In the updated NIV, ‟alien” has been replaced with ‟foreigner” or similar words in order to communicate the intention of God’s Word accurately to contemporary English readers. See, for instance, Genesis 23:4: ‟I am a foreigner and stranger among you . . . ”
That’s a really good point. For those in the Baby Buster or younger generations, the word “alien” has an entirely different meaning and it makes good sense to update a translation so it’s appropriate for them. I’ll never forget hearing a pastor explaining what “divers diseases” were from the old King James. Like many, he simply didn’t realize that’s how the word “diverse” was spelled in the 1600′s when the KJV was done.
What we’re talking about here are changes not driven by changes in language, but culture. On their site the translation committee also says: In general, much more often than not … “People” and “humans” (and “human beings”) were widely used for Greek and Hebrew masculine forms referring to both men and women. In other words, they deliberately changed passages in the new version to remove some references that were specifically masculine. The question is whether the change today is genuinely based on a change in the English language, or a change in our culture’s expectations.
So what do you think? Should Bible translators update editions, for example, to reflect the fact that homosexuality is much more accepted today? Are there any Bible translations today that you think were driven by someone’s agenda to the point of being doctrinally unsound? We’ve launched a discussion at https://www.facebook.com/PreachingU?sk=app_2373072738 and invite you to join in.
