Monthly Archives: September 2009

NIV profits go to Bible translation worldwide

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Eddie Arthur, David Keen and Tim Chesterton, among others, have criticised the NIV 2011 update project in ways which I consider unfair. I commented on Eddie’s post and he replied in a further post which I was much happier with. But in view of Tim’s post the point I made needs wider publicity.

I entirely agree with Eddie, David and Tim that translation of the Bible into languages which do not yet have it is a top priority. This is the work that I gave 15 years of my life to.

But this is not the only issue in Bible translation. There are probably more speakers of English than of all the world’s Bibleless minority languages put together. These English speakers also need good translations, and sadly the ones they have so far are not completely satisfactory. There are various reasons for this, but not the least is that one of the most widely used of them, NIV, is 25 years old. I know that even within the world of minority language Bible translation a 25 year old version is often recognised as obsolescent and in need of revision. Why is a similar revision of an English translation so looked down on?

However, that is not my main point here. Rather, that relates to Tim‘s interesting suggestion:

Let all English language Bible publishers agree that they will collect a $1 translation tax on top of the price of every Bible sold. Let that money be collected and given to organisation such as the United Bible Societies and Wycliffe Bible Translators to be used to support translation projects in languages which have yet to see their first translation of the Scriptures.

But when Tim wrote this he was obviously not aware of what I wrote in a comment, although he has now acknowledged it in an update to his post:

This is indeed a great idea – such a great one that IBS/Biblica and Zondervan had it more than 30 years ago and have been collecting that “tax” for all that time on the 300 million copies of NIV they have sold. Yes, IBS has for many years been collecting significant royalties on every copy of NIV and TNIV, and using the bulk of this to support Bible translation into other languages. They have in the past given large amounts to Wycliffe/SIL to fund printing of minority language Scriptures. I don’t know the details of what they have done, but see for example this list of current translation projects, probably funded to a large extent from NIV and TNIV profits although of course they also welcome donations.

Biblica is not trying to hide what they are doing. This is from their Page Two magazine, Summer 2009:

Most of us would be at a loss to read the Bible in its original Aramaic and Greek languages. We take for granted our contemporary English translations. But many people throughout the world lack the privilege we have—to read God’s Word in their own language.

From the very beginning, this was a concern of the International Bible Society. In 1810, we gave $1,000—a huge sum at the time—to help fund William Carey’s translation of the Bible into India’s Bengali language. To date, we have printed and distributed Bibles in nearly 70 languages.

However, our best-known Bible translation is in English! In 1978, we completed the New International Version® (NIV) Bible. The contemporary-language Bible has become the most widely read and trusted translation in the world.

This year, we plan to launch four new translations, three in African languages and one in Hindi.

Then later, with some hyperbole (I for one trust TNIV far more!):

Today the NIV remains the world’s most-read and trusted contemporary English translation. Over the years, NIV royalty income enabled IBS to expand its Scripture distribution worldwide and has provided millions of people with free or highly subsidized Scriptures.

For better or for worse, money from sales of English Bibles provides highly significant funding for Bible translation into all kinds of other languages. When those sales fall, as they currently are for NIV, so does that income. When a new edition of an English translation boosts sales, there is more money for other translations. As Tim pointed out, if English speakers didn’t buy new Bibles, they “probably wouldn’t give the money saved to foreign language Bible translation projects anyway”. And if the biblical scholars on the CBT lost their jobs they probably wouldn’t be available or suitable for work overseas.

So let’s stop knocking this new initiative, and instead welcome the prospect of increased distribution of improved Bibles, not just in English but in languages from all over the world.

Jesus does speak about Christian leaders

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My recent posts Leading or Lording and Is it wrong to refer to someone as “pastor”? have generated quite a lot of interest and comment, especially about A. Amos Love’s rather long-winded contributions.

Amos certainly makes some good points. But he also goes too far. For example, in an extract I quoted before, he wrote:

Jesus told His disciples not to be called master/leader …

He also wrote in a recent comment

“the tradition of men” declares we “must” have “overseers/elders/leaders.” …

Jesus told his disciples “not” to be called “leader”

But actually that is not quite correct. What he actually said in Matthew 23:8-10 was that his disciples are not to be called “Rabbi”, or “Father”, or “Teacher/Master”. The last of these words is difficult: kathēgētēs, a word used in the New Testament only in 23:10 – not the usual Greek word for “teacher”, didaskalos, as in Ephesians 4:11, but also not the word for “master” or “lord”, kurios, in Ephesians 6:5. The word is related to English “hegemony” but also to “exegete”, and I guess that illustrates its ambiguity in Greek. But D.A. Carson, writing on this verse in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, says:

it seems wiser to take kathēgētēs as a synonym for didaskalos.

In other words, one of the world’s top exegetes agrees that this word means not “master” but “teacher”, as rendered in NIV and TNIV, cf. NRSV “instructor”.

(By the way, I think that NIV and TNIV are wrong to translate didaskalos as “Master” in 23:8, and I have submitted a suggestion of a change to “Teacher” through Wayne Leman’s NIV revision suggestion website, as promoted at Better Bibles Blog.)

So I don’t think we have any real evidence that “Jesus told His disciples not to be called master/leader”. But even if we do accept the KJV and RSV rendering “master” this does not imply that Jesus was rejecting all leadership. After all, this passage in Matthew seems to me to be about accepting titles, not about executing functions. I’m sure he didn’t intend to forbid teaching in the church or the secular world, still less to forbid fatherhood! So, even if he did forbid the use of titles like “master” or even “leader”, his point was not to forbid people from exercising leadership functions.

This is made clear from Jesus’ teaching elsewhere. For example, in Luke 22:26 (TNIV) he teaches

the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.

“The one who rules” in Greek is ho hēgoumenos, rendered “he that is chief” in KJV and “the leader” in RSV and NRSV. In Matthew’s parallel, 20:27, and in Mark’s, 10:44, Jesus’ words (perhaps spoken on a different occasion) are presented as “whoever wants to be first”.

The Greek words ho hēgoumenos are again related to the English “hegemony”. But it is significant that this is not the noun hēgemōn “ruler”, used for example of secular governors in Luke 21:12. Rather, it is the participle of the verb hēgeomai “rule”, and so is correctly rendered “the one who rules”, suggesting a role which might be temporary rather than a permanent position of authority. But since the word “rule” is used in current English mainly of secular authority, perhaps “the one who leads” would be better in context.

The same participle form is used in Hebrews 13:7,17,24, rendered “your leaders” in TNIV, but perhaps I should suggest a change to “those who lead you”. Acts 14:12 (TNIV “chief”) and 15:22 (TNIV “leaders”) appear to be the only other uses in the New Testament of the hēgeomai word group relating to Christian leadership.

So Jesus clearly spoke here about his disciples ruling, or at least exercising leadership. He also gave strict instructions about how that leadership was to be exercised. But he did not have in mind what my commented Amos seems to promote, leaderless congregations.

Controversial rector resigns over 'theological differences'

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The front page of today’s Essex Chronicle, my local newspaper, and the front page of its website, carries the following story:

GREAT BADDOW: Controversial rector resigns over ‘theological differences’

Thursday, September 03, 2009, 09:39

A VILLAGE rector at the centre of a row over his controversial opinions on homosexuality has resigned.

Alan Comfort, 44, cited “theological differences” with his congregation as the reason for leaving his post at St Mary’s Church, Great Baddow.

The former professional footballer angered members of his congregation with comments on same-sex relationships in July. …

Read the full story.

I commented on what Alan Comfort said about homosexuality in this post. In fact the announcement of his departure was made in the church on 9th August, but has only reached the newspaper today. But Alan’s departure from his parish was noted some weeks ago by my fellow bloggers MadPriest and John Richardson, who have little in common except that they are both blogging Anglican priests.

Alan Comfort had been the Team Rector of the parish including my church for just over four months. I used to attend the parish church, St Mary’s, where he had his main responsibilities – and that is where I will be married in October. But I had never met Alan personally.

I do not intend discuss this matter publicly.

What will the updated NIV look like?

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The world of watchers of English Bible translations was rocked yesterday by the news that the NIV Bible is to be updated in 2011. Straight away I reported on this, with little comment, in a post at Better Bibles Blog. Today, in the freedom of my own blog, I would like to make some reflections on this announcement.

In a comment on my BBB post I noted that

I now have confirmation from Zondervan that

Following the release of the 2011 NIV, we will cease to produce new 1984 NIV and TNIV products.

This certainly seems to go against the promise which IBS (now Biblica) allegedly made in 1997 that “it would in the future continue to publish the NIV of 1984 unchanged”. But there is not necessarily a contradiction here. This new announcement is from Zondervan, not from Biblica who publish their own editions of NIV. Also, Zondervan has not now promised to stop selling all existing editions of NIV and TNIV.

So does this mean the end of the road for TNIV as well as for the 1984 edition of NIV? TC Robinson seems to think so, as do some of the contributors to the discussion at This Lamp. I disagree. I expect the 2011 NIV to look very like the current TNIV, with at most a few minor concessions to those who have persistently condemned its gender related language. There will of course also be some small improvements of the kind one might expect when updating a translation a few years old. But I am expecting the new version to be much more like TNIV than the current NIV.

Why do I say that? An important issue here is the independence of the Committee on Bible Translation, which was reemphasised by Stan Gundry, Executive Vice President of Publishing and Editorial Operations at Zondervan, as recently as March this year in a post at BBB:

The Committee on Bible Translation (CBT) is an independent body of OT and NT scholars …

By contract with IBS, the CBT controls the text of the NIV and the TNIV. This means that no one can revise, correct, update, or otherwise change these texts other than the CBT itself. …

The publishers must publish the text exactly as delivered by the CBT, including all footnotes, paragraph headings, etc. …

The CBT is jealous of its scholarly independence and it protects itself from pressure groups who have an agenda. …

Even though I work for Zondervan, a commercial publisher, I strongly believe that the model that exists between the CBT, IBS, and the commercial publishers is the best way to protect the integrity of any translation.

The way in which the announcement of the 2011 NIV update was made reassures me that this model, as described in such glowing terms less than six months ago, will continue to be the basis on which the CBT, Biblica and Zondervan (and presumably Hodder here in the UK) operate, the basis on which they will produce the updated NIV.

So the revised text of the NIV will be produced by the same CBT which produced the TNIV. Yes, there have been some recent changes to its membership, but the new members have probably strengthened the committee’s commitment to the translation principles behind TNIV, including its renderings of gender related language. So if the CBT is indeed independent of the publishers and “protects itself from pressure groups who have an agenda”, there is no reason for it to change the direction in which it has been going for more than a decade. That implies that in 2011 the updated NIV will look rather like the current TNIV, which will then be 6 years old, and much less like the 27 year old 1984 NIV.

So what of CBT chairman Douglas Moo’s words, as reported by USA Today?

I can’t predict what will happen with gender usage. My guess would be we made a lot of the right decisions for the T-NIV but every one of those is open for consideration. We may even be returning to what we had in the 1984 NIV.

It seems to me that with these final words Moo is trying to stop the updated NIV being condemned out of hand before it has even been completed. I’m sure it is genuinely true that every decision made in the past is “open for consideration”, and that, as Moo said in the main press release,

Every suggestion presented in writing to the CBT before the end of this calendar year will be considered for the 2011 edition of the NIV Bible

– even if suggestions from “pressure groups who have an agenda” will not be given any preferential attention. Nevertheless Moo clearly believes that CBT “made a lot of the right decisions for the T-NIV“, and probably the rest of the CBT agrees. So really what Moo is hinting at is that the update is unlikely to be “returning to what we had in the 1984 NIV” and much more likely to be a further step forward in the same direction as TNIV.

So what of the reaction of the “pressure groups who have an agenda”, specifically those who have consistently opposed TNIV because of its gender related language? Yesterday’s announcement is certainly not going to win them over to be friends of Biblica and Zondervan, or to endorse in advance the update. But they have been given no grounds on which to oppose it, as yet. Anyway the NIV consortium can hardly expect, whatever they do, to win back the support of critics many of whom are closely identified with a commercial rival translation, ESV. So I expect that behind the scenes Zondervan and Biblica have agreed to ride the inevitable storm, trusting that in the long term this will be for their commercial advantage as well as for the benefit of their readers.

I have a suggestion to make which may make their ride calmer – but they may already have something like this in mind. I suggest that Zondervan and its partners produce in 2010 a limited number of new editions of the 1984 NIV text branded (perhaps just on a new cover) something like “NIV Classic”. This will help to protect their sales during the inevitable slump before the update comes out. They will also be able to continue to sell these “classic” editions after 2011, in a low key way, to anyone who objects to the updated NIV. In this way they can also keep their promise not to change or withdraw the 1984 NIV.

However, I trust that from 2011 onwards Zondervan and Biblica will put their publishing and marketing efforts into the updated NIV, and that this will look rather like TNIV.

So I must disagree with those who see this announcement as the end of the road for TNIV. I see it as more like a prediction of its resurrection, in the new body of the updated NIV. On that basis I welcome the announcement of the NIV Bible 2011.