Bible Gateway has long been known as the authoritative source for Bible texts on the Internet. It offers a wide selection of texts in English and many other languages.
But I now find I cannot recommend this site. That is because it failed to perform a simple search for a word like “OK” but instead gave misleading information – and when I contacted the site owners the response I received was not at all helpful.
For the full story, see what I wrote at Better Bibles Blog.
In September last year I was one of the first bloggers to comment on the announcement of the NIV 2011 update, first briefly at Better Bibles Blog and then in more depth here at Gentle Wisdom. See also my post the following month about Bill Mounce joining the committee preparing this update.
Fourteen months later, to the day, the text of the update was released online (it will available in print next year), and I have been much slower to write about it. It was left to David Ker to announce this text at Better Bibles Blog – although I did manage the first comment there. Indeed it is so long since I have posted on this blog that some of you may have thought it was dead. But it was only sleeping, and this issue has woken it up at least for a moment.
So here are my first impressions of the NIV 2011 update. These are based not on extensive reading or other use but on reports and discussion of individual verses and translation decisions. I have found Robert Slowley’s detailed analysis especially helpful.
It seems that the 2011 update is indeed more or less what I predicted last year that it would be. I wrote:
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.
And that is indeed more or less what it has turned out to be. According to Slowley’s figures, 60.7% of verses in NIV 2011 are identical to both NIV 1984 and TNIV; 31.3% are the same as TNIV but different from NIV 1984; 7.5% are different from both NIV 1984 and TNIV; and only 0.6% are the same as NIV 1984 but different from TNIV. That shows that the new version is much more like TNIV than like NIV 1984.
Nevertheless, in as many as 8.0% of verses NIV 2011 is different from TNIV. This is perhaps rather more of a change than I had predicted. I am glad that the translation committee has made changes, no doubt many of them in response to the consultation which they held late last year. But I am not happy with some of the changes made. While I did not much like the old NIV (and TNIV) rendering “sinful nature” for Greek sarx, mainly in the letters of Paul, I consider the change back to the traditional “flesh” (2011) to be a step in the wrong direction, making this important concept more obscure to readers who are not theologically trained.
Concerning gender related language, I predicted “a few minor concessions”. I think what we see in the update is a little bit more than that. But it is very much less than the full return to traditional but misleading language which some had feared. Slowley’s analysis of “word changes relevant to the gender language debate” is interesting here. He notes changes in the frequencies of certain words. Here I present some of these data with groups of words combined:
Male words sometimes used generically:
Gender generic words:
Unfortunately Slowley’s data do not include some words which might have been of interest such as “sister”, “they” and “child”.
These results are interesting for their consistency. From NIV 1984 to TNIV there was a significant increase in the user of gender generic words and a corresponding drop in the use of words which are usually male but sometimes used gender generically. Of course the latter words are still used in TNIV when their referents are clearly male. From TNIV to NIV 2011 there has been a consistent reversal of this trend (with the one exception of “person”, sometimes used in 2011 where TNIV has “human being”) but the size of the reverse change has always been very much less than that of the change from 1984 to TNIV – in most cases less than 10% of the change.
Now figures like this can only give a very rough estimate of how many of the gender related changes in TNIV have survived in NIV 2011. But they reinforce the impression I have gained from looking at some verses with specific changes, that the great majority of the changes have survived, sometimes with improved wording, and only a small proportion have been reversed. The reversals, I have noticed, tend to be in sayings which have a proverbial character; probably the translators considered that generic “man” and “he” are still used in such contexts. It is interesting to see that the singular “they”, which some had predicted would be purged from the 2011 update, has in fact been used more in the new text.
Unfortunately the result of this partial reversal has been inconsistency which may cause confusion. Users can get used to a text like NIV 1984 in which “man” and “he” are consistently used in a gender generic sense. In the 2011 version these words are used in this way, but only rather rarely. The danger then is that in those few places the generic sense will not be recognised and the text will be misunderstood as making a point about gender. An example of this might be Mark 2:27: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (2011 = 1984), one of the few uses of generic “man” in the Gospels.
Related to this is the use of Bill Mounce’s favoured word “mankind”, 61 times in NIV 2011, compared with 36 in 1984 and none in TNIV. This is often used where NIV 1984 had “man” or “men” and TNIV has “human beings”, e.g. Genesis 1:26,27 and 1 Timothy 2:5. “Mankind” is a great improvement on generic “man” or “men”. But sadly this word has become something of a shibboleth among feminists, and so its use is likely to ensure that this group of people in need of God’s word will reject the NIV 2011 update. This problem could have been solved easily by the substitution of “humankind”, used 14 times in TNIV but not at all in the 1984 or 2011 versions of NIV. But then perhaps “humankind”, which Mounce rejects with “What an ugly word!”, is also a shibboleth among anti-feminist conservative Christians to the extent that they would not accept a translation using it.
One rather odd change I noticed, which some might attribute to political correctness: in Matthew 5:32 the “adulteress” (1984, TNIV) is no longer a wrongdoer but has become “the victim of adultery” (2011).
I have been encouraged to see no strident general rejection of the NIV update on the blogosphere. I hope that is not just because I haven’t been looking very widely. All I have found is Denny Burk’s predictable complaint about the rendering of 1 Timothy 2:12, to which Douglas Moo, the chair of the translation committee, wrote a gracious response which really should put this matter to rest. We can hope and pray that those who made such a fuss about the TNIV will this time keep quiet, or at least express their opinions in more measured tones.
I do not want to welcome this new version unreservedly. I do not like a number of the rather few changes that have been made to TNIV. But if, as I hope, this version can become one around which evangelical Christians can unite, rather than dividing and fighting, then it will be a great step forward for advancing the kingdom of God.
I came across Russell Allen at the Bible Translation mailing list (the site linked to is rather out of date). Russell wrote to the list to announce that he is working on a new open source Bible translation called the Open English Bible. The project is
intended to create an English translation of the Bible that is:
- under a licence enabling the maximum reuse, remixing and sharing without requiring the payment of royalties or the obtaining of permission from copyright holders; and
- a translation reflecting modern English usage and Biblical scholarship
This sounds good. But the purpose of this post is not to comment on Russell’s project (I’ll leave others to do that), but to repost here what he wrote to that list about licensing of Bible translations. I have Russell’s permission to do this under a Creative Commons attribution license (US version). This means that I have to attribute the material to Russell Allen, and so does anyone else who copies this material – which they are free to do with this one condition.
I am reposting this to clear up some confusion about what it means to make the text of a Bible version freely available. While I commend, for example, the NET Bible team for what they have done in making their text available, it is important to remember that there remain significant restrictions on how this text may be used, which some of us consider undesirable.
Russell wrote what he did in reply to an e-mail from David Austin, Executive Director www.Bible.org which is “Home of the NETBible and over 5500 free studies”. Russell had asked David about licensing terms for the NET Bible text. As I do not have permission from David I will not reproduce his e-mail, and I will edit Russell’s reply to avoid direct quotes from David’s text. What follows, except in […], is what Russell wrote:
Hi David,
Good to hear from you. Firstly, may I say that I greatly appreciate what the NET Bible has achieved, and I reiterate that my comments should not be read as a criticism of your licencing decisions. The NET Bible is yours to licence as you see fit and I support your right to make that choice.
That said, I would like to respond to some of your points below. Please forgive me if I am teaching you to suck eggs 🙂
You say that you [do not think that the Bible text should be changed in response to] the ‘wisdom of crowds’ […]. I have an open mind on this, but readily concede that this is not an unreasonable judgement call. I have seen a few desultory attempts at a Wiki Bible online, with very limited success.
The open content movement tends to use terms from the free/open source software community because that is where the concepts were first developed for modern use. The idea of the wisdom of crowds is what I would describe as a argument for Open Source Software. For example, the Open Source Initiative, which is as close to a widely accepted definition as you get, argue:
“Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.”[1]
This is a functional argument – open source your software/content because it will lead to better quality software.
I am coming into this discussion from more of a Free Software background. The Free Software movement, which predates the term ‘Open Source’ argues for the opening of content on the grounds of an idealistic (as opposed to pragmatic) preference for ‘freedom’: a preference for individual control and an analysis of societal power structures. In other words, both the Free Software and Open Source communities argue for essentially the same ends, but use different arguments.
[Note by Peter Kirk: I would think that the difference here is more of rhetoric than of principle. Most Open Source advocates believe in free software, but use pragmatic rather than idealistic arguments because they are more effective with some audiences.]
The Free Software Foundation is the original home of this argument. If I may I will quote part of their definition of free software:
“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”
Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program’s users have the four essential freedoms:
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission to do so.
You should also have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately in your own work or play, without even mentioning that they exist. If you do publish your changes, you should not be required to notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way.[2]
The key to this approach is the ability to ‘fork’ a project. To fork a project is to make your own derivative project outside of the control of the originators of the project. This fork may be private, or it may publically compete with the original.
On the definition above, the NET Bible is not free. I cannot take the NET Bible, make changes and redistribute my changed version without permission[3]
Please note this is orthogonal to the issue of naming. You are quite correct that a number of high profile commercial free/open source projects trademark their names. Linux actually isn’t a very good example of this, as few of the major Linux distributions use Linus’s kernel – they all use patched versions – but Red Hat and Firefox both operate this way.
Nevertheless, both Red Hat and Firefox may be forked, as long as the fork is under a different name. Examples of such forks are IceCat[4] and Centos[5]
If Red Hat and Firefox were not able to be forked, then they would not be considered free or open source software.
It would be quite possible for the NET Bible to be put under a CC Attribution licence[6], but with the trademark retained by bible.org. This would allow individuals and groups to have a first class translation that they could republish, alter, use as a base for retelling the stories, adjust to their local idiolects or dialects etc but they could not do this under the NET Bible name – so the reputation the NET Bible has built up would not be diminished.
As I said above, I completely support your right to make the licencing choices you have made.
I am, however, arguing that a free content licenced Bible is not so much about using the wisdom of the crowds to create a ‘better’ translation but is a good thing in itself, analogous to the initial freeing of the Bible from ecclesiastical control into the language of the people. It is about allowing individuals and groups to deal with the scriptures in accordance with their own consciences and theologies without attempting to use the power of the State – in this case via copyright law – to enforce a single Truth (with the belief that by this process a greater truth will be found).
Best wishes,
Russell
[1]: http://www.opensource.org/
[2]: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[3]: http://bible.org/permissions
Bill Mounce is a top expert on exegesis and translation of the Bible. He was a major contributor to the ESV translation, and a regular contributor to the Koinonia blog. It is good that, as I announced last month, he has joined the Committee on Bible Translation which is currently revising the NIV.
Unfortunately Bill Mounce is not an expert on advertising. As a result he has made himself look rather stupid by misunderstanding a car advertisement, and by repeatedly posting his misunderstanding. The first time he posted this on his personal blog:
But “mankind” continues to be used as a generic term in English, as does “man.” I know there are people who disagree with this point, but the fact that it is used generically over and over again cannot truly be debated; the evidence is everywhere. Have you noticed the new advertisement for the Prius: “Harmony Between Man, Nature And Machine.” I’ll bet Toyota would be glad to sell to women.
Yes, Bill, this “fact” can be debated, as I do below. (Joel Hoffman also blogged about this.)
Bill Mounce repeated his error this week in a summary he posted at Koinonia of his SBL paper on the ESV and the TNIV, in which he wrote, in support of his argument that “man” can have a gender generic meaning:
Just watch enough football and you will see the ad for the Prius: “Harmony between Man, Nature, and Machine.” A person may not like using “man” to mean “mankind”; a particular subculture may not like it, …
I assume the ad that Mounce has in mind is this:
See also this analysis of the advertising campaign.
Now I don’t claim to be an expert on advertising myself. But one thing that I do know is that advertising is highly gender specific, and targeted to particular groups. Now of course “Toyota would be glad to sell to women”; indeed the only Prius driver I know is a woman. Nevertheless the advertising for most cars is clearly directed towards men, meaning not women. The days may be past when nearly naked women were draped across them, but there are all kinds of subtleties of design and presentation designed to appeal to men. I’m sure that is true, and deliberately so, of the very shape of the Prius.
I accept that in this particular ad, with lots of flowers, the message is a bit sexually ambiguous and might attract women also. But I also see a clear sexually charged allusion at the end in the way the car rushes up a hill with a somewhat phallic shape, and this is when the words “Harmony between Man, Nature, and Machine” are used. Perhaps the message they are trying to drive home is that you can be a real man, with a manly car, and still love nature and flowers.
One thing is certain: the advertisers considered very carefully what message they were giving with the word “man”, and it was by no means a simple gender generic one. As such Bill Mounce, in quoting this as an example of generic “man”, had missed the point of the ad, and in the process made himself look a bit stupid.
Nevertheless Mounce does have some very good points to make in his SBL paper summary, especially this:
I am not convinced that non-academic celebrities should be making pronouncements on translation theory.
Indeed. Let those who have never studied translation theory stop criticising translations.
Bill Mounce, who “was the New Testament chair of the ESV translation”, has just announced on his blog that he has joined the Committee on Bible Translation which is preparing the 2011 update of the NIV translation. I thank Mike Aubrey for bringing this news to my attention.
This is certainly interesting news, in the light of the campaign led by some of the other ESV translators against the CBT’s last offering, TNIV. Mounce realises that his move could be misunderstood:
Here is my concern. I don’t want anyone to think that I am unhappy with the ESV or that I am “jumping ship.” I am not.
Indeed Mounce himself has been quite critical of some TNIV translation decisions. Only a week ago, while he must have been considering his invitation to join the CBT, he wrote:
I am being reminded how fundamentally different formal and functional translations are. The ESV is a good example of one, and the TNIV of the other, but never the two shall meet, I suspect.
So this news is indeed something of a surprise. But perhaps not so much a surprise – it may be that behind the scenes negotiations about the 2011 update led to an agreement to invite some more conservative scholars to join the CBT. As such Mounce is an excellent choice who will certainly strengthen the Committee and improve the updated NIV. It should also help to head off criticism of the update from Mounce’s former ESV colleagues.
But what are the consequences likely to be for the controversial aspects of TNIV, such as its gender related language? Will they survive in the NIV update? Mounce makes it clear that he will not try to change NIV to make it like ESV:
I strongly believe in different translation philosophies … I have no trouble looking at the NIV’s translation philosophy and working within those guidelines.
He is clearly not entirely happy with TNIV’s gender language, but
I have been absolutely assured that the gender language is truly on the table for discussion, and since so much of the committee has changed, it is not a forgone conclusion as to how this committee will vote. Without that assurance, I could not have joined.
He seems to believe that “mankind” and “man” can still be used gender generically at least in some contexts. But he has no problem with TNIV’s controversial use of singular “they”. Well, I hope the CBT will make such decisions based primarily on input from experts in the English language, not from biblical scholars like Mounce. I am glad to see that his attitude seems to be one of deferring to actual English usage, and certainly not that of some of his ESV translator colleagues who denounce legitimate translation decisions as deliberate distortion.
I would be a little concerned if several scholars with Mounce’s views were invited to join CBT. That might be seen as an attempt to hijack the committee. But I do welcome Mounce’s appointment and look forward to his positive influence on the updated NIV.
It seems to have been the kind of sermon which an Archbishop would only dare to preach at a memorial service, and one which only at such an event he would have had the opportunity to preach to this kind of congregation. The Queen and much of the Royal Family, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his predecessor Tony Blair were among the congregation in St Paul’s Cathedral as, in Ruth Gledhill’s words in The Times (see also her blog post on the same subject, and the BBC report of the event) Archbishop Rowan Williams
condemned policymakers for failing to consider the cost of the Iraq war as he led a memorial service today for the 179 British personnel who died in the conflict.
It was in the second reading at the service, from Ephesians 6, that these sentiments were expressed:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6:12 (KJV, as quoted by Ruth Gledhill)
Now I’m sure Her Majesty, Blair and Brown are all biblically literate enough to understand that these words “the rulers of the darkness of this world … spiritual wickedness in high places” refer not human leaders like themselves, but to the devil and his minions. Maybe not all of the congregation would have understood this so clearly. So it is good that, according to the words from this verse which Rowan Williams quoted, the reading actually seems to have come from NRSV, which makes the enemy unambiguously other-worldly:
For our* struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
So Ruth Gledhill was being somewhat naughty to quote the potentially misleading KJV rendering of this verse, rather than the clearer version read out at the service. In NRSV the reading was clearly not referring to anyone in the congregation, and the archiepiscopal sermon was not directly so either. Instead, it contained something even more shocking to some.
We have come to expect bishops to abuse worship by condemning political leaders in their sermons. But we no longer expect them to preach about the devil or any other evil spiritual forces. Somehow it is not considered politically correct within the liberal establishment. Now even this morning the Archbishop was apparently politically correct enough not to use the words “evil” or “devil”. But he did speak of the “invisible enemy”, and in the context the meaning of that phrase was clear.
So what exactly did Archbishop Rowan attribute to this “invisible enemy”? Apparently it, or he,
may be hiding in the temptation to look for short cuts in the search for justice — letting ends justify means, letting others rather than oneself carry the cost, denying the difficulties or the failures so as to present a good public face.
The implication behind these words seems to be that during the Iraq conflict short cuts were taken, indeed perhaps that the whole western invasion of Iraq was a short cut and “letting ends justify means”. So the Archbishop was suggesting that Satan tempted our political leaders, in the UK context primarily Tony Blair but with Gordon Brown then his right hand man, into launching this invasion, and the leaders gave in to this temptation.
This is not so much Blair the Antichrist as Blair the devil’s dupe. Perhaps the Archbishop’s sermon was after all an indirect criticism of the leaders who sat in front of him. So no wonder that
Mr Blair looked solemn as he listened intently to the Archbishop’s address.
I came across a few days ago an interesting example of where “men” is a really bad translation of Greek anthropos, in the plural. The leader of my home group Bible study on John 4, a lady who knows her Bible very well, was using NKJV. She commented on the way in which in verse 28 the Samaritan woman broke cultural norms by speaking to the men of the city. This was based on the text that she had in front of her:
The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, …
John 4:28 (NKJV, emphasis added)
Here “men” is a rendering of Greek anthropoi, the plural of the word anthropos which I have been discussing in previous posts.
Now I think that all Greek scholars and biblical exegetes would agree with me that anthropoi in this context should not be understood as referring to adult males only, but to all the people, at least all the adults, of the city. This is reflected in the rendering “people” in RSV, ESV and NIV as well as NRSV and TNIV. There is nothing at all to suggest that the woman has done anything unusual or improper in talking to the men only in the absence of women. But that is precisely the interpretation that my biblically literate home group leader put on the NKJV wording.
Some might defend the NKJV rendering in that it is almost identical to that of KJV. But NKJV editors, in their Preface, recognise that
our language, like all living languages, has undergone profound change since 1611.
As a result in places like Philippians 1:27 where the KJV rendering “conversation” is readily understandable by modern readers, but with quite the wrong meaning (clear but inaccurate), the NKJV revisers have made a change to “conduct”. The same principle should apply to the word “man”, which has also completely changed its meaning since 1611.
The first readers of KJV would not have understood “men” in John 4:28 as specifying males only. But the language has changed to the extent that today’s readers do – and draw quite the wrong conclusions. This is a place where anthropos certainly should not now be translated “man”.
But this is by no means the only such place. Another is 2 Timothy 2:2, where again the Greek word anthropoi is used, and rendered “men” this time in KJV, NKJV, RSV, ESV and NIV, but not NRSV and TNIV which have “people”. This verse, in the versions using “men”, will certainly be understood by readers today as implying that only males should teach others. But this seems to have been far from Paul’s mind in this letter, in which he apparently commends Timothy’s grandmother and mother for the way in which they have taught him scriptural truth (1:5, 3:14-15). So again translators should avoid “men” in this verse.
David Ker has posted a claim that the Bible Societies Feast on hummingbird tongues and throw scraps to the rabble. His language is, as so often, highly emotive and somewhat exaggerated – I don’t think anyone at the Bible Societies is living in excessive luxury, although things might look a bit different from the perspective of rural Mozambique. But he certainly has a good point. Bible Societies are not living up to their mission statements if they restrict availability of electronic texts of the versions they control.
A few months ago I posted a short series about Copyrighting the Word of God (part 2, follow-up 1, follow-up 2). These posts were mainly about the original language Bible texts. But especially in the last of these posts I criticised the German Bible Society’s overblown and frankly ridiculous claims to hold the copyright of the Luther and Good News Bibles, as well as of the Greek and Hebrew texts.
David’s point is related but a bit different. He is talking mainly about Bible translations whose copyright is legitimately owned by particular Bible Societies. He doesn’t challenge this copyright, except at the end when he mentions the possibility of breaking it. But he appeals to the Bible Societies’ mission statements (I’m not sure if he is basing this on any specific such statements), which he calls “empty promises”, as the basis of his appeal for them to make their best translations available in electronic form even to “The most disadvantaged students of the Bible”.
This is a complex issue. The various Bible Societies have to fund their work somehow. They cannot do this if they simply give away Bibles, whether in print or electronically – at least unless there is a massive increase in their income from donations, or from selling at a large profit the kinds of luxury Bibles which make David want to puke. There are also complex issues of the independence of national societies: the United Bible Societies (that is, the single organisation with that plural name) does not have the power to “take action across the board” as David wants it to.
But the basic point is a good one. In an age where the poor in Africa have mobile phones but no books, the Bible Societies really should not be trying to make money by pricing electronic Bible texts as luxury items that only the rich can afford. Instead they should recognise that this has become an important way of reaching with the Bible massive audiences that would never buy books – and without the considerable expense of printing and distributing books. Once an online text has been produced its distribution is essentially free of charge and can now, as phone networks grow, reach to the remotest corners of the earth. These electronic texts should be recognised as no longer just something for the privileged but as a major way for the Bible Societies to fulfil their international mission of distributing the Word of God.
In my post Answers about the NIV update I wrote the following:
Some people will be disappointed to read that
The Committee on Bible Translation has no plans at the present to produce a translation of the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books. (Q21)
But to the evangelicals who make up the target audience of NIV these books are simply off the radar.
This issue has generated quite a bit of discussion. The Anglican priests Tim Chesterton and Doug Chaplin confirmed in comments that they were indeed disappointed by this news. Doug repeated his point in a post at clayboy, in which he noted the discrepancy between the CBT answer I quoted above and this which they also wrote:
The NIV is, and always has been, conceived as a Bible for the whole church.
There is indeed a discrepancy. If the NIV sponsors consider “the whole church” to include those churches which include within their Bible one or another selection of apocryphal or deuterocanonical books, then they really should include these books within their “Bible for the whole church”. Their current policy can’t help raising suspicions that by “the whole church” they mean only the evangelical church, suggesting a very narrow and exclusivist theology. I don’t think they really have this theology, but they need to try harder not to give the impression that they do.
The answer which the CBT and Biblica would probably give to this is simply that they don’t believe that the Apocrypha is part of the Bible. On that I would agree with them. I won’t attempt to justify my belief in this post, but I touched on my reasons recently in the slightly heated comment thread on another of Doug’s posts. Unfortunately CBT and Biblica need to look beyond this very reasonable belief if they really want to produce “a Bible for the whole church” – or else they should modify this statement to clarify that their version is intended only for evangelicals.
Zondervan, the commercial partners, might at least privately give a different answer, that translating and publishing the Apocrypha would not be commercially viable. But if so they might want to think again. The NRSV Bible, including in most editions a broad selection of apocryphal or deuterocanonical books, is the favoured translation in mainline denominational churches and in academic circles, and as such sells quite well. But, like the 1984 NIV, this translation is showing its age – and unlike NIV no update has been announced. The Common English Bible, an ecumenical project sponsored by the United Methodist Church, might take quite a lot of sales from NRSV. But a version of the updated NIV with the Apocrypha would also be a strong competitor for NRSV, and so allow Zondervan access to a significant market which it cannot penetrate with the NIV update as currently planned.
Probably there is not now time to produce a proper NIV Apocrypha in time for the 2011 update launch. But, despite my personal opinion of the status of these deuterocanonical books, I would suggest that Zondervan commission Biblica to start work on a translation of them for later publication.
The TNIV Bible has been widely criticised for its rendering of the latter part of Hebrews 2:6, a quotation from Psalm 8:4. In TNIV this reads:
What are mere mortals that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
Compare NIV:
What is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
The common complaint is that TNIV has lost the reference in this verse to Jesus, the Son of Man. In response to this the CBT (I presume) have defended their rendering in one of their Most-Requested Passage Explanations, of which this is a summary:
“Son of man” is not a messianic reference in Psalm 8:4 or Hebrews 2:6. Rather, it is used of human beings in contrast to God.
Interestingly I just spotted some manuscript evidence to support this position in a post at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog. Peter Head examines the slightly variant text of this verse in the very early (about 200 AD) biblical manuscript P46, and writes:
if P46 had wanted to indicate that ‘Man’ and ‘Son of Man’ were christological titles it could have used nomina sacra for ANQRWPOS [i.e. anthropos, that word again!].
In other words, the copyist of this very early manuscript did not understand “son of man” here as a reference to Jesus, because the words are written in the normal way and not marked as a divine title.
Now it would be interesting to know, but I don’t, whether Greek manuscripts are consistent in not using special nomina sacra forms (abbreviations marked by an overline) in this verse, and whether they do use those forms when “Son of Man” certainly refers to Jesus. But Wikipedia does confirm that the nomen sacrum ΑΝΟΣ for anthropos is used elsewhere in P46. (It really is amazing what obscure information can sometimes be found in that infamous online encylopaedia.) So there is certainly evidence here to support the TNIV rendering of this verse.
I certainly hope that the CBT sticks to their guns on this verse, perhaps encouraged by this further evidence, and does not bow to any pressure to change back to “son of man”.