It is a few weeks since I discussed here the announcement of the NIV Bible 2011 update. Now the consortium responsible for the update has released a set of FAQ answers, at least based on questions submitted at their website. Thanks to Joel and Suzanne for the tip.

I am pleased to see some kind of confirmation of my general understanding of the revision process. The independence of the Committee on Bible Translation is affirmed. The team clarifies that

The CBT has not “caved” in to any interest group in this decision.  Indeed to do so would fundamentally betray their mandate which is simply and solely to monitor developments in English usage and biblical scholarship and reflect them in the text. (Q1)

Members of the CBT are charged with the responsibility of monitoring developments in English usage and biblical scholarship and reflecting these developments in improvements to the text. This mandate leaves no room for following an external agenda … (Q29)

So, while they will not commit themselves on any specifics, they will not change the text because of external pressures:

If they see compelling new data on the state of contemporary English usage, or if a compelling exegetical argument is made – whether it involves moving backward or forward – the CBT will make the changes that are necessary. (Q7)

The update will be based on TNIV rather than directly on the 1984 NIV:

The CBT works with its “existing text,” which is the latest form of the translation that first appeared in the NIV and then later in the TNIV. They make revisions to this text based on their best understanding of the underlying Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. (Q27)

Presumably this implies that the TNIV text, with the minor updates already published, is the starting point for

no change to the text can be ratified without a 70 percent majority vote. (Q19)

The CBT are certainly not going to retreat to follow the Colorado Springs guidelines, with which they respectfully disagree:

The Colorado Springs Guidelines, however, do not reflect the range of opinions that was represented by the signatories to the original NIV charter, and it does not represent an accurate summation of the NIV translation philosophy. (Q13)

In the light of this post of mine I was interested to note that they accepted and answered this question:

Q17:  If you’re going to do this, at least donate $10 of every Bible sold to Wycliffe so people who still need one Bible in their own language can get one.

Since the inception, with each NIV Bible sold, Zondervan pays a royalty to Biblica so that it can continue to get the Bible, free-of-charge or at a very low cost, into the hands of less fortunate people around the world.

By the way, the person who asked for $10 from each Bible obviously doesn’t realise that many Bibles are sold for less than that in total!

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 question and answer sums up the aims of the team:

Q25: Are you going to make this version as gender inclusive as possible so that a whole generation of young believers can know that they are all included in God’s love and Word, not just a few?

CBT’s mandate under the NIV charter is to maintain the NIV as an articulation of God’s unchanging word in contemporary English. To the extent, therefore, that gender inclusive language is an established part of contemporary English and that its use enhances comprehension for readers, it will be an important factor in the decisions made by the translators.

The NIV is, and always has been, conceived as a Bible for the whole church. Our aim is to create a Bible which allows diverse groups of people to get together and read it without any one having preferential access to the text whether they are young or old, whether they are well-educated or less-well educated, whether they are an experienced Bible-handler or an interested newcomer. So we won’t be trying to create a Bible that favors the needs of young believers over the needs of other groups, but neither will be creating a Bible that favors the needs of other groups over the needs of the young. We will be seeking to create a Bible that offers unobstructed access to the unchanging truths of God’s love and Word for all.

A laudable goal. We need to hope and pray that they can reach it.

Suzanne McCarthy, in a pair of posts All things were made by it … and All things were made by her …, has made an interesting point about the Word in John 1. This is John 1:3-5 in Matthew’s Bible (1537):

All thinges were made by it
and wythout it
was made nothynge that was made.
In it was lyfe
and the lyfe was the lyght of men
and the lyght shyneth in the darcknes
but the darcknes comprehended it not.

Luther’s (1545) German of verse 10 can be translated into English, with “it” in each case rendering a German neuter pronoun (Suzanne, surely dasselbe is specifically neuter, also in verses 2 and 3, the masculine is derselbe):

It was in the world and the world was made through it, and the world did not know it.

Even more startlingly, here is Suzanne’s translation of verses 3 and 14 in the Louis Segond French (1910):

All things were made by her …

And the word was made flesh and she dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and we contemplated her glory, a glory like the glory of the only Son come from the Father.

The “she” here renders the French feminine pronoun elle. (However, Suzanne, the sa which you have translated “her” does not indicate the gender of the possessor, but only of the possessed “glory”.)

Suzanne compares these with the King James English (1611, modernised spelling):

All things were made by him;
and without him
was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life;
and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness;
and the darkness comprehended it not.

So why the difference? Certainly Luther and “Matthew” did not think that Jesus was inanimate, nor did Segond think that he was feminine. But these translators understood the topic of verses 1-14 to be “the Word”, not specifically Jesus. Yes, I’m sure they recognised that in verse 14 the Word is identified with Jesus. But according to good principles of translation and literary interpretation they did not give away the end of the story at the beginning, just as the translator of a murder mystery would avoid introducing into the translation before the final denouement pronouns giving away whether the murderer was male or female. Rather these good Bible translators rendered the text according to how the author John intended to lead his readers through the story. It is sad that the King James translators didn’t do the same.

So where does the French “she” come from? What happened in the French and the German is that, according to the normal rules for gender-based languages, the gender of the pronoun is chosen according to the grammatical gender of the referent. Thus in German the neuter es agrees with the neuter das Wort, and in French the feminine elle agrees with the feminine la Parole. In English, which is not gender-based, a different principle was applied, and “Matthew” chose the neuter it because the Word is inanimate – at least it is in normal speech, although in this particular story it become animate, or incarnate, in verse 14. The King James translators, however, followed by all or most later English Bible translators, stretched the normal rules of English by using the animate pronoun he to refer to the Word, thereby anachronistically suggesting that it is animate and masculine.

Of course we, who have read the end of the story, know that the One whom the Word became was animate and masculine. That doesn’t mean it is OK to give away the end of the story at the beginning. But there is another potentially serious issue here in that by calling this Word he rather than it as early as verses 2 and 3 (actually in KJV for the first time in verse 3, but in verse 2 in many modern versions) a teaching is implied that masculinity was an attribute of the Word already “in the beginning” and at the time of creation. But there is nothing in the Greek text to support any such teaching of the eternal masculinity of the Word, as was recognised by Luther and Segond as well as “Matthew”.

Still less is there any support in the text for any teaching that the Bible, as the word of God in a secondary sense, is masculine or should only be handled by males.

I would suggest that better Bibles in modern English should return to a modernised version of the reading in Matthew’s Bible, as here in verse 3:

All thinges were made by it
and wythout it
was made nothynge that was made.