NASHVILLE, Tenn.
— Two prominent Southern Baptist leaders have endorsed a resolution passed by
convention messengers that calls the New International Version (NIV) 2011 Bible
an “inaccurate translation” the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)
cannot recommend.
Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and R.
Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, say
messengers were right to pass the resolution and take a stand against what the
language calls “gender neutral methods of translation.” Mohler, though, did say
he regrets the resolution addresses LifeWay stores so directly.
The controversy over a newer version of the NIV dates back to 2002 when
messengers passed a resolution criticizing the Today’s New International Version
(TNIV) Bible, which also employed a gender-neutral philosophy of translation
for pronouns. After receiving criticism from James Dobson, Southern Baptist
leaders and other evangelical leaders, the TNIV never gained widespread usage
and finally was discontinued.
At issue in both cases are pronouns for humanity, not pronouns for God.
The NIV 2011 is an updated translation to both the TNIV and the NIV 1984. It
maintains 75 percent of the gender-neutral changes found in the TNIV, according
to the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), a Louisville,
Ky.-based group that supports a complementarian position on manhood and
womanhood. CBMW did acknowledge that the NIV 2011 had “numerous commendable
improvements” from the NIV 1984 but that the newest translation still had
problems from CBMW’s perspective. The NIV 2011, CBMW contends, changes the
meaning of the text in numerous verses, and by changing singular pronouns to
plural pronouns, “removes the emphasis on an individual, personal relationship
with God and on specific individual responsibility for one’s choices and
actions.”
The NIV’s popularity — it’s the bestselling Bible translation — is a driving
force behind the controversy. Zondervan, the North American publisher, is
discontinuing the NIV 1984 and replacing it with the NIV 2011.
The fact that the resolution on the NIV 2011 was debated at all at the SBC
annual meeting was somewhat of a surprise, because the Resolutions Committee,
the body charged to recommend resolutions to the convention, had declined it.
Instead, messenger Tim Overton asked from the floor that his resolution —
previously submitted to the committee as required — be brought forward, and
messengers voted to consider it by the required margin of at least 2-to-1.
After a brief debate, it passed overwhelmingly by a show of ballots, receiving
opposition from only a few dozen messengers out of the 4,800 who were
registered.
CBMW’s lengthy NIV 2011 evaluation, released in May, helped give the resolution
momentum.
“The adoption of a resolution on the NIV offered from the floor of the Southern
Baptist Convention has three major points of significance,” Patterson told
Baptist Press in a statement. “First, it demonstrates anew that a grass-roots
response on the part of Southern Baptists is still a unique feature of the DNA
of the Convention, something that we must never loose. Second, the adoption of
this resolution demonstrates the continuing concern that the overwhelming
majority of Southern Baptists have for gender-neutral translations of the
Scripture and the questionable advertising techniques of the NIV marketing
program. In fact, Southern Baptists will continue to reject all agenda-driven
translations of Holy Scripture.
“Third,” Patterson continued, “this action from the floor of the Convention
should send a message to all Southern Baptist Convention institutions and
agencies that we are expected to pursue our ministries out of conviction rather
than out of concern for profitability.”
Focus on the Family also has quietly taken a stance on the NIV 2011. Its
website lists a series of Bibles it recommends, specifically stating the “New
International Version 1984 Edition” as an acceptable translation. An asterisk
guides readers to the bottom of the list, where it says, “For a preliminary
analysis of the NIV 2011 Edition, see the CBMW’s review.” The link takes
readers to a November article where CBMW said it “cannot commend” the updated
translation.
Mohler said he thought the Resolutions Committee and messengers were both
right.
“The Committee on Resolutions had good reason for deciding that this was not
the most timely opportunity to bring a resolution on the NIV,” Mohler told
Baptist Press. “I would not second guess the Resolutions Committee, and I
certainly know their conviction on these issues. But once that resolution was
brought to the floor, Southern Baptists simply had to support it, and support
it overwhelmingly, on the basis of the fact that what it said was patently true
and did reflect the established concerns of Southern Baptists.”
The resolution, Mohler said, reflected his concerns “related to the gender
issue and specifically related to the linkage between a verbal plenary
understanding of inspiration and the importance of an accurate and formal
translation.”
The doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration holds that all the words of
Scripture are God’s words and that all scripture is authoritative.
Douglas Moo, chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation — which translated
the NIV 2011 — previously told Baptist Press there was no agenda in the
translation process other than to render a Bible into more contemporary
language. The committee did, he said, make significant changes following the
controversy over the TNIV.
“Our gender decisions were made on the basis of very careful and significant
research … and the decisions we’ve made about gender have no motivation of
not offending people,” he told Baptist Press, explaining that the committee used
the Collins Bank of English, a database of 4.4 billion words showing how people
are speaking and writing. “The motivation, rather, is to communicate clearly to
people what we think arguably is contemporary English,” Moo said.
He added, “Where, in our view, the original text is intending to be inclusive
then we feel our job as translators is to figure out what is the best way to
make that inclusive point in modern English.
“Where the original text is exclusive, on the other hand, then our task as
translators is to choose the appropriate contemporary exclusive English
construction that conveys the meaning of the original. That is not to say that
all of the decisions are easy ones. There are a lot of texts which are very
tough to make that decision about. Of course, we struggle with those, and good
scholars can come to different opinions on some of them.”
An example of the NIV 2011’s gender-neutral language is John 14:23, which
reads, “Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father
will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.’” The NIV
1984 read, “Jesus replied, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My
Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.’”
Changing “him” to “them,” CBMW says, removes the emphasis on an individual,
personal relationship with Christ. Another example is 1 Samuel 18:2, which the
2011 NIV rendered, “From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him
return home to his family.” The 1984 NIV translated it “ … let him return
home to his father’s house” — a translation CBMW said emphasizes the role of
fathers in Israelite society.
Still another verse of concern for CBMW is 1 Timothy 2:12, a passage dealing
with church roles. The controversy actually does not pertain to pronouns. The
NIV 2011 rendered it, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority
over a man; she must be quiet.” The NIV 1984 translated it “have authority.” No
other major modern English translation translates it as “assume.” The verse,
CBMW said, takes sides in the debate over female pastors. “As soon as a church
adopts the 2011 NIV,” CBMW said, “the debate over women’s roles in that church
will be over, because women pastors and elders can just say, ‘I’m not assuming
authority on my own initiative; it was given to me by the other pastors and
elders.’”
Said Mohler, “It’s very healthy that the convention sends a very clear signal
that we take the issue of faithfulness in Bible translation and accuracy in
Bible translation to be of utmost, nonnegotiable importance.”
Overton, pastor of Halteman
Village Baptist Church
in Muncie, Ind.,
said “Southern Baptists have a long and proud history of speaking biblical
truth to important issues.” Overton used the 2002 resolution as the basis for
writing the 2011 resolution.
“Biblica (the worldwide publisher) and Zondervan made serious errors when they
chose to insert a gender-neutral philosophy of translation into the 2011 New
International Version,” Overton told BP. “This flawed translation undermines
verbal plenary inspiration, which is a core belief of Southern Baptists. Every
single word in scripture, including pronouns, is inspired by God. When the
bestselling NIV Bible disregards the smallest ‘jot or tittle’ of scripture,
Southern Baptists have an obligation to make a firm stand upon God’s inerrant
Holy Bible.”
Among the resolution’s highlights, it says the NIV 2011 erases “gender-specific
details which appear in the original language” and “has gone beyond acceptable
translation standards.” It cites CBMW’s 75 percent statistic and says
messengers “cannot commend the 2011 NIV to Southern Baptists or the larger
Christian community.”
It also says messengers “respectfully request that LifeWay not make this
inaccurate translation available for sale in their bookstores.”
“It has been a part of established SBC
tradition not to address the convention’s entities by means of resolution, and
this is a good policy,” Mohler said. “I do regret that this resolution
addresses LifeWay so directly. This puts LifeWay in an almost impossible
position. The very significant complications now handed to LifeWay include the
fact that the NIV is not the only English Bible to involve many of the same
translation issues. The resolution rightly addresses many translation concerns,
but the NIV is hardly alone with respect to those issues. Furthermore, removing
a specific Bible translation is no simple matter.”
As an example, Mohler cited B&H’s popular New American Commentary series,
which is based on the NIV translation.
“This is true across the board for many evangelical commentary series, and for
a host of devotional works as well,” Mohler said.
LifeWay released a statement after the resolution passed, stating, “LifeWay
Christian Resources has received the resolution. Our first step is to involve
our board of trustees since they are the representative body Southern Baptists
have elected to oversee our work.”
Other gender-neutral translations are the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV),
the New Living Translation (NLT), the New Century Version (NCV) and the
Contemporary English Version (CEV).
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Foust is associate editor of Baptist Press.)