Sunday, March 1, 1998

Making changes to a Bible translation can be a minefield

By Michele Ames / The Gazette

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- As legend has it, 70 people working independently in different countries translated Hebrew scriptures into Greek around the third century B.C.

Miraculously, the legend goes, the translators came up with identical texts of what would become the Christian Old Testament. Same words, same punctuation. Identical.

Most biblical scholars agree that the story is probably inaccurate, and no wonder: When you're dealing with what many believe to be the inspired word of God, translating the Bible is often a minefield. Through the centuries, lives have been lost, alliances split and battles waged over poorly received Bible translations.

The most recent case in point involves the Colorado Springs-based International Bible Society's newly revised New International Version, which was released last month. Though no blood was spilled, an attempt to rework gender references in the NIV drove a wedge between members of an evangelical community typically united in faith.

At issue was standard biblical wording that stood to make women feel like outsiders, according to supporters of the revisions. For example, when the Bible uses the words "man" or "mankind," does that also include women? Is it reasonable to assume that the general Bible-reading public would understand words like "brother" to mean "brother" and "sister"?

Though the gender-revised NIV was published without complaint in Great Britain, the effort didn't get very far in the United States. After months of heated reaction filled with loaded terms like "feminist agenda" and "politically correct," plans for gender revisions to the New International Version were abandoned in the United States.

"Our goal has never been to get people to argue about the Bible," says IBS vice president and publisher Dean Merrill. "Our goal has been to get people to read the Bible."

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To understand the battle over the New International Version of the Bible, it helps to understand its place in biblical history. The New International Version, now published by the International Bible Society, began in 1955 when New York businessman Howard Long proposed the translation to his denomination, the Christian Reformed Church. His reason? He found that people who had never read the Bible were unable to understand the King James version, with all its "thous" and "ye's."

A committee was formed with the National Association of Evangelicals and about 10 years later, in 1965, the first meeting across denominational lines was convened to construct how the translation would be done.

What came out of that meeting is the current structure for translating the New International Version: a team of 15 autonomous scholars called the Committee on Bible Translation. With funding from the International Bible Society, the committee started work on the translation in 1968.

In 1978 the committee finished the first version. By the time it was completed, more than 100 scholars working in six different countries had taken part and produced the best-selling translation on the market today.

The New International Version, which was subsequently revised in 1983, accounts for about 45 percent of all Bible sales in North America, with more than 100 million copies in print. It's been particularly popular with evangelicals because the National Association of Evangelicals had a hand in its creation.

So why tamper with success? Bibles often are revised to account for new archaeological information, or shifts in language and culture. In the spring of 1997, The Committee on Bible Translation, working for the International Bible Society, decided that words such as "man," "brother" and "mankind" could no longer be translated with the assumption that everyone would know women were included.

The committee's actions trace back to the early 1990s, when the British evangelical wing of the IBS began to ask for "gender specificity for clarity of understanding," according to an IBS press release. The version with gender revisions was published in the United Kingdom in 1996, with plans to release the version here.

But when some people in the U.S. evangelical community got wind of the gender-revised version, the battle to ban it was under way.

Some of the more vehement critics held Bible burnings and mailed Bibles drilled with holes to simulate gunshots to the International Bible Society.

By March 1997, the conservative Christian magazine World ran a cover story labeling the translation the "Stealth Bible." The magazine linked it to what it called the feminist agenda and asserted that scholars working on the revision were succumbing to societal pressures. This article was followed by an outcry from some of the biggest names in the evangelical Christian world, including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority.

"I do not think that a gender inclusive Bible in the evangelical world has, in any sense, come about because of market pressure," said Joel Belz, World publisher. "I believe it has come about entirely because of a somewhat elitist politically correct sort of pressure from scholarly academia. I believe that those scholars are notably out of touch with the people in the pew."

The people in the pew, revision critics contend, are smart enough to realize that words like "men" or "mankind" apply to both genders, not just males. And to many critics of the revision, any change in the language signaled a victory for feminism.

Focus on the Family, led by its founder, author and psychologist James Dobson, also opposed the gender revisions.

Spurred on by outrage in the Christian conservative community, Focus called a meeting with representatives from the International Bible Society and conservative Christian theologians including Wayne Grudem, professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology and president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

The committee that Grudem heads believes that gender roles are biblically defined and any change in gender language reflects a blurring of those roles.

"Why am I concerned?" Grudem said by phone. "I'm concerned because over 4,000 verses have been affected. That's not just a dispute over how you translate one verse; it's a systematic change in the Bible."

IBS and its publishing partner, Zondervan, were the only supporters of the revisions in attendance at the May 1997 meeting. When it concluded, the IBS had backed down, and any future plans for a gender-revised New International Version were scrapped.

By that afternoon, the society was faxing press releases announcing its decision. Groups that believed the gender revisions made the Bible more accurate spoke out, but were unable to move the IBS.

"We believe the criticisms represent a simplistic and inaccurate view of the nature and complexities of translation issues and process; spring from social and theological agendas of particular organizations, denominations and powerful leaders; and disregard abundant evidence that English is changing in its gender usage," leaders from Christians for Biblical Equity said in a letter to IBS.

Nancy Tollefson of Colorado Springs, western regional representative for the group, puts it succinctly.

"If the verse means to include more than just men as males, then those are the words that we ought to use," said Tollefson, who considers herself an evangelical Christian. "Any attempt to make the Bible more accurate in this area evokes a name-calling strategy by the other side. They are trying to associate biblical feminists with radical feminists. But radical feminists do not hold the Bible up as a source of authority. Biblical feminists take our basis in the Bible."

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Of the roughly two dozen Bible translations available today, about 12 gender-revised versions are on the market, including the New Living Translation, the Contemporary English Version and the New Revised Standard Version. Only one major translation, the Oxford New Testament, removes typically male references to God and Jesus.

And although the International Bible Society never considered going that far, society officials admit they made some tactical errors that fueled the fire within the evangelical community. First, the IBS called the revised version the New International Version Inclusive Language Edition, which officials now say carries "negative connotations."

Second, the original gender-revised version sold in England contained a foreward stating that it was an attempt to "mute the patriarchal" culture from which the biblical writers came.

"I didn't catch the potential inflammatory effect of that," said John Stek, chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation. "We had used that language when we spoke to each other in committee without considering what it might sound like to others outside the committee room."

IBS never discounted the gender-revised version, and officials felt it was well done and accurate. But in the name of harmony, the society chose to halt plans for the U.S. launch of the gender-revised translation, and opted instead to make minor revisions in its new version. Individuals can still purchase the gender-revised translation through groups like the Minnesota-based Christians for Biblical Equity and over the Internet.

"If the root of the question is, were we forced to surrender? In my heart of hearts, I don't think that's the case," said Steve Johnson, communications director for the International Bible Society. "I really believe that to serve the church, we had to abandon the project. We had to say, 'It's not worth dividing the church.' "

(c) 1998, The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.).

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