2 Cents

In 2002 Zondervan published the Today's NIV New Testament (followed by the entire Bible in 2005). Many conservative evangelicals (myself included among them) did not respond well to the Today's NIV because of the switch to gender-neutral language where the change was not true to the original text and also changes in translation that favor an egalitarian view of gender roles rather than a complementarian view (see below for an explanation on these terms).

The new 2011 NIV translation retains much of the changes made for the Today's NIV but now it will be released as simply Zondervan's flagship NIV translation (no "Today's" delineation included). This means that starting in 2011, if you read the NIV and purchase a new Bible your translation will be different in some places.

Some will argue that these changes are very minor and won't affect people's spiritual lives. I disagree. Here's why...

Some of the changes will include subtle translations favoring what is known as an egalitarian view of gender roles. Let me explain what that means. Christians who call themselves egalitarians believe that there are no inherent differences in gender roles intended by God. Rather God created males and females for procreation purposes but other than that there are no inherent differences. Because of this women are free to have authority over men in the church, men are free to be stay-at-home dads and let the wife bring home the $$ for the family, women can be seen as primarily responsible for the leadership of the home, etc.

Complimentarians (the view I believe is biblical) says women and men are created differently with different inherent gender roles given to us by God and those roles compliment each other in such a way as to bring the most joy to both sexes and the most glory to God. For example complimentarians believe only men can be preachers and elders (1 Tim. 3:2, Titus 1:6), husbands are to be the heads of their households (Eph. 5:22-33, 1 Tim. 3:12, Titus 1:6, 1 Peter 3:1), wives are intended by God to be helpers (Gen. 2:18), encouragers, and nurturers (Titus 2:4-5), and men are to be primarily responsible for finding a job and taking care of the family financially (1 Tim. 5:8).

The new NIV translation favors the egalitarian view in some key NT texts regarding gender roles. Denny Burk has a good article analyzing 1 Timothy 2:12 here as does Kevin DeYoung here.

The second bone I have to pick with the 2011 NIV translation may also seem petty to you but I see it as a serious error on the part of the translators. In an effort to be more relevant to 21st century readers the translators of the NIV have inserted gender-neutral language in places where the original text does not. The reasoning behind such a move is that the culture of the times (OT and NT) was such that masculine language was often used in dialogue where gender-neutral language would be used today.

While I do not disagree with this argument to a point, I do completely disagree with changing the original text of Scripture to be more relevant to culture. While gender-neutral language might not be a threat to Christian doctrine the move sets a dangerous precedent whereby future translators can reconstruct the Original Texts as they see fit to speak to their own culture and then call it The Bible. While I understand the need to contextualize and be relevant to a culture thousands of years removed from that of Bible times I firmly believe that is the duty of the preacher, not of the translator. There is a difference between readable accuracy and intentional changes to the inspired Word of God.

While I respect the man himself greatly many new Christians use Eugene Peterson's paraphrase translation The Message as their primary study/devotional text even though it is not a word-by-word translation. I think Peterson's work is extremely helpful but I would hesitate to consider it able to retain the original inspired authority and power of word-by-word translations of the Bible.