Not Neutral about the 'Gender Neutral' Bible

Mass. Pastors See It as Extreme

By Julia B. Hans
March 14, 2002

Many in the Mass. religious community believe the new "gender-neutral" Bible from the International Bible Society is extreme.

The pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Pepperell, Montel Wilder, questions its legitimacy.

"It is extremely deceptive to call this gender inclusive book a 'version' of the Bible," he says. "To be a 'version' means that it was carefully translated by scholarship and diligence to give to its readers an accurate rendering of the original manuscripts. There is nothing accurate whatsoever when an individual or group changes the fundamental meaning of words to make it fit what they want it to say."

The Pastor of Emanuel Lutheran Church in Fitchburg for 22 years, Rev. Richard Olson, says that his congregation will stick with the New Revised Standard Version. "We are all for accepting change and inclusive language, but eliminating all masculine images in the Scripture goes too far," he says.

Associate Pastor at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Rev. Terry Letourneau, uses words like "compromise," "distorting" and "bogus" when he talks about Today's New International Version, which is due out in April. He says that this new translation "…will throw a whole generation of people into the sea of disbelief. It's obvious that God knew what he wanted to communicate when he gave us His word in the original languages. What's next? 'Our Father/Mother who art in heaven?'"

Letourneau points out that in coming out with this new translation, Zondervan broke a promise made five years earlier. "They promised they wouldn't do this and they went ahead and did it anyway. I see it this way. What can bring Zondervan/IBS the greatest revenue at the expense of redemptive truth?" When it comes to textual accuracy, Letourneau doesn't mince words: "The TNIV is not sufficiently accurate. It blatantly mistranslates Greek words, thereby distorting the meaning of the text of the Word of God."

Is This Necessary?

The controversy caught my eye when I saw a recent AP headline: "International Bible Society releases gender-neutral Bible."

Immediately, I envisioned a panel of Bible scholars performing a vast search-and-replace command on every masculine pronoun in the Bible. All 72,435 uses of the word "he" and "him" would be replaced by the pronoun "it." John 3:16 would now read: "For God so loved the world, that it gave its only begotten child, that whosoever believeth in it should not perish but have everlasting life." I'm thankful my visions of the TNIV were incorrect.

The new translation is not gender-neutral but is gender-accurate, says the International Bible Society. According to it, "More than 70 percent of the changes made in the TNIV are not gender-related." They add that the changes do not impact key doctrinal issues, like referring to God or Jesus with the neutral pronoun "it."

But critics aren't buying the gender-accurate label. According to conservative weekly World Magazine, some authorities call the translation "dishonest and grossly unfair," while others say the new version is filled with mistranslations and bad grammar.

Here's an example of what the IBS means by "gender neutral." Where the NIV reads, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God," the TNIV reads, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." The switch, IBS argues, hinges on the word "son." Supposedly, we are all too stupid to recognize an inclusive noun when we see it. More than likely we are too bristly in this politically correct climate to use such a sexist word. Textual scholars say that the translation from the Greek is simply wrong.

What bothers me about this Bible version is not only that the translators cater to special interest groups, or that they, to borrow a phrase from Jay Severin, worship at the altar of political correctness. What bothers me is that there's a need to produce this type of Bible at all. Why must a "new" and "modern" version of the Bible crop up every year? Why do we constantly need a "new translation" in "today's" English? Is yesterday's English so bad?

Special Edition for New Englanders?

Evidently the IBS thinks so. They describe their mission as continually providing the Scripture in "shirtsleeve English." So what happens when shirtsleeve English devolves into animalistic jargon, the kind of speech, say, portrayed in A Clockwork Orange? Will the IBS come through for us then?

But why stop at shirtsleeve English? Why not give us a hip-hop version of the Bible, or a translation for southerners where "y'alls" and "y'uns" replace "thee's" and "thou's?" And while they're at it, how about a version for us New Englanders -- with all the "r's" dropped.

Few admit it, but the real problem is that when it comes to Bible translations, "modern" too often means watered down and "today's English" usually means dumbed-down paraphrase. What's even worse about the TNIV is that the translators have the gall to imbed commentary into their translation. So not only are we too stupid to read the English, we are also too stupid to interpret the meaning of words.

Feminists should note that of the thirteen-member panel of translators, only one was a woman.

While reading the TNIV, I thought about William Tyndale, the man behind the King James Version of the Bible. Tyndale was the first to translate the Bible from the Greek into English. His goal was to give "every ploughboy in England" a chance to read the Scripture for himself. It cost him his life.

Today, Tyndale's work is deemed antiquated and too difficult -- beyond the grasp of your average ploughperson. And so we're given the "new and improved" PC-TNIV in its stead.

What a commentary that is. After five centuries of progress, we can no longer cope with what the Elizabethans considered common English. And Bible societies now care more about image and bottom lines than they do about scriptural or literary integrity.

Julia Hans is a national award-winning freelance writer whose works have appeared in more than 25 Massachusetts papers. Her book on ancient eastern customs in the Bible was published in 2000. She lives in Townsend, Mass.