Bassett, Denzel, Underwood to Read The Bible

[CrimsonTide4]

Sex-neutral Bible is in the works
By Richard N. Ostling, The Associated Press

The International Bible Society said Monday that America's best-selling modern Bible is about to get an update using sex-neutral wording, despite past criticism of that idea from conservatives.
The revision will be called Today's New International Version, or TNIV. The original New International Version, which has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide since 1978, will remain on the market. The New Testament of the latest version goes on sale in April, with the full Bible, including Old Testament books, expected by 2005. Zondervan of Grand Rapids, Mich., which is owned by HarperCollins, holds North American rights for both versions. To date, the International Bible Society and Zondervan have spent $2 million to develop the new translation,
but they did not disclose other financial terms. Randy Stinson, executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a Louisville group that works to preserve sex-specific language, said Monday that he had not yet seen the revisions but was concerned that word meanings may have been altered.

"This is incredibly serious to evangelicals, how the Bible is translated," Stinson said. "We believe the Bible is the word of God, so changing these things deliberately is dangerous."
The older version's word usage became hotly disputed in 1997 when World magazine, a conservative weekly, reported that the Bible society was working on an inclusive-language revision. The society already had published such an edition with a British publisher. Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, criticized the language change, as did James Dobson of the influential "Focus on the Family" radio broadcast. After meeting with critics, the International Bible Society said it would halt publication of Britain's inclusive edition and had "abandoned all
plans for gender-related changes in future editions of the New International Version." The Bible society, based in Colorado Springs, isn't quite abandoning its pledge because the latest version won't replace the New International Version - it will just be sold alongside the older translation.

Examples of some changes from 1978 to 2002: "sons of God" will become "children of God" in Matthew 5:9, and "a man is justified by faith" will become "a person is justified by faith" in Romans 3:28. A publicity release says "the TNIV is not merely a gender-accurate edition of the NIV," because 70% of the changes do not relate to sex. Also, terms referring to God and Jesus Christ have not been altered. Like the 1978 Bible, the new version is aimed at Protestants and will not appear in an edition with the additional biblical books recognized by Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. The major U.S. sales competitor for the NIV has been the venerable King James Version. But the international versions will now also have to compete with two evangelical translations that appeared last year: English Standard Version from Crossway, a slight update of the 1952 Revised Standard Version that makes modest use of sex-free terminology.
Holman Christian Standard Bible from Broadman & Holman, the Southern Baptist book house, which rejects sex-neutral wording. It currently is availableonly in the New Testament, with the full Bible expected in 2004. All or part of the Bible is currently available in some 70 English translations.