Gnarley,

I've had a chance recently to meet with one of the translaters and the publisher to discuss this version of the Bible. As you probably know the translators who worked on the New International Version are the same team that worked on this version. They say they felt a need to develop a Bible which spoke the language of the 18 - 35 year olds today. So they call it Today's New International Version.

It has received a great amount of criticism from the conservatives and has been welcomed by their target market. Many call this version of the Bible "gender neutral". They prefer to call it "gender accurate." They have tried to be specific in rendering correct language depending on the context. For example in I Timothy 3 where we have guidelines for office bearers in the church they were careful not to surrender the male gender as spelled out in that context.

It's rather unfortunate that some of those who criticise this version misquote it's contents. For example a well known Baptist pastor spoke to a very large group of young pastors and told them that this version calls God a woman. I think it's okay to disagree with the changes the translaters have made but I think it's dishonest to go beyond the scope of the changes that were made to say it calls God a woman. This goes to show you the kind of reaction it has caused in the Christian community.

The TNIV has been out three years now and the translators will be meeting this summer to go back over their work to determine if further corrections need to be made. They tell me they are often forced to reconsider word meanings because of the changes which happen in our language today. Apparently 100,000 definition changes have occurred since they published this version and 10,000 new words have been added to our dictionary.

I'm personally not attracted to the TNIV nor even the NIV because I think in an effort to speak in the language of today they have lost some of the significant words and meanings that are much more accurate/profound in the word for word versions of the Bible. I told the publisher that the church today has created a buffet of choices for today's Christian by offering so many different styles of worship and the same is true for versions of the Bible which are taylored for specific groups. I think this causes problems in the church. They agreed but they are driven by market studies and trends. After all they are in a "for-profit" business.


Wes