Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 16:2 (Spring 2002)
Article: What About The “Gender Accurate” TNIV? A Review Of The Recently Published Today’s New International Version.
Author: John R. Kohlenberger III

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PP 16:2 (Spring 2002) p. 3

What About The “Gender Accurate” TNIV?
A Review Of The Recently Published Today’s New International Version.

John R. Kohlenberger III

John Kohlenberger, lecturer, consultant, and critically acclaimed expert in Bible reference books, is a member O/CBE’s board of directors. He is the author (or co-editor) of more than 36 biblical reference books, and was coeditor of the recent Analytical Concordance to the New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament.

“I would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than permit any such translation to be forced upon poor churches. The new edition infuriates me. I require it to be burned.”

Sound like the latest salvo in the current flap over the release of Today’s New International Version (TNIV)? Actually, with some archaisms updated, it is a quotation from Hugh Broughton, who in 1612 published a scathing review of the newly released Authorized or King James Version (KJV).1 Four centuries and hundreds of millions of copies later, we no longer hear such criticisms of the KJV. Ironically, we now hear such venomous language used by those who believe the KJV is the only divinely inspired Bible and that all other versions are the work of the Devil.

Such King-James-Only advocates have taken a personal preference, elevated it to a theological absolute, and used it to divide liberals from conservatives, believers from unbelievers, servants of God from minions of Satan. Critics of inclusive language in Bible translation are doing the very same thing with their reckless, blanket denunciations of the TNIV.

Earlier issues of Priscilla Papers2 have addressed well the inclusive-language controversy, which became a media frenzy in 1997. And, although most opponents of recent inclusive-language versions label these Bibles and their translators as “feminists” (using that term as a pejorative and antonym to “Bible believers”), the first books published in defense of such translations were by scholars— D. A. Carson and Mark L. Strauss—who were self-described as “traditional” or “complementarian” in their views of male-female roles in church and home.3 The only major work opposed to Carson and Strauss is also by “complementarian” authors: Vern S. Poythress and Wayne A. Grudem.4 These resources deal with the controversy in detail.

Some Background To The TNIV

The first inclusive-language edition of the New International Version (NIV) was published in the United Kingdom by Hodder & Stoughton in 1995 and 1996. Ap...

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