In my second last bullet point about John Dyer’s resources on the 2010 NIV, our trusty editor has replaced the term ‘wordles’ with ‘words’.

Rachel, I agree, it did look like a typo!

However, ‘wordle’ is a word!

A wordle is a diagrammatic way of showing the relative frequency of words used in a document.

Here’s the wordle of words removed from the 1984 NIV.

And here’s the wordle of words added to the 2010 NIV.

The visually minded will soon see the gender trends, e.g., pluralising pronouns, and getting rid of some masculine terminology.

Of course, the wordles themselves should be considered in light of proper argumentation on the pros and cons of such decisions.

My apologies Sandy; I’ve added a correction and a note. I’ve always thought of those diagrams as ‘text clouds’, coming from ‘tag cloud’. Nice to learn there is an actual name!

Hi Sandy

Thanks for making people more aware of this. 

I got caught out 2 weeks ago at a funeral - a cut and paste job from Biblegateway to the funeral director on Psalm 23 meant we had a clunky and unfamiliar reading (NIV 2010)... not what people expected. 

e.g. ‘paths of righteousness’ becomes ‘right paths’
‘the valley of the shadow of death’ becomes ‘the darkest valley’.

Russ

I think that the new NIV is an improvement over the old NIV. It will now actually be closer to the ESV, as both use gender-inclusive words where the original text does so.

Sometimes the new NIV will have something in the body of the text which the ESV has in a footnote. Romans 1:13 springs to mind.

In many places the text reflects the very changes people have been proposing for the NIV.

SARX is now being render as FLESH in a lot more places. But is that an improvement?

I would find it hard to see how folk could cling to the old NIV when it has masculinised in many places words that are not gender-specific in the original. But in 1979 it was thought to be proper English to put things in the masculine.

But we didn’t speak that way then, and we certainly don’t do now.

As I listen to people speak and preachers preach, I notice that they rarely go for the masculine, but frequently put things into the plural or in a gender-inclusive way.

Both the ESV and the new NIV do this cautiously, though they both prefer to render in the singular when the original is in the singular. [That’s one of the changes from the TNIV to the new NIV.]

Hi there,

I came across the 2010 NIV issue when loading the podcast for our church using biblegateway.com.  I have also noticed there is now an International Standard Version due to be released next year.  Could someone please provide some feedback on it?  You can check out an electronic verion of it at http://isv.org/index.htm . Thanks.

I don’t really see how the new NIV forces a choice, unless a church decides that it no longer agrees with the translation philosophy behind the NIV family.

I reckon some of Trevin Wax’s commenters have the right idea:

People need to realize that an excellent translation does not remain excellent forever. KJV was wonderful in 1611, it is not an excellent translation for today’s readers. The 84 NIV is still very good, but it cannot be frozen or people will still be reading it in 200 years when it is hopelessly out of date.

Hi Glenn, thanks for your kind words.

And if you meant I took a swipe at the TNIV, that wasn’t inadvertant. I don’t think it did a uniformly good job on the gender questions. The CBT has acknowledged that to some extent, by commissioning special research on English word use and also by reverting to 1984 NIV over TNIV on some occasions and going to something entirely new on others. I don’t think it was only political.

As regards the 2010 NIV I am only just starting to make an assessment, and yes, I expect it to take some time.

Clearly, like you, I believe it would be helpful if we don’t get all polarised on it too quickly.

Seeing I am in 1 Timothy 2, it’s also worth noting that 2010 NIV sticks with TNIV using “assume authority” on authentein in 1 Tim 2:12.

The CBT says this is intended as a neutral phrase, where you can properly assume authority if duly qualified and properly appointed.

CBMW don’t like it.

At this stage I am just reporting on it, not commenting.

But I do want to comment on 1 Tim 2:5.

1984 NIV had “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (anthropos both times).

Though going for ‘people’ in v4, not ‘men’ (like 1984 NIV), ESV still went for “one mediator between God and men, the man* Christ Jesus”, but with a footnote saying “*men and man render the same Greek word that is translated people in verses 1 and 4”. It was trying to make it clear that the mediator was truly a ‘man’ like the people he was saving, but to say ‘people’ lost the word link, in this verse, so they kept ‘men’ and explained via footnote. But that could sound like it’s excluding women today.

TNIV went for “one mediator between God and human beings, Christ Jesus, himself human”. But this makes ‘human’ a bit abstract, not a specific person, a man. It also misses the link to “people” in vv4.

2010 NIV goes for “one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus” - being happy from its study of English use today to use words like ‘mankind’ (and even ‘man’) as part of a mix of terms available for generic ‘man’ (as human). This keeps it clear that Jesus is a real, particular human, a man. And it keeps a verbal link to those he ransoms - mankind. But it also misses the verbal link to “people” in v4.

Over all I think 2010 NIV probably does best on this one, with ESV as my second pick.

Arthur, I think it will eventually force a decision because over time it will get harder and harder to stay using the 1984 NIV as the agreed translation for public ministry, because no new print runs will occur. It’s like my older friends who love their RSV. You just can’t buy them.

And it matters a fair bit because the NIV has been so widely used across the evangelical world.

But as you say translations don’t stay as useful for ever.

I suggest going to http://www.biblegateway.com/preferences/#biblelanguage and changing your ‘Default Version’. This will allow you to default to using the 1984 version (as long as you don’t clear your cookies, switch browser etc).

Matthew and Sandy, I wonder how many folk would actually prefer a Bible which puts things in the masculine that are not so specified in the original Greek and Hebrew?

While this was supposedly correct English grammar some years ago, it is certainly not the way people speak and write now.

Hi Matthew.
I wonder about the wisdom of putting up the Bible readings on a powerpoint slide.

I can see the point of putting the Bible reference up, but I would have thought you’d want people to follow along in their Bibles.

[However, if the reader does it well, people will get more out of the Bible reading, by listening and not trying to follow along, even if their Bible is the same version.]