The Committee on Bible Translation is producing an updated version of the NIV which they're calling the TNIV, or Today's New International Version. Right now they have the New Testament done, and they plan to have the Old Testament finished by 2005.
According to their figures, 93% of the text is identical to the NIV, with the remaining 7% change given to increasing accuracy in some good ways. They've replaced "Christ" with "Messiah" where "the underlying Greek functions as a title". This next one's important, and earlier inaccuracies have led to some controversy. They've increased precision in some places where the New Testament refers to "the Jews" to render it as "the Jewish leaders", etc. where the context warrants it. They've also updated some language into clearer terminology... instead of Mary being "with child", she's "pregnant", for instance. Finally, for potentially the most controversial change, they've added "gender-neutral" terminology "where the meaning of the text was intended to include both men and women". So instead of "sons of the living God" it'll be "children of the living God", instead of "he who believes", it's "whoever believes". Most importantly they've kept all references to God in the masculine, which as far as I know were also made "gender-neutral" in other attempts at gender-neutral translation (which would be very very bad).
Here's the TNIV FAQ, here are some quick facts (the who, what, where, when, why, and how), and finally, here's a bunch of sample changes that were made; most seem to be for the better, although I really get irked by the use of the plural pronoun "they" instead of the singular pronoun "he" where it refers to a single person and the gender is not specific (likewise with "them" and "him"). I'm watching their video now 
Tuesday, February 12, 2002
Permalink
Feel free to post a comment below. Please see my comment policy.
Formatting Rules (No HTML):