The ABCD Principles of Translation

The NIV translation is undertaken using the following formula:

• Accuracy The translation remains accurate and true to the original biblical texts.
• Beauty The translation is rendered with attention to sentence cadence and poetic styling; to attractiveness of aural presentation.
• Clarity The translation is readable and understandable by today's English linguistic style.
• Dignity The translation is appropriate for both private study and public worship, embracing a reverent tone and not using English slang or vernacular.

``All revisions, past and future, are done for the sole purpose of increasing the accuracy and readability of the English rendering of what the original text says.''

These are laudable goals. Does the new NIV follow them?

Consider Psalms 8:4, which in the old NIV reads, What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

and in the revised NIV reads,

What are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

• Accuracy. Putting in Hebrew words for the changed words (as best I can given my ignorance of Hebrew and using reference books), yields ``What is enosh that you are mindful of him, ben adam that you care for gu?'' enosh and adam are different words for man, mankind, human with different nuances, ben means son , and gu means him . The revision is less accurate, though the quaint mere mortal is probably an attempt to convey the difference between enosh and adam. Note, too, that the Hebrew phrase meaning son of man loses that connection entirely in the revision.
• Beauty. The revision tries, but just try saying the two versions out loud. Human beings is just not a beautiful phrase. Also, replacing singular with plural deprives statements of impact by diffusing their meaning. (It deprives a statement of its impact by diffusing its meaning.)
• Clarity. The Zondervan statement about clarity is not too clear in itself. I'd say the two versions are about equally clear, though note that the revision replaces the simple Anglo-Saxon man with the Latinate mortal and human , increasing the needed vocabulary and the number of syllables.
• Dignity. Although the revision is more Latinate and uses fancier language, it is less dignified, probably because it is further from the Hebrew. Again, the phrase Human beings deflates the sentence.

Addendum: Curiously, the New Revised Standard Version says ``What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?'' with a footnote that ``mortal'' is translating ``son of man''. Why they decided to do it that way, I can't fathom, but here and other places I've seen I've been led to wonder whether the NIV revisors are cribbing from the NRSV and switching words here and there to hide the crib.