The World article of April 19, 1997 quotes Zondervan spokesman Jonathan Petersen:
``Turning to the question at hand, the revised NIV, Mr. Petersen stated, "All revisions, past and future, are done for the sole purpose of increasing the accuracy of the English rendering of what the original text says. Terms such as 'inclusive language,' 'unisex language,' and 'gender-neutral' can be seen as negative and politically-charged. We object to being put in these camps in the WORLD article; we intend in no way to advance a particular social agenda or stray from the original biblical texts. We have never identified with these phrases nor will we ever."''
Remember the story about the man who didn't want to pay the license fee for his dog, so he listed it as a cow instead. When the dogcatcher complained, the man said, ``It's my animal, so what gives you any right to put a label on it? It sure looks like a cow to me.'' The revised NIV sure looks like a dog to me.
It is noteworthy that the title of the British revision is ``New International Version: Inclusive Language Edition''. On the Web, you can see this in a catalog if you go to this site and search under New International Version.
I would guess that the New Revised Standard Version had motivations very similar to the revisers of the NIV. Here is what their preface says (Oxford U. Press, p. xiv, Zondervan, p. 9):
``During the almost half a century since the publication of the RSV, many in the churches have become sensitive to the danger of linguistic sexism arising from the inherent bias of the English language toward the masculine gender, a bias that in the case of the Bible has often restricted or obscured the meaning of the original text. ''
Does the English language really have a bias? Does the Hebrew language? Is linguistic sexism a danger? Have the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, and all the English translations since the King James Version really restricted and obscured the meaning due to sexism? Only a feminist would think so.