Is it really true that we don't understand the language of 20 years ago? Some language did change from 1611 to 1978, though less than one might have expected. Has the English of 1978 really become unintelligible to the man of 1997?
But let me quote the people making the argument, so you won't think I'm putting up a straw man to knock down.
``The message never changes, not even the slightest bit, but the way of expressing that exact meaning does. So where a masculine, feminine, or neuter noun of adjective is changed, it can only be revised to be more unmistakably accurate. ...
A generation ago ``man'' often included men and women, and it still does sometimes. But nowadays when people read ``man'' they often don't understand that women are intended to be included as well. So to avoid misunderstanding and ambiguity, we need to be precise.'' (Eugene Rubingh, ``IBS Statement on World Magazine's March 29, 1997 Article'')
``Several years ago H&S responding to generally accepted English language usage in the UK, asked the CBT to create an edition of the NIV translation that is gender-accurate. CBT approached the request using its translation principle of adhering faithfully to the original texts. In 1995 H&S published this new NIV edition, with distribution limited to the UK.'' (Zondervan FAQ about the NIV)
``Way back yonder when it first came up, no one was for [unisex language]. Now at the present time, almost everyone is for it. The language is shifting underneath our feet.'' Statement of Larry Walker, Committee for Biblical Translation, as reported by World magazine, March 29, 1997 in the article ``Femme Fatale.''
``During the almost half a century since the publication of the RSV, many in the churces 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. '' (New Revised Standard Version, preface, p. 9 of Zondervan edition)
These arguments have an empirical basis: they claim that modern readers are confused by words like ``man'' and ``he''. Is it true that ``nowadays when people read ``man'' they often don't understand that women are intended to be included as well,'' that feminist language is ``gender-accurate',' and ``generally accepted English language usage in the UK,'' that ``the language is shifting underneath our feet,'' and that translating ``he'' as ``he'' ``has often restricted or obscured the meaning of the original text''?
I don't see how anyone could really believe that. Note that the usage argument is different from the ``lure-In-the-feminists'' argument that I address elsewhere, the argument that some people may understand the traditional Bible but are so turned off by its apparent sexism that they reject Christ. For the usage argument to be true, most readers must be confused by non-feminist language.
The easiest way to believe strange things is to stay away from specific examples, so let me present one here.
A more serious criticism is that the proposed NIV might mislead readers into thinking that it is acceptable for a group of people speaking in tongues to do so without interpreters so long as they are speaking unintelligibly to each other rather than in the presence of other people. (An argument of Wayne Grudem in ``The Battle for the Bible'', World, April 19, 1997) When people with tin ears start changing words, they don't notice things like that. It is perhaps relevant that although the original NIV published in 1978 went through a complicated multi-layer process that included theologians and writers as well as Bible scholars, we have no assurance that any of the revisions since then have gone through any such process.
I worry that the revisors are out of touch both with past and present speakers of the Engish language, and are revising for imaginary future speakers or for the current inhabitants of universities humanities departments in England and the U.S. East and West coasts. A translation called the New International Version ought to keep in mind the understanding of people all around the world, but feminist language has not taken over South Africa, Singapore, or Kansas, whatever may be happening in the seminaries. I doubt whether uneducated people anywhere in the world suffer from any confusion over gender, and certainly would not move away from a style both more literal, more direct, and more poetic just for a confused elite.