Preacher Mike on the TNIV

Yesterday Preacher Mike blogged on the TNIV. Mike addresses a number of the widespread misconceptions about the TNIV. Here's one:

Yesterday after class a couple students came up and said that at their church they’d been told to get rid of their TNIVs because the translation gets rid of the male language for God.

Mike corrects the misunderstanding:

Let me be clear: the TNIV does NOT get rid of the male language for God.

It does, however, make some changes (just one of many areas where improvements are made over the older NIV) that reflect differences in the way Greek and English deal with gender.

For example, I have one brother and two sisters. In Spanish I could say I have three hermanos. Even though “hermano” is the word for brother, in the plural it can include brothers and sisters. But even though in Spanish I could say I have three hermanos, I wouldn’t in English say I have three brothers.

Similarly, when Paul writes to the “brothers” in a church, he isn’t just addressing the males. So in Today’s NIV it comes out as “brothers and sisters” (unless, of course, the context suggests a male audience).

Mike concludes his post:

Despite what a few have said, the TNIV isn’t an attempt to create some gender neutral society. It’s an attempt by people who love scripture to translate scripture accurately in this generation. Spend a little time at their website, and you’ll get a feel for the devotion the translators had to this communicating God’s message. If you want to check out more about their decisions of how to handle language related to gender, there’s a great explanation here. As he explains, one day we’ll realize that this was a tempest in a teapot!

As I have read and listened to the TNIV opponents and studied their lists of supposed "inaccuracies" in the TNIV, I am led to agree with Mike. There is little genuine substance to the claims of inaccuracy in the TNIV. One can have differences about how to translate some passages in the TNIV, but there are very few, if any, translation wordings that can objectively be considered inaccuracies. The public has been misled by a powerful campaign, itself inaccurate, when judged by sound biblical scholarship, against the TNIV.

Is the TNIV my favorite translation? No, it is not. But it is a good, accurate, trustworthy translation. It is clearly a needed update to the NIV. Would I preach from the TNIV and recommend it to others? Yes, gladly.