KIM LAWTON: There have been some creative efforts over the years to get young people interested in reading the Bible. On his Web site, youth evangelist Dan "Southpaw" Smith uses a parody of a popular rap song.
Zondervan hopes its new contemporary- language TNIV Bible will help reach a new generation of readers. Zondervan has planned what it calls the biggest Bible launch in history to introduce the TNIV to a target audience of 18- to 34-year-olds.PAUL CAMINITI (Vice President and Publisher of Bibles, Zondervan): We believe we are going to deliver to them a translation that speaks clearly and accurately without dumbing down the Bible, in their language and in a way in which they'll connect with the Bible and, in turn, connect with the living God.
LAWTON: But the TNIV's changes -- and particularly its gender-inclusive language -- have generated intense debate among some evangelicals who fear the revisions may distort the Bible's teachings.
Professor WAYNE GRUDEM (Phoenix Seminary): I think it does raise a lot of questions. I'm sad to say that, but I do not think the TNIV is a trustworthy Bible.LAWTON: Bibles are a big business. According to Gallup, 93 percent of all Americans have at least one Bible in their home. More than 215 million copies of the NIV have been sold and distributed around the world. Zondervan hopes the TNIV will reach a whole new market.
That market is the so-called Generations X and Y, who are spiritually interested, but moving away from institutional religion. The majority of them agree the Bible is relevant to their lives, but say most find it difficult to understand. Zondervan officials say a new translation with contemporary English will be more readable.
Mr. CAMINITI: The example we use is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. They just did their 10-year revision. And they added 10,000 words, but the part that blows me away is that they changed the definitions of 100,000 words in 10 short years.
LAWTON: The TNIV changes the language of Psalm 146:9, which in the NIV says, "The Lord watches over the alien."Mr. CAMINITI: "Alien," due to STAR WARS and other things like that, now means somebody from outer space. And so the word has been changed, more appropriately, to "foreigner."
LAWTON: In the TNIV, Mary is now "pregnant," not "with child." Jesus walks on water not during the "fourth watch of the night," but rather "shortly before dawn." In the crucifixion accounts, references to "the Jews" are changed to "Jewish leaders." The most comprehensive changes surround gender. The TNIV uses more inclusive language, beginning in Genesis 1, where instead of saying God created "man" in his own image, the TNIV says God created "human beings" in his own image.
Mr. CAMINITI: The changes that are made with gender are changes that have been made in a scholarly, careful way. The names of God have not been tampered with. God is always referred to in the masculine sense. We're not going to jettison 2,000 years of history where God the Father is God the Father.LAWTON: Since the earliest days of Christianity, Bible translation has been an arduous, controversial, sometimes perilous endeavor. In the 4th century, it took Saint Jerome 30 years to create the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible. In the early 16th century, William Tyndale translated the Bible into English. His translation was banned by the authorities, and he was burned at the stake in 1536. The King James Version was also disputed. The Pilgrims refused to bring it on the Mayflower with them.
The TNIV was translated by the same independent committee of evangelical scholars who translated the NIV 30 years ago. Professor John Stek, who has worked on Bible translation for 40 years, chairs the committee.
More than 100 evangelical leaders and scholars have signed a statement of concern about the TNIV. Much of the opposition has been spearheaded by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which criticizes the TNIV's widespread elimination of masculine words such as "he," "his," "brother," "father," and "son."
RANDY STINSON (Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood): If you do that throughout the entire text of the scripture, what you do is you undermine significant things about fathers, about manhood, about brothers, about relationships between men and women, and the way that the Bible fundamentally teaches from cover to cover about the role of men leading in the home, about the role of men leading in the church.
Prof. STEK: To pluralize it does not at all take away the individual reference, any more than when Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." The individual reference is obvious.
BEN IRWIN (Product Development Manager, Zondervan): It feels more like you're reading a Tolkien novel than it does a traditional Bible. This is a more accessible starting point that will hopefully lead them to the real thing so that the next time they pick up that Bible, they know their way around because they know the story.
