The New International Version (NIV) New Testament was first published in 1973, with the complete bible being released in 1978. A revision was published in 1984 – this revision is still the one preferred by Evangelicals who regard it as the definitive NIV. There were a number of tributaries running off the main NIV stream which, I suspect, although intended to cash in on the popularity of the NIV and broaden its market, actually dissipated the stream.
The first of these was a revision in 1995 by the British publisher Hodder and Stoughton called the New International Version: Inclusive Language Edition (NIVI). “In 1997, an article by World Magazine accused the NIVI of being ‘a feminist seduction of the evangelical church’. This led to a protest in evangelical circles, led by James Dobson. Despite some evangelicals coming to the defense of the NIVI, Zondervan responded by not releasing the NIVI in the United States…..A corrected edition was published in 1999 as the last edition”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_International_Version_Inclusive_Language_Edition
Dr Ann Nyland (2004, p. 15), in her observation of the immense financial pressure from the Southern Baptist Convention and lobbying of protesters applied against the publication of the NIVI, writes: “On May 27th, 1997, IBS issued a press statement stating that ‘it has abandoned all plans for gender-related changes in future editions of the New International Version (NIV)’”.
In 1996 International Bible Society, now known as Biblica, published the New International Reader’s Version (NIrV), which was geared towards those whose native language is not English, and to children; and it is gender-inclusive. It is an NIV written at a third-grade level.
In 2005, Today’s New International Version (TNIV), was introduced to the market and was intended to sell alongside, and probably ultimately replace, the 1984 NIV as a gender inclusive bible (because that’s where the new money is). However, like the NIVI, the TNIV was rejected by Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, the fury and threats of the opposition from some in these groups being undignified, bullying, and relentless.
Nyland (2004, p. 8-9) says, “A number of the same lobbyists were members of the translation committee of the English Standard Version (ESV) Bible, another market competitor to the TNIV Bible”
The latest and current revision in the main flow of the NIV stream was released in 2011. The 2011 NIV is really a re-worked and “softer” TNIV.
I Can’t Help but Wonder……
If the scholars behind the TNIV translated the text with accuracy and integrity, why did the publisher cave in to extortion? Was the TNIV a good translation or not? Was it dishonest or not? If it was a correct translation, as those behind it claimed, they should have stuck to it because it was, according to them, a faithful translation of God’s word. And the NIV 2011 is inferior because it has watered down the TNIV which it replaces; it is a corruption of an accurate version.
Again, if the TNIV is a good and correct translation, then neither can the 1984 NIV be a correct translation, because it has little “gender-inclusiveness”. And why would the publisher run these two versions in parallel (TNIV and 1984 NIV) when they disagree with each other?
Furthermore, the NIV 2011 is not only different to the NIVI and TNIV because of its attempts to present a softer gender-inclusiveness, but to the 1984 NIV which has none. So which of these is correct? Do we trust the translation committee and the publisher and assume that the 1984 NIV is the least correct because they’ve had several attempts at replacing it, before finally succeeding with the 2011 NIV? But didn’t they tell us in 1984 that the NIV was the best bible on the market? And now, blogger Michael Marlowe tells us that Zondervan, which has exclusive rights to publish the NIV, “has moved to suppress the 1984 text, by informing other publishers that it will not allow them to use the text of the 1984 NIV in printed materials after 2012”:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/niv.2011.html
If bibles can so easily be revised and changed at will under the guise of giving new and “more accurate” readings in line with “modern scholarship” and by comparing with other ancient versions, what is it that we have as our bible? Have Christians who swear by the NIV been living in a fool’s paradise since 1984 by using an inferior and inaccurate translation when they were assured it was “the best”? If a new and more accurate translation than the 1984 NIV was needed, and the TNIV was produced by highly qualified and capable Evangelical scholars in order to eventually meet that need, why was the TNIV rejected, not only by some groups and influential individuals in the Evangelical/Fundamentalist wing of the Church, but by its own translation committee and publisher?
And what is the 2011 NIV but a compromise bible, customised to meet man’s approval rather than God’s approval, and designed to reinvigorate flagging sales of the 1984 NIV due to market forces and rival versions?
With the NLT dethroning the NIV from the top-selling English bible position, and the TNIV, which was meant to maintain the publisher’s hold as No 1, being forced off the market, Zondervan had no answer to the NLT; but they had to come up with something. One can only suspect that accuracy in translation was not the goal – regaining their place as No 1 was. Zondervan’s edge was meant to be a gender-inclusive version – the TNIV – but when this was lost to them, they hastily revamped and toned it down, producing the 2011 NIV. And no doubt the new name intentionally suggests continuity and connection with the popular 1984 NIV but with some gender-inclusiveness from the TNIV in order to keep pace with the trend of other versions’ revisions.
References
Nyland, Dr. A, 2004, More than Meets the Eye: The Campaign to Control Gender Translation Bibles, copyright by Ann Nyland 2004, published by Smith and Stirling Publishing, Parramatta, Australia