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Gender Language in the 2011 Edition NIV

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by milby, Dec 8, 2011.

  1. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    I'd want the names of both. Just making these kinds of claims is pretty ridiculous. We need evidence, not accusation.
     
  2. mandym

    mandym New Member

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  3. mandym

    mandym New Member

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    At that point I was just asking a question not asserting as absolute truth which was evidenced by the question mark. And I did provide names later

    http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1767429&postcount=14
     
  4. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    I found the name of woman in question and some good background info.

    Virginia Ramey Mollenkott did work on the translation exactly as JesusFan noted (again I wasn't criticizing JesusFan, but asking for needed clarification.) She worked in providing a clear, or smoothed, English translation. She is noted as a: "A Democrat and trans-religious Christian, Dr. Mollenkott lives with her domestic partner Judith Suzannah Tilton at Cedar Crest Retirement Village..."

    I did a quick check on this and saw this response from her when she was queried about her work on the NIV84:

    'I worked on the NIV during the entire time it was being translated and reviewed, although I was never free to attend the summer sessions even when I was invited to do so. Elisabeth Elliot and I were the Stylistic Consultants: our job was simply to make sure the translation would communicate clearly to modern American readers, and that the style was as smooth and understandable as possible. I was never removed, sacked, or made redundant from my work on the NIV; if I were, my name would not have appeared on the list sent out by the IBS. It was Dr. Edwin Palmer, who lived near my college, who invited me to work on the NIV. He had heard me speak and respected my integrity and my knowledge. So far as I know, nobody including Dr. Palmer suspected that I was lesbian while I was working on the NIV; it was information I kept private at that time. Dr. Palmer always sent me the batches of translating to review, and I always returned them (with my comments) to him. I have not kept track of which of my suggestions made it into the final version; I am a busy person, and it was a labour love in the scriptures. I do not think anything concerning homosexuality was in any of the batches I reviewed. I do not consider the NIV more gay-friendly than most modern translations, so I do not understand why anybody would want to bash the NIV because a closeted lesbian worked on it. I was not a translator; if I were I would have argued that the word/concept "homosexual" is too anachronistic to be utilised in translating an ancient text. But I was a stylist and nobody asked me. I no longer have any contact with the NIV-CBT, but I am often amused to remember that I frequently refused my $5 an hour stipend because I heard the project was running out of money. At the time I was naive about how many millions of dollars are made by a successful Bible translation! Please tell Kenneth Barker for me that although there is much controversy about homosexuality among Biblical scholars, to my knowledge nobody denies that the Bible condemns lying about other people. He should be ashamed of his attempt to rewrite history. (emphasis mine) cited: a letter from Virginia Mollenkott to Michael J. Penfold dated Dec. 18th 1996.

    It is unreasonable to think that a translation should be "disqualified" because someone kept something hidden from others.

    Also as for the Jesus Seminar business, that is too ambiguous of a claim to make a theological disqualification. I have plenty of colleagues who subscribe to various publications about the historical Jesus who might be maligned into that group too.

    The one issue which hasn't been brought up, and seems to have some footing, is the one concerning Dr. Marten H. Woudstra. I'll do a bit more work on this but some of the claims out there are that as an Old Testament scholar, and one of the primary editors of the Old Testament section of the NIV84, he would have been in a key position to draw into question the various discussions about the biblical proscriptions against homosexuality. I'll work on it a bit more but this seems a troublesome spot.

    This is a good spot to have a conversation around. Seems in the recent (NIV2011) is more straightforward in terms of their translators. Yet that isn't a hard and fast point.

    Btw: Here's a list of the original NIV84 contributors and translators for future reference: http://www.bible-researcher.com/niv-translators.html
     
  5. mandym

    mandym New Member

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    As you said it was still part of the translation process. That is a problem regardless of what they did or did not know. And why did they not know? How much research into who she was was there?

    It can be a disqualifying issue for a great many people. It carries as much weight as the homosexuals on the committee since they denied the real Jesus.
     
  6. JesusFan

    JesusFan Well-Known Member

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    You do realise that there are high scholarly refernce tools that we use daily, thatwere produced by those who denied Evagelical viewpoints in their theology?

    Like the BDB hebrew lexicon , Kittles, etc?

    They were still good scholars, and still produced good stuff, even if we would consider them to have been "liberal/critical" in som eo ftheir conclusions regarding the Bible and theology!
     
  7. jaigner

    jaigner Active Member

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    This is a good point. The NAB is a great translation and it comes to us from the best Catholic scholarship.
     
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