I like the translation philosophy of the NIV. I've gone on record defending it especially against those that suggest the NIV translation philosophy violates inerrancy or inserts undue "interpretation" into the translation process. But while I've not been put off terribly by the gender-inclusivism in the 2011 translation, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about it, either. Probably the biggest reason for this is the constant bruising of my grammatical sensibilities every time the new translation fails to maintain noun/pronoun agreement and instead uses the so-called (and oxymoronic) "singular they." Maybe I'm alone in this, but I find the practice incredibly distracting.
A few weeks ago I complained about this to a good friend, griping about the perceived need to bow the knee to political correctness and the radical feminist agenda. He responded quite aggressively, asserting that it was not political correctness that fueled the NIV translation policy of gender inclusiveness, but rather contemporary usage. Chastened, I resolved to start suppressing my internal grammar alarm and get used to this new era of noun/pronoun disagreement.
But after an experiment with the NIV 2011 the other day, I've decided that my initial reaction may not have been so wrong after all. After stumbling over two occasions in which the NIV translators inexplicably failed to be gender inclusive, I decided to read the entire book of Proverbs looking for this phenomenon. Excepting references to "sons" and "kings," which are consistently regarded as male in the NIV 2011, I discovered the following 13 passages where the translators of the NIV 2011 retained the generic he/him/his:
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6:11 (correction, v. 13)—the troublemaker/villain
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6:14–15—the one who plots evil.
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6:30–31—the thief
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18:9—a slack worker
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19:24—the sluggard
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21:24—the proud/arrogant person or mocker
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21:25-26—the sluggard
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22:16—the one who oppresses the poor
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23:6–7—a begrudging host
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25:13—a trustworthy messenger
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25:21–22—your enemy
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26:4–5—the fool
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26:14–16—the sluggard
Does anyone but me notice a pattern here? If not, let me state the obvious: the NIV 2011 translators felt that it was fine to retain the generic he/him/his on twelve occasions where the referent was negative. But on only one occasion (25:13) did they retain the generic he/him/his on an occasion where the referent was positive. IOW, the generic he/him/his is fine when we're referencing the bad guys, but when it's the good guys, we need to make sure it's the good guys and gals. Now my sample set is not exhaustive by any means, so this could end up being an anomaly, but my preliminary conclusion is that the NIV translators do not seem to be motivated exclusively by the pull of contemporary English usage. Instead, what they really seem to be worried about is offending radical feminists.
I still plan to use my NIV. But I'm not sure that the translation committee is being completely objective on this issue. If they were it would seem that they would be consistent in their gender inclusiveness.
13 comments:
Did you by chance note the occasions where the NIV 2011 was gender inclusive through the book of Proverbs? You make a good initial case for feminist bias. However, I would like to see these cases stacked up against gender inclusive readings in Proverbs before drawing a conclusion. It could be the editor that worked on Proverbs forgot to violate "their" ingrained sense of pronoun antecedent agreement and most singular pronouns in Proverbs have negative antecedents.
One criticism of the TNIV is that it is too consistent in this regard. That is, it got ahead of the language curb and used gender-inclusive language more consistently than English-speaking people actually use it. It's more neat than reality. Language is messy.
The NIV 2011 intentionally curbs back that consistency to reflect how people use the language. It's less consistent on purpose.
What is the problem in 6:11?
"and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man."
Bill: That should read 6:13. My mistake.
Andy: I get what you say. The problem is the restriction of gender exclusiveness to evil referents.
Joseph: There is certainly room for challenging my sample set. If you come up with contrary findings, let me know.
Looking at the context:
"security for your neighbor" v. 1
"pledge for a stranger" v. 1
"neighbor's hands" v. 3
"a troublemaker and a villain who goes about with a corrupt mouth" v. 12
I wonder if given the culture if these are not more likely to be evil men that the "son" would likely encounter?
Looking at your three passages in chapter 6, I do not see a clear problem. It looks like in the context a father is speaking to his son and some of the comments can only be applied to males. I see no reason for not assuming the rest are primarily speaking of males.
The father is speaking to his son about troublemakers, villains, and evil plotters (vv. 13-15), and about the thief (vv. 30-31), but there's no reason why these people couldn't be women.
Well, I don't see it. Take chapter 19. You complain about v. 24. But v. 3 is negative. The NIV11 changed "man" in the NIV to "person." In v. 5 the "false witness" is referred to as "he" later on in the NIV, but again this is removed in the NIV11. The same is true for v. 9. In v. 13, "a foolish son" is changed to "child." In 19:15 the "shiftless man" in the NIV is removed in the NIV11. In v. 16 "he who is contemptuous" is changed to "whoever." In v. 19 a "hot-tempered man" in the NIV is changed to "person" in the NIV11. In v. 26 "he who robs his father" is changed to "Whoever robs their father."
If their is some conspiracy, why would not the translators have retained the masculine language in all these occasions when the referent in the NIV is masculine?
You're missing the point, Bill. I'm not saying that the translators had a strict policy of always being gender exclusive for negative referents. What I'm saying is that they are extremely sensitive about being consistently gender inclusive for positive referents, but not so much for negative referents.
IOW, they're very, very careful not to offend feminists, but if they offend men, it's not a big deal. What other explanation can be offered for the fact that 93% of the occasions for the generic he/him/his involve the bad guys, but only 7% involve the good guys? Is it just a coincidence?
I'm not saying that this is a "conspiracy," by any stretch. I doubt that there was any deliberation here. It's just suggests to me that they were more actively worried about what the feminists would think than they were worried about consistent contemporary usage.
Mark said: "What other explanation can be offered for the fact that 93% of the occasions for the generic he/him/his involve the bad guys, but only 7% involve the good guys? Is it just a coincidence? "
What I am saying is that possibly in some of these examples the bad guys are men--that in the culture setting of the writer of Proverbs, the people doing things, taking actions, are mostly men.
Take your example of 22:16, "One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth." Would a woman in that culture likely have an opportunity to oppress the poor to increase her wealth? I would not think so. The average woman did not own anything in most cultures until relatively modern times-- but maybe I don't understand the culture.
I guess the next question would be: Do the translators take positive examples that could only in the culture apply to men and use inclusive language there?
Bill wrote: "What I am saying is that possibly in some of these examples the bad guys are men--that in the culture setting of the writer of Proverbs, the people doing things, taking actions, are mostly men."
Answer: I agree 100%. The author of Proverbs no doubt had males predominantly in view when he talked about the "bad guy." But he also had males in view when he talked about the "good guy." Your argument doesn't really help your case unless all the bad guys in Proverbs are demonstrably male while the good guys are demonstrably both male and female.
Bill wrote: Take your example of 22:16, "One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth." Would a woman in that culture likely have an opportunity to oppress the poor to increase her wealth? I would not think so.
Answer: OK, that explanation might work for some of the examples. But is every troublemaker a man (6:11)? Is every thief a man (6:30-31)? Every sluggard (18:9, 19:24, 21:26, 26:14-16)? Every fool (26:4-5)? Every proud person (21:24)? Etc. As I look at the original list, 22:16 and possibly 23:6-7 are really the only two examples that your explanation plausibly answers.
Bill wrote: "I guess the next question would be: Do the translators take positive examples that could only in the culture apply to men and use inclusive language there?"
Answer: It seems so, yes. For instance, I just looked through chapter 26, where explicitly male language is used for fools (vv. 4-5) and sluggards (vv. 14-16), and find that gender inclusive language is used for people who hire workers (v. 10) and dig pits (v. 27), activities that would almost certainly be male activities in that culture.
Mark wrote: "Does anyone but me notice a pattern here? If not, let me state the obvious: the NIV 2011 translators felt that it was fine to retain the generic he/him/his on twelve occasions where the referent was negative. But on only one occasion (25:13) did they retain the generic he/him/his on an occasion where the referent was positive. "
Assuming for the moment that your numbers are correct, that there are 12 times more negative he/him/his expressions than positive ones, could not this pattern be simply reflective of the pattern in Proverbs itself. If we start with the the NIV84 and we remove say, just for argument sake, 90% of the he/him/his expressions, but these negative expressions naturally occur 12 times more often than the positive ones, then unless with change all 100% of the he/him/his expression, are we not left with the same 12 to 1 ratio?
Maybe. But I don't have time to do the follow-up research. :)
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