In 1611, the scholars who created the King James Bible brought the word of God into the English language of their day.
In 2011, Bible translators say they will do so again — releasing a new translation of the Bible drawn from ancient manuscripts and speaking to the lingo of the modern age.
Make that a new, new, new, NEW translation — the fourth incarnation of the New International Version.
Now in pews and homes in 46 countries, the 300-million-selling Bible originally was published in 1978 and was updated in 1984.
"And we'll make sure we get it right this time," said Keith Danby, president and chief executive officer of Biblica — once known as the International Bible Society.
Biblica, along with the Committee on Bible Translation and evangelical megapublisher Zondervan, jointly announced the new Bible in a Web cast Tuesday. They still are singed, however, by the fire-and-brimstone cast down over earlier update efforts.
A 1997 plan to revise the NIV died when word got out that Biblica, the committee and the publisher would consider "inclusive language" — code for largely eliminating masculine pronouns.
"We failed to make the case for revisions. ... We also underestimated the scale of the public affection for the NIV," Danby said of the plan 12 years ago.
"(But) freezing the NIV was also a mistake," Danby said.
In 2002, Biblica and its two partners tried a new approach by announcing a translation with a slightly different name — Today's New International Version or T-NIV.
Just like the NIV, the revision was based on deep scholarship, commitment to clarity and accessibility. Translators, though, also took a so-called "gender accurate" approach, which they said eliminated masculine or feminine nouns and pronouns that were unsupported by original manuscripts.
The T-NIV, however, was greeted with horror by traditionalists. And 118 scholars signed a letter of criticism, saying the revision undermined the essential trustworthiness of the Bible.
"People memorize the Bible. They pray on it. They want to trust every word," said a leading critic at the time, Wayne Grudem, author of "The T-NIV and the Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy" and a professor of the Bible and theology at Phoenix Seminary in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"The T-NIV is very divisive. It's not a unifying translation. And it was poorly handled in the marketplace. We need to undo the damage," said Maureen (Moe ) Girkins, president of publishing firm Zondervan.
The T-NIV will be taken off the market when the new Bible is released in two years.
For the 2011 edition, more than a dozen scholars will "review every single, gender-related decision we have made and make sure we are putting God's unchanging word into English people are actually using," said Douglas Moo, chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation.
Gender issues aren't the only areas for re-examination, however, Moo said.
"In the 1984 NIV, when Paul says (in 2 Corinthians 11:25) 'I was stoned,' we changed it to 'pelted with stones' to avoid the laughter in the junior high row of the church."
Although the committee always has called on scholars from numerous faiths and disciplines, they now also are calling for input from the general public at a special, new Web site — NIVBible2011.com .
"I can't predict what will happen with gender usage. My guess would be we made a lot of the right decisions for the T-NIV, but every one of those is open for consideration, " Moo said. "We may even be returning to what we had in the 1984 NIV."
