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Similarly, in Luke 17:3 "if your brother sins" (NIV) becomes "If any brother or sister sins against you" (TNIV). Matthew 18:15 likewise changes from your brother to a brother or sister. Jesus used a male example to teach a general principle, but the TNIV makes it a double, gender-balanced example.

In short, Bill can manipulate Bible translators precisely because he knows that translators have legitimate concerns for avoiding misunderstandings. He creates a false fear that people will think "if your brother sins" does not apply to a sister who sins. Of course readers know that it applies to a sister who sins, just as they know that "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" (Ex. 20:17) also applies to not coveting your neighbor's husband. But we should not change the Ten Commandments to say, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or husband," because that would be adding to the Word of God. Nor should we change brother to brother or sister in Luke 17:3.

The TNIV policy also includes eliminating generic masculine pronouns, that is, generic he. For example, 1 Corinthians 14:28 in the NIV says, "If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God." The TNIV changes it to say "and speak to God when alone." Now the Greek original unambiguously indicates the addressees: "to himself and to God." The TNIV switches this to an indication of the circumstances ("when alone"). But now the TNIV excludes even the possibility that the speaker can speak in tongues quietly to himself while in church (while not addressing the church and not disturbing the meeting), or the possibility that in a small, private group each person might speak to himself out loud.

No translation made before 1980 has when alone or anything like it. The TNIV changed to when alone not because of any more knowledge of Greek or of the circumstances in Corinth, but because it had decided in principle to eliminate masculine generic pronouns.

Our friend Bill can use the same arguments here as before. He warns translators about misunderstanding or offense from the expression speak to himself and he tries to compel them to change this politically incorrect speech. If they accept his arguments, they must change every instance of generic he throughout the Bible—and there are thousands of cases altogether. Are you, reader, willing to have the meanings of all these verses changed around in dozens of subtle ways in order to eliminate generic he?

Consider Matthew 16:24-25:

NIV: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."

TNIV: "Those who want to be my disciples must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for me will find it."

The TNIV converts singulars to plurals. The result has a similar meaning—but not exactly the same. The word he refers to a single human being, used as an example of a principle applicable to all. But the plurals those and themselves suggest a corporate meaning, where the group as a whole, all its members together, have a single cross. Together they "deny themselves"—perhaps their identity as a group. They have a single group life that they may save or lose. The TNIV refuses to let Jesus teach by using an individual as an example, and Jesus' focus on the individual application is blurred.

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October 7 2002, Vol. 46, No. 11