NIV 3.0?
September 3, 2009
Biblica has announced the first update to the NIV in 25 years (apparently the TNIV doesn’t count, but I digress…). I think it is a fine thing to update translations periodically. Language is never static, and 25 years seems a nice round number for offering an update. What I’m wondering is: Think there’s a chance in Sheol that the new NIV will be gender neutral?
(HT: Iconic Books)
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Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr. 
Well, they’re going to retire the TNIV so I’m going to work from the assumption that the goals of the TNIV will be met by the new NIV. Who knows? It would be nice to think that the NIV publishers finally woke and told a certain Evangelical™ demagogue that he doesn’t know Greek or Hebrew and really has no business sticking his nose into translation issues.
That would be nice…
Just to prove how wacko I am, I would make a case for translating Isa 5:14 as follows:
Therefore,
Sheol has opened wide her throat,
gaped her mouth without measure;
her splender shall descend,
her masses, her din,
all her revelers.
The personification in the text is otherwise underplayed.
Normally, of course, Sheol is not so personified, in which case, its (in any case arbitrary) grammatical gender is not significant.
I find the idea of a personified Sheol fascinating. You have to at least write in this suggestion—since they have put out a general call for input.
I have also argued that wisdom when personified in the source text should be personified in receptor language. Once again, that happens to be feminine. Go here and follow the links for discussion:
http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/02/proleptic-metaphor-in-job-28.html
Admittedly, in Job 28 personification is weak. The case is clearer in Prov 1,, 8, and 9.
I seem to remember Ray van Leeuwen’s original translation of Proverbs for the NLT having taken some of that tone. Unfortunately, I seem to remember him saying that many of these weren’t incorporated into the NLT 2.0