Yes, and did so knowing maybe the majority of those most supportive of our work are engineers and techies. There are countless jokes about engineers’ inability to communicate emotionally, and I’ve simply assumed men here know this liability and how it limits their ability to understand Scripture at times when they miss the forest for the trees. Didn’t mean to insult anyone. Love,
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For years we’ve been trying to arouse interest in a better NASB minus most of the italicized words and phrases added by the translators. A translation adhering closely to the original Greek and Hebrew with the text copyrighted for integrity only, not profit. It could be done for maybe ten or twenty million. Know anyone who would be its patron? Doug and I would love to help it along. Love,
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Here’s an interesting article I just stumbled upon that explains the corruption of BDAG in particular on that particular word.
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That is extremely interesting, and sadly consistent with the academic echo-chamber. Much appreciated, thank you. Now if I could only go back in time and not make those comments about the NKJV taking liberties with the text…
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Is that still a good approximation?
Yes, I think so, although it might be able to be done for less. I don’t think it would take more.
All the accounting should be publicly available. ALL of the expenses made public. Too, the copyright would have to declare it free of any royalties paid to anyone. In other words, a return to prior centuries patronage.
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Only 22 more years until RSV 1952 copyright expires.
This sent me down a bit of a rabbit trail. Thomas Nelson & Sons published “The New Covenant commonly called The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: Revised Standard Version” in 1946. Then the full Bible was published in 1952.
For works published before 1978, the initial copyright term was 28 years. Copyright protection began (typically) on the date of publication with notice. A copyright owner had to proactively file a registration in the year before the expiration (27th year) in order to take advantage of an extended renewal period (95 years from publication). If a work was not properly renewed, it entered the public domain at the end of the 28-year initial term. The Copyright Office maintains an online database of records (including renewal records).
After a bit of searching, I was able to find the record of the registration and renewal for the Old Testament Section of the Revised Standard Version|attachment. And there is a registration (14.2 KB) by The International Council of Religious Education for An Introduction to the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament, which you can see by the Internet Archive copy is not the New Testament text.
All this to say, there is a chance that the New Testament RSV text published in 1946 is in the public domain. Please don’t rely on this preliminary search and go make a copy of it. But in case the 1946 New Testament text would be a helpful starting point, it may be available with some extra work to confirm.
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So do the work, please, and let us know. Love,
More digging, turns out the copyright was filed (had to browse a virtual card catalogue to find it) and the renewal was filed in 1973. That means the copyright extends to 2041 for the New Testament RSV 1946 text.
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Thank you, dear brother.
You mentioned in that post several years ago interest in updating/revising the NASB. Given its revision in 2020, does that prevent using it? (I’m not very familiar with the copyright laws).
If it is no longer an option, is there a translation that would still be useful and usable today for revision?
Thank you for your earlier reply.
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Dear Jason,
Read this right away, but didn’t respond then because it seems foolish to try to unseat the hegemony Big Boys w/Large Royalties have on the church in America today. Among conservative Reformedish types, the ESV now reigns supreme; and among more broadly conservative Evangelicals, we’ve lost them to thoroughly neutered Bible versions.
Do I still believe in a Bible that is careful to keep all male semantic meaning components? Yes. A thousand times yes. It only becomes more clear to me as the years pass. We are neutered, as Mark Zuckerburg put it in explainign his recent shifts at FB.
But why?
Well, the church has removed her salt and light from her Holy Scriptures by neutering them. Thousands of times. We get some idea of the constancy and depth of this in my compilation simply of the word “father” and its cognates in Daddy Tried, showing how it grows decade by decade as new Bible versions are marketed.
But too, still looking at every footnote in the NASB to see how even that version hacked away meaning, and this despite its commitment to avoid dynamic equivalence, I continue to be shocked or appalled at the choices they made, and freely admit (in footnotes). These just from my reading yesterday:
2Chron 24:4 Now it came about after this that Joash [fn]decided to restore the house of the LORD.
Fn. lit. “with a heart to”
2Chron 24:5 He gathered the priests and Levites and said to them, “Go out to the cities of Judah and collect money from all Israel to [fn]repair the house of your God [fn]annually, and you shall do the matter quickly.” But the Levites did not act quickly.
Fn. Lit. “strengthen”
Fn. Lit. “from year to year”2Chron 24:10 All the officers and all the people rejoiced and brought in their levies and [fn]dropped them into the chest until they had finished.
Fn. Lit “threw”
So both the neutering and the habitual deletion of pungency even in the NASB rob us of God’s Words, and it’s inexcusable.
What version(s) to use? Honestly, at this point, I think there is such a superfluity of versions both in and out of copyright that it could be said the new translation was in the lineage of the COVERDALE/TYNDALE/GENEVA/KJV/ASV/ETC English Bibles, with a little help from friends including NASB95 and ESV. Then take the best of each and avoid the worst.
One final thought: not believing in copyrighting Scripture (except to protect the authenticity or integrity of one version’s text), I’ve often wondered what would happen if we simply took the NASB95 and redid it? My guess is they would not sue. Love,
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Dear Tim,
The last year has certainly been eye opening for me. I first became acquainted with your ministry about 8 years ago at Christ The King church in Cincinnati. Your words of wisdom to a group of men were far more practical than my years in seminary.
Fast forward to this past year, I became reacquainted with your ministry when I found some of your blog posts on Gentle and Lowly. You were saying what I was thinking. It was helpful to know I wasn’t alone.
I’ve now read most of Daddy Tried and was disturbed (but no longer surprised) to find that the modern translators had neutered so much of the Bible. What was difficult to accept was that my seminary profs and pastors, under the banner of “modern, accurate, faithful translations,” pushed the ESV and CSB. Their emphasis on Complementarianism went hand in hand with their recommended translations. Given the royalties and prestige, and pressure from editors in academia to capitulate to the political correctness of our day, it’s much less confusing. Even men who started with a stronger stance (15 years ago) have been susceptible to shift.
Thanks for your insights and explanation of the possible options. I don’t know what I don’t know. But I do believe A more faithful translation that doesn’t flatten the meaning of Gods word is worth it.
Do you know other men capable and willing to undertake that task of translation/compilation should the funding become available? I don’t have the money. But this seems like a work too important to not think about things, should a door open to pursue a revision.
Grace,
Jason
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Dear Jason, To be honest, I’d hoped you had been blessed with God by means. Talk to Matt Shifflett here and you’ll find you’re not the only one who believes in a revision of today’s neutered Bibles. Ask him if you can see the email he sent me a couple months ago. Good ideas.
May God do through us what He wills, dear brother. Love,
PS: I’d suggest you read the posts over at Baylyblog.com under the search of “ESV” and “complementarianism.”
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Dear Tim,
Thank you for pointing me to the blog posts.
In the Colorado Springs Guidelines I only see 3 differences between versions.
A. 3. “Or human beings in general” was removed from the original for the revision.
B.1. “however, the plural adelphoi can be translated ‘brothers and sisters’ where the context makes clear that the author is referring to both men and women.” was added for the revision.
C. “and that some details may need further refinement.” was added for the revision.
Am I overlooking any other changes?
One of my former pastors was Denny Burk. A few posts were hard to read, given my past connection. I agree with the Atlantic article (and your assessment) indicating the many instances of words being neutered in the CSB. Denny’s denial that it violated the guidelines was perplexing.
Would this be a correct application of the CSG:
“B.3 “Father” (pater, ‘ab) should not be changed to “parent,” or “fathers” to “parents” or “ancestors”.”
If the CSB utilized the rendering “ancestors” in what appears to be a few hundred instances instead of the accepted “fathers”, the translators were indeed in direct violation of both the original and revised versions of CSG. It seems unlikely that all of those occurrences of “ancestors” are “unusual exceptions in certain contexts”.
Was the spirit of the CSG to prevent other gender-neutering like rendering “sons of Israel” as “people of Israel” which the ESV so often does? Or as “Israelite(s)” which the CSB does hundreds of times?
In the original CSG statement it reads “We agree there are limited times when the use of gender-neutral language enhances the accuracy of translation, ….” Did they ever give examples, or can you provide one, where that practice would actually enhance accuracy? If God’s inspired word (or words) has a masculine component, should the aim be to retain that component in translation, whenever possible?
Love in Christ,
Jason
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Not sure what documents you have looked at, nor can I vouch for their provenance. Here is the original document from our Colorado Springs meeting, and I vouch for its provenance and exactitude.
STATEMENT BY PARTICIPANTS IN THE CONFERENCE ON GENDER-RELATED LANGUAGE IN SCRIPTURE
Focus on the Family’s Headquarters; Colorado Springs, Colorado
May 27, 1997
Over the past two months evangelical leaders have engaged in a serious debate concerning the use of gender-inclusive language in English Bible translation. Dr. James Dobson called a meeting of concerned individuals to discuss together and seek the leading of the Holy Spirit in these matters. Those who participated in this meeting give glory to God for His grace evident among us as we worked together this day, and with hope we offer the following statement with the prayer that it will be of use to the Church for the glory of God.
All participants agree that our overarching concern in Bible translating is to preserve the sanctity of the truth of sacred Scripture by rendering the most accurate translation possible. In the interests of such accuracy, we all agree that modern language is fluid and undergoes changes in nuance that require periodic updates and revisions. We agree that Bible translations should not be influenced by illegitimate intrusions of secular culture or by political or ideological agendas. Specifically, we agree that it is inappropriate to use gender-neutral language when it diminishes accuracy in the translation of the Bible, and we therefore agree to the attached guidelines for translation of gender-related language in Scripture.
We agree there are limited times when the use of gender-neutral language enhances the accuracy of translations, but that the trend in usage of gender-inclusive language can easily become—and because of overuse, in too many cases, already has become—an instrument of distortion of the Biblical text.
We agree that many of the translation decisions made by those who produced Hodder and Stoughton’s New International Version Inclusive Language Edition in the United Kingdom were not the wisest choices. Further, the statement in the Preface saying “it is often appropriate to mute the patriarchalism of the culture of the biblical writers through gender-inclusive language” (Preface to the NIVI, vii) was regrettable and sadly misleading.
We agree that it was also regrettable that the New International Reader’s Version (NIrV), released also as The Kid’s Devotional Bible, was released with a Preface which did not explicitly notify parents that gender-related changes were made in this version. We commend Zondervan for offering to refund the purchase price of any NIrV’s to anyone who makes a request. We agree that families that wish to be reimbursed for the cost of The Kid’s Devotional Bible (NIrV) should also be granted a refund.
Focus on the Family was distressed to learn that its own Adventures in Odyssey Bible, the International Children’s Bible of Word Publishing, is also a gender-neutral translation (in the Old Testament). Focus on the Family is working with Word, Inc. and has withdrawn that edition from its distribution channels. Focus plans to reimburse parents who request a refund (see attached Focus on the Family press release). We commend Focus on the Family for its decisive and straightforward actions.
It is ironic in light of the present controversy that Zondervan’s sales of inclusive language Bibles (NIrV and New Revised Standard Version) are only five percent of all their Bible sales, and in fact most inclusive Bibles are sold by other publishers: Thomas Nelson/Word (New Century Bible, International Children’s Bible, Contemporary English Version, and NRSV), Tyndale House Publishers (New Living Translation), World Bible Publishers (God’s Word and NRSV), and Baker Book House (NRSV). We commend the openness with which Zondervan approached this meeting, and we are encouraged by the willingness of the International Bible Society to revise the New International Reader’s Version so that the revision (which will be completed later this summer) will eliminate the gender-related changes that had been made, bringing it into line with the current NIV.
This throws into stark relief our wider concern with the translation of God’s Word among evangelical publishers at large and the necessity within Bible publishing for greater accountability to the Church concerning the matters here raised. The willingness of the IBS to re-examine the language of the NIrV and to move away from changes made to its text is greatly encouraging to us, and we call on the other publishers and copyright holders to issue similar public statements demonstrating similar reappraisals of their translation principles (see attached International Bible Society press release of May 27, 1997).
We agree that the discussions were transacted in a spirit of mutual trust and charity. Further, the policy statement issued by the IBS and the press release from Focus on the Family evoked profound gratitude and thanksgiving by all present.
With glory to God, and thanksgiving;
Ken Barker, Secretary, Committee on Bible Translation; Member, Executive Committee of Committee on Bible Translation
Timothy Bayly, Executive Director, Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood; Pastor, Church of the Good Shepherd, Bloomington, IN
Joel Belz, Publisher, God’s World Publications
James Dobson, President, Focus on the Family
Lars Dunberg, President, International Bible Society
Wayne Grudem, President, Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood; Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Charles Jarvis, Executive Vice President, Focus on the Family
John Piper, Member, Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood; Senior Pastor, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, MN
Vern S. Poythress, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Westminster Theological Seminary
Bruce E. Ryskamp, President and CEO, Zondervan Publishing House
R. C. Sproul, Chairman, Ligonier Ministries
Ron Youngblood, Member, Committee on Bible Translation; Professor of Old Testament, Bethel Theological Seminary West
GUIDELINES FOR TRANSLATION OF GENDER -RELATED LANGUAGE IN SCRIPTURE
A. Gender-related renderings of Biblical language which we affirm:
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The generic use of “he, him, his, himself” should be employed to translate generic 3rd person masculine singular pronouns in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. However, substantival participles such as ho pisteuon can often be rendered in inclusive ways, such as “the one who believes” rather than “he who believes.”
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Person and number should be retained in translation so that singulars are not changed to plurals and third-person statements are not changed to second-person or first-person statements, with only rare exceptions required in unusual cases.
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“Man” should ordinarily be used to designate the human race or human beings in general, for example in Genesis 1:26-27; 5:2; Ezekiel 29:11; and John 2:25.
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Hebrew ’ish should ordinarily be translated “man” and “men” and Greek aner should almost always be so translated.
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In many cases, anthropoi refers to people in general, and can be translated “people” rather than “men.” The singular anthropos should ordinarily be translated “man” when it refers to a male human being.
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Indefinite pronouns such as tis can be translated “anyone” rather than “any man.”
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In many cases, pronouns such as oudeis can be translated “no one” rather than “no man.”
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When pas is used as a substantive, it can be translated with terms such as “all people” or “everyone.”
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The phrase “son of man” should ordinarily be preserved to retain intracanonical connections.
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Masculine references to God should be retained.
B. Gender-related renderings which we will generally avoid, though there may be unusual exceptions in certain contexts:
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“Brother” (adelphos) and “brothers" (adelphoi) should not be changed to “brother(s) and sister(s).”
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“Son” (huios, ben) should not be changed to “child,” or “sons” (huioi) to “children” or “sons and daughters.” (However, Hebrew banim often means “children.”)
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“Father” (pater, ’ab) should not be changed to “parent,” or “fathers” to “parents,”
or “ancestors.”
C. We understand these guidelines to be representative and not exhaustive.
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And this from CBMW News (September 1997):
HEADLINE: SMALL CHANGES MADE TO GUIDELINES
SUB-HEADLINE: THREE CHANGES DETAILED IN A WORD FROM CBMW PRESIDENT WAYNE GRUDEM
AFTER CONSIDERING COMMENTS FROM many people, the signers of the Colorado Springs translation guidelines on gender-related language in Scripture (CBMWNEWS 2:3, p. 6) have agreed to the following changes:
Guideline change #1
A.3. “Man” should ordinarily be used to designate the human race [DELETE: or human beings in general], for example in Genesis 1:26-27; 5:2; Ezekiel 29:11; and John 2:25.
This is because the phrase was confusing and widely misunderstood. Many people thought we meant that women should always be called “men,” which we surely did not intend!
Guideline change #2
B.1. “Brother” (adelphos) should not be changed to “brother or sister”; [ADD: however, the plural adelphoi can be translated “brothers and sisters” where the context makes clear that the author is referring to both men and women.]
This does not say it has to be translated that way, but that it can be. (Translators still might want to keep “brothers” for the sake of continuity in Bible translations, for example, and they should keep “brothers” where only men are in view or the context is ambiguous.) This change is a result of much evidence from Greek lexicons and Greek literature that we were unaware of earlier (see further information below).
Guideline change #3
C. We understand these guidelines to be representative and not exhaustive, [ADD: and that some details may need further refinement.]
The endorsers of the statement recognize that there may yet be new information or more precise ways of formulating certain things, but they would only be refinements, not fundamental changes.
Evidence regarding adelphoi as “brothers and sisters”
Many times the plural word adelphoi means “brothers,” and refers only to males. But in Greek, the masculine plural form of a word is also used when referring to a mixed group of men and women. In the following actual sentences from Greek literature, the sense “brother and sister” or “brothers and sisters” seems to be required:
- That man is a cousin of mine: his mother and my father were adelphoi.
- My father died leaving me and my adelphoi Ted and Thelma as his heirs, and his property devolved upon us.
- The footprints of adelphoi should never match (of a man and of a woman): the man’s is greater.
- An impatient and critical man finds fault even with his own parents and children and adelphoi and neighbors. (Footnote 1)
In standard English, we just don’t say, “My brothers Ted and Thelma.” So the Greek plural adelphoi sometimes has a different sense from English “brothers.” In fact, the major Greek lexicons for over 100 years have said that adelphoi, which is the plural of the word adelphos, “brother,” sometimes means “brothers and sisters” (so BAGD, 1957 and 1979; Liddell-Scott-Jones, 1940 and even 1869).
This material was new evidence for those of us who wrote the May 27 guidelines — we weren’t previously aware of this pattern of Greek usage outside the Bible.
Once we saw these examples and others like them, we felt we had to make some change in the guidelines.
One other factor influencing our decision was that the masculine adelphos and the feminine adelphe are just different forms (masculine and feminine) of the same word adelph-, which is again different from English where bro- and sis- are completely different roots. (The root adelph- is from a-, which means “from,” and delphus, “womb,” [LSJ, p. 20] and probably had an early sense of “from the same womb.”)
Therefore in the New Testament, when Paul wrote, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers (adelphoi), in view of God’s mercy…” (Rom. 12:1), it seems that the original hearers would have heard him to say something very much like “brothers and sisters” in English today. (Or technically “siblings,” but that is not the way anyone speaks to anyone else today: would we say, “Therefore, I urge you, siblings…”?)
Why then does the New Testament sometimes specify “brothers and sisters,” putting both masculine (adelphoi) and feminine (adelphai) forms (as in Matt. 19:29 or Mark 10:30)? Sometimes the authors may have specifically included feminine forms to make it very clear that women as well as men were included in a certain statement (since
adelphoi could at times mean only “brothers”).
These changes will now be included in all future printings of the guidelines. I think they make the guidelines stronger, more accurate, and more likely to gain general acceptance from the broader Christian world.
The full text of the guidelines is available at www.cbmw.org
Footnote 1: "The quotations are found in the following sources: (1) Andocides, On the Mysteries 47 (approx. 400 B.C.); (2) Oxyrhynchus Papyri 713, 20-23 (97 A.D.; with Greek names Diodorus and Theis, not Ted and Thelma); (3) Euripides, Electra 536 (5th cent. B.C.); (4) Epictetus, Discourses 1.12.20-21 (approx 130 A.D.).
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Let me add that I fought against the entire adelphoi backtracking to the Guidelines recorded above, but lost. My objections were multiple, but let me simply point out the ludicrous nature of their craven declarations that they weren’t aware of this Greek usage!
I record my opposition here for the record, but since I was a signatory to the original, I didn’t feel I could or should pull my name from what Wayne and Vern wanted to do, and did above. After all, everyone else agreed… Love,
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Tim, I can’t thank you enough for all of this.
As I’m trying to understand the guideline more fully…
Would an appropriate application be
In the CSB “ ‘ab” and “pater” are translated as “ancestors” numerous times. The guideline was was designed to prevent, and they should have retained “fathers”.
And the intention of the guidelines seemed like it would have prevented The ESV translating “sons” (ben) of Israel as “People of Israel”, and the CSB translation as“Israelites” or “Israelite people”.
From what I can see after a quick check those renderings occurred hundreds of times.
Are those the types of gender neutral translations the guidelines were intended to prevent?
I suppose there are exceptions. But hundreds of times seems odd to me when the guideline is clear and the spirit of the guidelines was to limit neutering of the Bible.
Update: After reading this https://www.waynegrudem.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/What-s-Wrong-with-Gender-Neutral-Bible-Translations.pdf
It seems that there wasn’t much reason to change “fathers” or “sons” to something else.
The whole matter is whether or not these words’ male semantic meaning components are irritating to us moderns, if so why?, then whether or not we may claim to be faithful to the orthodox doctrine of Scripture (plenary verbal inspiration) while ameliorating Bible readers’ irritation? Finally, whether those ameliorations maintain the utility of each word w/a male semantic meaning component reinforcing the federal headship of Adam, who is the glory of God (the Father Almighty), while Eve is the glory of man.
Let me put it this way. Male semantic meaning components of Scripture are scandalous and anger us today. That’s the entire ballgame. They irritated Wayne and Vern as well as Gordon Fee and Doug Moo (although all four of them would vociferously deny it). The ESV conservative-lites claimed we could get rid of some of those words but shouldn’t rid ourselves of them all. The libs said we can rid ourselves of all of them.
Every last one of the thousands of modern Bibles’ removals of words possessing male semantic meaning components (male inclusives) must be examined in light of the utter patriarchalism of every last one of them. Is it worth it to appease our hatred of the authority of God the Father and all those males made in His Father-Image by denying the plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture with our changes? Must we all turn and embrace the neo-orthodox doctrine of Scripture? “Forget the male semantic meaning component. It’s old and in the way, and furthermore it’s more important to put on display in front of the rebellious that they are included, too! Sacrificing the male semantic meaning component is so compassionate, intelligent, gentle, and lowly.”
No matter how often I explained to Wayne and Vern that the male inclusives of Scripture all reinforced Adam’s federal headship—every last one of them—and must be kept intact, they never agreed. There is one place where Vern comes close to affirming this in his writing, but what’s notable is the almost-complete absence of this very simple explanation in the voluminous body of work surrounding this issue which has accrued since the late nineties. No one believes the male inclusives of Scripture have any value in teaching Adam’s federal headship consequent from God’s Fatherhood placed in the male of the species.
This is such an easy concept to communicate that its entire absence from the thousands of pages of all the half-hearted defenders’ defences of some continued use of the male inclusive is damning. And now, under the hegemony of PhDs/royalties/legacy publishers and rich men, we have arrived at the point where God’s people are robbed of God’s Words, and intentionally so. Thousands and thousands of words have been changed or deleted in order to hide the federal headship of Adam we find so offensive. Fatherhood of God and man is dead. No fear. No authority. Dead.
But they would deny this. And even if they admitted it was partially true, they would adamantly refuse to acknowledge our censored Bibles have had any tiniest part in causing it. Love,
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