Houston Church Shifts to HCSB Over Accuracy Concerns with NIV 2011
A church in Houston has decided not to use the New International Version of the Bible because of concerns the pastor has regarding the accuracy of the new translation.
Pastor Gregg Matte, of Houston’s First Baptist Church (FBC), will instead use the Holman Christian Standard Bible for his services. Houston’s FBC explains that there are several reasons that were taken into consideration involving the changing of Bibles.
A statement posted on the FBC website explains that there are two qualities which they look for in a Bible, they are accuracy and readability. Upon review of the changes made to the New International Version (NIV), Pastor Gregg believed that it was no longer as accurate in terms of reflecting the meaning of original biblical texts.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Steven Murray, communications director for Houston’s FBC, in an interview with The Christian Post explained the change “dealt with several of the new translations” found in the new NIV but that “gender inclusive language was a part of” the decision.
Pastor Matte feels the revised translation has strayed further away from the original meaning in biblical texts. For example the new NIV uses the word “servants” instead of “slaves” in the New Testament.
When asked how the congregation has responded to the change Murray said: “They have really taken to it well.” He continued to explain the HCSB sold in the church’s book store “can barely keep them on the shelves.”
The Southern Baptist Convention denounced the updated NIV last summer and asked its bookstore affiliate, LifeWay, to stop selling the 2011 version. Individual Southern Baptist congregations are allowed to choose which ever Bible translation they would like.
Beginning this year Houston’s FBC started to use the new HCSB instead of the NIV during lessons from the pulpit and Bible studies. Members and guests are encouraged to use whichever Bible version they would like.
The HCSB reads differently than the NIV because it is one of the only Bible translations to use contractions. Also as a way to be truer to the original language, refers to the name of God as “Yahweh” instead of Lord in the Old Testament and Jesus as “Messiah” in the New Testament, according to Jedidiah Coppenger at Lifeway.
The Committee on Bible Translation, chaired by Dr. Douglas J. Moo, released the 2011 New International Version last year.
“Some changes were preserved, some were rescinded in favor of the 1984 rendering, and many were re-worded in a third, still different way,” reads a part of the Committee on Bible Translation website’s Frequently Asked Questions page.
Dr. Moo previously told The Christian Post: “All gender decisions for the updated NIV were subjected to rigorous scrutiny in the light of this data to ensure that the words chosen maximize comprehension of the original meaning.”
On the NIV Facebook page there were already close to 20,000 “likes.”
Tara Powers, spokesperson for Zondervan said she is not aware of any stores that have decided not to sell the updated NIV and that LifeWay stores are still determining whether or not they will carry it.
The committee's "approach to gender language reflect widely accepted practices," she noted. "Passages intended to be gender inclusive remain so."
The NIV has been the most circulated translation ever. It has more than 400 million copies in print worldwide.
