The Preface to The New International Version (1978) of the Bible makes it very clear that it is most decidedly a Bible translated by worthy and right-minded evangelical scholars and for the use of evangelical churches and people. To underline these points the scholars have not translated, and the churches have not called for a translation of, the Apocrypha (which is in the KJV, the RSV, the NEB etc. and even the Living Bible).
Begun in the mid 1960s it was completed in the mid-1970s and was intended for both public worship and private prayer, for liturgy and personal meditation.
The aim was to produce a "clear and natural English" that was "idiomatic but not idiosyncratic, contemporary but not dated." It intended to avoid obvious "Americanisms and Anglicisms" for it was intended for an international market. In this way its aim is very much parallel to that of the translators of the Roman Catholic Mass in the same period, for they too sought to provide a translation for the whole English-speaking world in the vernacular after Vatican II (1962-1965).
Like the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican and the USA, the NIV Committee decided that contemporary English meant avoidance of traditional English, and in particular the religious English found in the KJV, the RV and the RSV, not to mention the evangelical hymnbooks, denominational hymnbooks and The Book of Common Prayer.
The Preface makes this commitment very clear: "As for the traditional pronouns 'thou', 'thee' and 'thine' in reference to the Deity, the translators judged that to use these archaisms (along with the old verb forms such as 'doest', 'wouldest' and 'hadst') would violate accuracy of translation. Neither Hebrew nor Greek uses special pronouns for the persons of the Godhead. A present-day translation is not enhanced by forms that in the time of the King James Version were used in everyday speech, whether referring to God or man."
I can only surmise that this paragraph was written without careful thought. The writer was so carried along with the mood of the 1960s & 1970s that he was convinced that in order to be relevant Christians must address God in the same way that they address one another - thus "you" not "thou". But, he offered a justification and an explanation that are at best only half-truths.
Let us note that from the mid-1500s the English-speaking peoples had been addressing God as "Thou/Thee" whether they used a Prayer Book or prayed in an ex tempore way. Their hymns were all addressed to the THOU-God and all public worship from the earliest days through to the 1960s was everywhere by all types of Christians in traditional English, addressed to the THOU-God. In his book on Grammar for young children the great John Wesley taught them
thus: "We say 'Thou' to God and 'you' to man." No-one challenged this simple rule for standard English until the 1960s.
Thus to address God as "Thou" is not an archaism. Its use was in 1960, and still is today, a part of living language. We recall that both the RSV and the NEB both retained address to the THOU-God but their replacements NRSV & REB do not!
And for the Preface to call the traditional use of THOU from the Middle Ages through to the RSV and NEB (the 1970s) as VIOLATING ACCURACY OF TRANSLATION is strong talk indeed.
How should we respond to such excessive condemnation of a thousand years of translation?
First of all, we can say that the NIV translators were rendering into ENGLISH and that in ENGLISH (not in Hebrew or Greek but in ENGLISH) the normal way - indeed the ONLY way for centuries - of addressing the Deity is as "Thou/Thee/Thy/Thine" with appropriate verb endings (which are easily learned). They should have translated into real English, not a supposed contemporary English which was their own creation (as was the English of the R C translators of the Mass at the same time).
Secondly, we can say that there is in the Hebrew and the Greek a clear distinction between the second person singular and the second person plural and this is indicated by different words and verb endings. Therefore, the English Bible (see Tyndale, Coverdale, Geneva, KJV, RV etc.) used two distinct pronouns, one for the singular and one for the plural. Likewise in translating Latin, Cranmer in The Book of Common Prayer (1549) used both "thee" and "you." Thus in these translations there was a correspondence between the original documents and the translation, and thereby the English readers knew when God addressed the individual person and when He addressed people in general.
Thirdly, we can say that in 1611 the chosen style of the translators of the Bible which we call the AV/KJV was not in the street language of the day! By this time the "you" was serving both for the singular and the plural in ordinary speech and "thou" was being used only for addressing inferiors or as talk between lovers. Thus the Preface is wrong in what it claims about the way in which people spoke in 1611! There was a religious English in 1611 and afterwards and this usage was part of standard English.
The translators should have retained at least the distinctive second person singular for the addressing of God! This is what is in the originals and this is what was the long-standing usage in the English language. Indeed the long standing use in English could be said to have given a doctrinal force to the addressing of God as "Thou" and to lose this very important pronoun in worship is to doctrinally to change the status of the relation of man and God!
But why did the evangelicals reject this ancient usage and why were they so
attached to the "You-God"? There can be only one basic answer which then
can be expanded in detail. The answer is: Because they lived in the 1960s and were deeply affected by the Zeitgeist of the time. They looked for immediacy, relevance, intelligibility, accessibility, familiarity and so on for this is what culture inside and outside evangelical colleges, seminaries, churches and organizations demanded. They wanted to indicate that God could be addressed in the same way as people were addressed - in the familiar! And they justified this --- and no doubt they were sincere in so doing for their eyes were blinded --- by appealing to the original tongues and to the history of the English language. The trouble is that they were so blown over by the spirit of the times (as were most of us then!) that they did not think straight.
The result is that evangelicals were loosed from their commitment to the inherited language of faith, hope and love and were released to swim in an ocean where the salt is often too much for them. They have lost the language wherein they could be both reverent and still before the LORD God and also in intimate communion with him. They went for familiarity and relevancy and thus lost the traditional means in language to attain both intimacy (which is not the same as familiarity) with God and holy reverence and awe and wonder before His majesty.
Change in language was followed or accompanied by change in dress, music, seating arrangements, types of sermons and forms of piety and spirituality.
And into the new contemporary language of the NIV quickly came the beginnings of the feminist agenda and this has caused all kinds of debate and division and is far from settled to this day. Once the YOU-God is embraced then with this Deity there comes a very modern agenda which (as the NRSV & REB show) is difficult to keep at bay.
To this day of writing (August 2002) there is yet no agreed form of religious English which is committed to the You-God. There is a babel of confusion in terms of versions of the Bible, forms of prayers, contents of hymns and choruses and in public ex tempore prayer.
There is no reason why we cannot have today the use of traditional religious English for worship. We are very familiar in life with differing forms of the language for different activities and occupations. It is less difficult to learn religious English than the modern language of computers or American football and what is gained in the use of the former is great - access to a vast store of literature of many kinds written in classic, traditional, accessible religious English.
August, 26 2002
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
Minister of Christ Church, Biddulph Moor,
England & Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large
of The Prayer Book Society of America
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