What I Dislike Most About the TNIV…

…Is its name!

It is my opinion that the TNIV is an improved translation of its predecessor. As Mike Aubrey notes, there is a 4.2% variation across the board between the two versions. This is not a large difference, however, as has been noted elsewhere, some of the changes are significant and, in my opinion, help the reader to better hear God’s Word. As with all translations it is not perfect and it still has areas in which improvements could be made. However, it seems to me that the TNIV suffers from lack of respect. It is not selling and is perhaps being overlooked by Zondervan as a premier Bible.

Allow me to digress for a moment:

It is a balmy summer’s night in New York City and the Committee for Bible Translation is bringing its final NIV revision session to a close. Perhaps a prayer or two of thanksgiving is said and the committee goes off to enjoy dinner together (paid for by Zondervan as a small gesture of thanks for the committees hard work and commitment).

As the various evangelical scholars return to their seminaries, schools and universities, they are left wondering if they have been faithful to the task of translating scripture. Nevertheless, as the months go by their work on the NIV revision fades into the background as they deal with more pressing matters.

One day, as they are dealing with some of those pressing matters, they receive an email from Zondervan announcing the marketing strategy for the mammoth translation work they have faithfully committed themselves to for the past decade. The revision of the NIV will be marketed as “Todays New International Version”, or “TNIV” for short! and so it is, what the 100 or so scholars have faithfully spent the past decade working towards; a reliable, accurate, faithful and dynamic translation, has been undermined by a marketing strategy!

Of course this tale is apocryphal. However, I believe it illustrates where the TNIV has been failed. What could have been a new, well respected and well used Bible, has been reduced to a marketing slogan. Let us not be fooled, the inclusion of Today instead of Revised has done insurmountable damage to the TNIV’s reputation – and unfairly so.

Do you think “TNIV” is the wrong name for a translation that should actually be more widely used and more widely respected than its predecessor? I for one would vote that it be known as the Revised NIV, for that is what it is!