So, you say the plain-and-simple meaning of the Bible just ain’t plain and simple for you? You hear of Stephen being stoned and wonder what he was tripping on? (No kidding, apparently some people wonder just that.) Fear not, for behold there is a new Bible translation available just for you:
"For readers of the Bible confused by its archaic language, such as its use of the term ‘stoned’ for a form of execution rather than the effects of smoking dope, help is at hand.
One of the world’s most widely read Bibles, the New International Version, has been modernised by a team of 15 American and British scholars and is published today [March 15].
"Gone is the word ‘aliens,’ which the academics thought was invariably associated in the minds of the younger generation with extra-terrestrials. It is replaced with ‘foreigners.’
"Even the term ‘saints’ is deemed to be too ‘ecclesiastical’ and has been banished, to be replaced with ‘God’s chosen people.’ The Virgin Mary is no longer ‘with child’; she is ‘pregnant.’
Uh, how can the Virgin Mary be pregnant if she is not with child? I guess that will be a question for the translators of the next edition of this Bible.
I have heard, but can’t back it up at the moment, that the team behind this new NIV has Openness Theology leanings, and that some of their changes reflect this perspective.
Go to the worldmagblog to read up on the controversy over the TNIV distortions of various doctrinal statements in Scripture.
I saw a book recently written by an alleged Catholic published by an alleged evangelical publisher which used “CE” and “BCE.”