New Bible Translation More Gender Neutral, Changes 'Virgin' to 'Young Maiden.'

The 2011 version of the Bible New International Version has some changes to keep the message the same, but update the words. 'Booty' is being changed to 'spoils of war' or something of the sort.
More changes:

And then there's a change that's not going over so well with people.

Click for more info.

 

I think the fact that they felt such a translation was needed shows just how childish society can be. If this is Christianity's attempt to be more progressive, then I must conclude that they couldn't choose a more trivial way to show it.

 

Honestly, this is quite pointless. It won't be accepted by anyone as they'll assume its purposely a less accurate translation in an attempt to be, and I stress how much I hate using this term, "politically correct." Christians will reject it as a "corruption" of the original texts. Sure they'd reject any new translation that isn't their preferred translation, but they'll reject this one more vehemently than they would any other, purely because it is assumed to be intentionally less accurate. Non-Christians will continue to not care and will most likely laugh at this. Me, I happen to not care as I'm not a Christian. I also don't know for sure if these are valid choices for translation, but I really don't care.

 

This bugs me. I quite liked having the Bible written in archaic ways. It made the quotes considerably more interesting to listen to. Shallow viewpoint or not, the previous edition sounded more intellectual.

Then there's also the basic issue of remaining true to the original text. It seems to be a pretty large oversight to mistranslate 'young woman' into 'virgin' for 2,000 years, so I'm a touch sceptical.

The addition of 'sister' bugs me for both of the above reasons. The veracity of the translation is questioned, and, quite frankly, it doesn't sound as eloquent. As Cloud said, it's overly politically correct.

 

Someone once told me that they thought it was an intentional mistranslation. Legendary figures are said to have extraordinary births, like Alexander the Great's mother being impregnated by a lightning bolt. How do you make the Messiah's birth extraordinary? By a virgin seems like a pretty good start. Also, since most young women back then were (I would believe) virgins, they probably assumed Mary was a virgin and simply said that instead of 'young woman.'

 

Oh, from a cynical standpoint, it makes perfect sense. That's my point. The Bible doesn't lend itself credibility by making huge oversights like that.

Speaking of which, does this mean we now have to refer to the Virgin Mary as the Young Woman Mary? (lol, I'll do it anyway.)

 

First off (not a believer) I think that is complete and utter bull. Okay so the kids growing up look in the bible and read that Mary was a virgin . . . then what they go shoot somebody? No, if that were to happen then the bible isn't to blame here. The bible is a book, a guideline on how to live your life. There have been some cases where someone would read a book and do something stupid (which I also call bull) but this is the bible for goodness sake. Come on, have a little respect here. Okay so in the beginning a bunch of guys got together to translate the bible, and they weren't sure if it was translated correctly. At least some of the message get's through. Now we start making changes left and right and in several hundred years the bible is filled with bull that the political figures are feeding you. Ray Bradbury, author of the famous novel Fahrenheit 451 among other classics, went so far as to tell the publishers that he would not make changes to his book. He left it exactly the way it was when he printed it on the typewriter. (Kind of want to go into a discussion about that but not the right place). So if we start making changes to the bible now we might as well be saying that it was bull from the beginning. I support the bible and the lessons it teaches the kids and do not want to see anything happen to it, yet if changes keep being made it might as well be worthless. Little changes like virgin to young woman leads to big changes like thou shalt not steal to thou shalt pay your bills, it's all complete bull!

 

I'm not sure, 8ut I'm getting the impression that you're misunderstanding the virgin change. From what I gather, it was always more correct to translate it as 'young woman', but only now has it been implemented.

 

This. They aren't changing it to "young maiden" as the official version. Mary was always a young maiden, but they had initially mistranslated her as a virgin.

 

I always thought it was quite weird that Mary was married to Joseph and yet somehow managed to stay a virgin. I remember my catechism teacher looked quite annoyed whenever I addressed that topic.

 

They're trying to make the Bible more politically correct? I don't think that'll save the religion, but whatever works for them.

 

I disagree with all of this changing of traditional texts, it's so stupid. They did the same thing with the Mark Twain's book Huckleberry Finn and honestly, you can't look at literature in the context of today if it was written a long time ago. Even though "politically" it may be what some people deem is correct, you have to look at the book in the context and time it was written based off of history.

 

I'm not impassioned or anything, but all I really want is the most accurate translation possible. And if the term used was "brothers" and not "Brothers and sisters", I'm not okay with that.

 

I think the bible has been set in its ways too far... The main point is they are changing Virgin for Young Maiden which is something that has been conseaved for such a long time... Maybe if the Bible was translated properly and more accuratly in the first place most songs would have the words 'The Virgin Mary' everywhere!!!

 

Well that' s the thing, since English isn' t a dead language the only way to remain as accurate as possible is to update the translation once in a while. The problem isn' t "which word was used exactly ?", it' s "what' s the exact meaning of the word that was used ?".
A literal translation is almost always a bad one, especially since there are some things you just cannot translate at all. A translation is, by its very nature, a treason. The only way for anyone to read the "true" Bible would be to learn Hebrew, and even then, since Hebrew is a dead language its exact meaning is subject to debate so you' re screwed !

Just a quick example of how bad a literal translation can be:
French : J' ai la pêche !
Literal English translation : either "I' ve got the peach !" or "I' ve got the fishing !"
Correct English translation : I'm just peachy !

Whether the new translation changes the previous translation meaning (young maiden/virgin) or not (brothers/brothers and sisters) I think it bothers people because it' s a treason to the translation they' ve grown to know and love, regardless of any accuracy concern.

 

There is no need for a new translation. This new translation changes everything and corrupts the translation.
I don't think it corrupts the book though.
However, this move should never have been made to begin with.

 

Coming from an Agnostic person, I don't think that there needs to be new translations of the Bible every year. Doesn't that just give translators room to change things up a bit?

Or...is there higher church power watching...?

<_<

 

How can you tell ? Have you studied the original Hebrew texts ? Which translation are you referring as "the" translation exactly ?
As I already said :

There are many ways to translate anything, there can be several different yet equally valid translations of the same text.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_the_Bible