The essay below appeared yesterday on the “Perspectives in Translation” website. It concerns how the Greek word anthrōpois should be translated in 2 Timothy 2:2. Craig Blomberg has argued that it should be rendered as “people” (as it appears in NIV 2011), but I argue that it should be translated as “men.” Here’s how other translations handle the term: “men”NASBESVNIV (1984)HCSBKJVNKJVRSV “people”TNIVNETNJBNLTNRSV One other thing before moving on to my response. Two prominent egalitarian New Testament scholars agree with me on this translation—I. Howard Marshall and Luke Timothy Johnson. Johnson is an unabashed liberal in his view of scripture, but I think his comments on this text are apt:

David Instone-Brewer has a marvelously helpful set of posts on making the most of your Bible software. You can find detailed help for the following software packages: BibleWorks, Logos, and Accordance. Yesterday, I went through the material on BibleWorks and learned a ton. If you want to learn how to get the most out of your Bible programs, you won’t want to miss this one. (HT: Jim Hamilton) UPDATE: Stephen Smith from Logos left an important comment that I thought I should bring to your attention. It turns out that some of Instone-Brewer’s commentary about Logos is out of date. Here’s Mr. Smith’s comment in full:

I had a conversation with Janet Mefferd last week about the forthcoming 2011 edition of the NIV. Mefferd hosts a syndicated daily talk program on the Salem Radio Network, and our conversation focused on the NIV update as it relates to the gender issue. You can download the MP3 of the program here, or press the play button below. [audio:http://media.townhallstore.com/jm/rs/jm_rs_20101203-3_Fri_a0b4ced2-fb9e-46f5-be29-ddc36362825d_radio-show_Hi.mp3] A little background to our conversation is in order. Mefferd’s questions revolved around a statement that CBMW released last month in response to the electronic release of NIV 2011. If you haven’t read that statement, you can do so here. That statement concluded with this: “Though we are genuinely thankful…

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the new NIV’s translation of 1 Timothy 2:12. I argued that the rendering “assume authority” favors an egalitarian interpretation of this seminal text. Today, Kevin DeYoung weighs-in. He concludes: “Taking into account the ear of English readers–which is the NIV’s translation philosophy–I have to conclude that the NIV rendering of 1 Timothy 2:12 is not neutral. At best, ‘assume’ still implies taking authority. At worst (and more likely), the NIV makes it sound like Paul is against the inappropriate assumption of authority, not women-over-men authority in general. And this understanding is precisely what egalitarians have been arguing for and what, according to recent…

Doug Wilson has a brief commentary today on N.T. Wright’s recent ETS appearance (HT: Trevin Wax). In short, Wilson argues that Wright’s clarification of “on the basis of” language is good but that there are still other problems with Wright’s views on justification. He writes: “He consistently has set his views over against the ‘traditional’ Reformation view, and adherents of that view may be pardoned for thinking that he knew what he was talking about which, as it turns out, he didn’t. His area of expertise is not historical theology of the Reformation era, and it shows. And he managed to write an entire book responding to John Piper without…

The Theological Interpretation of Scripture has turned in to quite the hot topic these days among Bible scholars and theologians. As a way of reading the scripture, this approach tends to be either loved or hated. On one side, people see it as a way to correct the excesses of historical critical scholarship and as a way to reclaim the Bible as the church’s book. On the other side, some people feel that the approach removes the text from its historical location and obscures authorial intent. This is an important discussion, and I don’t intend to resolve the issues here. But I do want to pass along some recent items…

Tom Wright has written-in to clarify that he in fact did not intend his ETS plenary address to signal a change in his position on justification. He writes, “I haven’t retracted anything that I meant in my many, many earlier statements on this subject.” His step back from “on the basis of” language was only a change in terminology, not a change in substance. In short, he says that his current views on the matter are what they have always been. There are at least three items that I want to respond to from the two comments that Wright contributed under my earlier post (his comments are here and here).…

I have been in Atlanta this week attending a series of professional meetings for theologians and Bible scholars. The first meeting was the annual gathering of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). This year, the theme of ETS was “justification,” and our special guest in one of the plenary sessions was N.T. Wright. Tom Schreiner gave an excellent critique of Wright’s views on justification and actually teased out of him a rather remarkable concession. In fact, I would say that this concession was the most significant thing that happened this week at ETS on the topic of justification. Schreiner critiqued Wright’s published view that justification occurs “on the basis of the…