(Staff)  One of the most popular Bible translations in the world is about to be rewritten—but not based on its so-called “gender-accurate” sister text.

On Sept. 1, the three groups behind the New International Version of the Bible announced that they would tackle a new translation. Biblica, the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT) and the publisher Zondervan -- the forces behind the NIV since its original 1978 publication -- announced they would scrap the Today’s New International Version of 2005, an “inclusive language” text and go back instead to the NIV’s 1984 update and start over.

Journalist Cathy Lynn Grossman wrote in USA Today that “No one built an actual bonfire under the folks who put out the so-called ‘gender-accurate’” T-NIV, which was an update of the immensely successful evangelical NIV. “But they were badly scorched by scholars, theologians, linguists and cultural critics.” Matt Kennedy, journalist and Anglican priest, observed: “This probably means that the T-NIV will meet with a slow, quiet and deserved death.”

Douglas Moo, chairman of the CBT, said they’re passionately committed to scholarly accuracy and accessible language. They are listening to voices from a wide spectrum of Christendom. But he stressed, “We are committed evangelicals who believe in the importance of every word in God's words. We can’t fit the Bible into any cultural mode.”