Late last night, I wrote about my puzzlement regarding the TNIV's wording of 2 Cor 5:17 compared with translations of a generation ago such as it's predecessor, the NIV. Consider the two:

NIV: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

TNIV: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"

My initial hunch was that the TNIV translation committee, in their desire for gender-accuracy, simply ended up with a rendering that was less than desirable.

Not so.

Although I could defend the TNIV from a standpoint of the Greek NT, I felt that a connection was lost between the person "in Christ" and a person becoming "a new creation."

Through discussion in my the previous blog's comments, reflection on and off today over this issue, and a little bit of research that I probably should have done in the first place, I have a completely different conclusion: The TNIV's rendering of 2 Cor 5:17 is completely accurate (translationally and theologically) and has NOTHING to do with gender issues.

Rather, upon uniting with Christ (becoming "in Christ") through a salvation experience, the believer is not merely transformed, but becomes part of a larger new order, or new creation, initiated by God. Although there is truth in the individual becoming a new creation, this--evidently--is not the emphasis of the verse. Two comments on this verse are worth repeating below. The first is by Ralph P. Martin in the Word Biblical Commentary on 2 Corinthians, p. 152:

ἐν Χριστῷ governs the expression καινὴ κτίσις, "new creation," not τις, "anyone." So it is less than correct to interpret the v as describing a person's conversion after the analogy of new birth (John 3:3, 5, 7) ... The accent falls on a person ( τις ) entering the new order in Christ, thus making the καινὴ κτίσις an eschatological term for God's age of salvation (Bultmann, Theology 1, 306-308) ... Paul is talking of a "new act of creation," not an individual's renovation as a proselyte or a forgiven sinner in the Day of Atonement service. There is even an ontological dimension to Paul's thought (so Stuhlmacher, "Erwägungen"), suggesting that with Christ's coming a new chapter in cosmic relations to God opened and reversed the catastrophic effect of Adam's fall which began the old creation (Kümmel, 205). To conclude: ἐν Χριστῷ, καινὴ κτίσις in this context relates to the new eschatological situation which has emerged from Christ's advent... .

In the New American Commentary on 2 Corinthians (pp. 286-287), David Garland discusses translational issues, in this case between the NIV and NRSV:

Translations usually choose between two options: "he is" (NIV), implying that the person is a new being, or "there is" (NRSV), implying that a new situation has come into being. The pronoun "anyone" seems to imply that Paul has individuals in mind. In the context he is talking about changing one's way of looking at things; and this change, which occurs at conversion, is a subjective experience...

On the other hand, Paul also conceives that Christ's death and resurrection marks a radical eschatological break between the old age and the new. Christ is the divider of history. Paul also never uses the noun "creation" to refer to an individual person (see Rom 1:2, 25; 8:19-22, 39), and the concept of a new creation appears prominently in Jewish apocalyptic texts that picture the new age as inaugurating something far more sweeping than individual's transformation--a new heaven and a new earth. The translation "there is a new creation" would mean that the new creation does not merely involve the personal transformation of individuals but encompasses the eschatological act of recreating humans and nature in Christ. It would also include the new community, which has done away with the artificial barriers of circumcision and uncirciumcision (Gal 6:15-16; see Eph 2:14-16) as part of this new creation.
...
Translating the words literally, "new creation," without inserting a pronoun would allow for both options since the eschatological reality of the new creation effected by Christ's advent makes possible that subjective change in individuals who become new creations in Christ. Paul's declaration is the corollary to his earlier affirmations that we are being transformed (3:16, 18; 4:16-17)--so much so that the believer becomes a new creation. The new heaven and new earth and the complete transformation of believers remain a future hope, but for Christians they are so certain to be fulfilled that their lives are controlled by this new reality that still awaits consummation. For individuals to become a part of this new creation, they must choose to be in Christ.

Going back to my original post, this explains the renderings of the HCSB, NRSV, and REB:

HCSB: "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come."

NRSV: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"

REB: "For anyone united to Christ, there is a new creation: the old order has gone; a new order has already begun. "

Like the TNIV, none of these versions are attempting to a gender-inclusive renderings. As Garland describes above, leaving out the traditional pronoun allows for a wider interpretation for "new creation" than an exclusively individualized application. However, as I said in the previous post, "there is" still has a grammatically awkward feel to it. Perhaps this is why the TNIV translators went with "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come..."

Mystery solved. There's no real problem with the TNIV rendering of 2 Cor 5:17. The mistake I made in the previous post was to assume the changes made in the TNIV were of a translational nature and not an interpretational one. In looking at the changes in the TNIV, I assumed that this was gender-accurate rendering gone awry. And because of that assumption, I failed to research before I started writing--rarely a good idea. My mistake. I recant.

One more note: In the comments from the previous post, as other interpretational possibilities started to surface, I wrote, "So in spite of the title of the post, it's possible that there's not a problem at all. Instead, what we consider the 'traditional' translation may be merely a reflection of our post-Reformation tendency to over-personalize the Scriptures."

David Ker replied, "This is interesting stuff. There's a big difference in those two interpretations. Not sure of all the implications. I'd like to hear more about the 'post-Reformation personalization of Scriptures.' Are we moving (emerging?) toward a collective identity?"

Well, I'm not trying to sound emergent (nor NPP), but I believe most would agree that one of the few negative results of each believer having his or her own Bible following the Reformation and the invention of the printing press is that we tend to over-personalize the Scriptures. We look at a passage like 2 Cor 5:17, and rather than seeing a new creation that we can be part of, we see ourselves as the new creation, and of course this is reflected in our translations. We should remind ourselves that we are part of the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of me.

Tags: 2 Corinthians, TNIV