The following gender-neutral language guidelines were adopted by the NIV Committee on Bible Translation in 1992, (1) in preparation for the Inclusive Language Edition of the NIV published in Great Britain in 1996. They were made public by D.A. Carson, The Inclusive Language Debate: A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), pp. 41-44.

NOTE: The Today's New International Version published in 2002 goes well beyond these 1992 guidelines.


CBT Policy on Gender-Inclusive Language



1. It is interesting to observe that in November of the same year (1992) a position statement adopted by the Association of American University Presses contains this resolution: "Books that are on the cutting edge of scholarship should also be at the forefront in recognizing how language encodes prejudice. They should be agents for change and the redress of past mistakes." This mandate is cited in Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing, by Marilyn Schwartz and the Task Force on Bias-Free Language of the Association of American University Presses (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University, 1995), p. 18.