Zondervan, Biblica and the Committee on Bible Translation welcomed more than 600 attendees to a dinner Wednesday night at the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) convention in San Diego. The event joined theologians, scholars, pastors, Bible translators, publishing professionals and Bible enthusiasts in celebration of the 50-year anniversary of the commissioning of the NIV.

“Fifty years is a long time,” said Douglas Moo, chairman for the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT), giving homage to the five decades of work that went into the translation.

Moo’s keynote address—“We Still Don’t Get It: Evangelicals and Bible Translation Fifty Years After James Barr”—began with a recollection of the evangelical movement’s status in the mid-1960s. The need for a new Bible translation was eminent, leading to the formation of the CBT.

“But, as those of us who write know, publication dates are the end, not the beginning of the work,” said Moo, referring to the committee’s formation in 1964-1965 and release of the full NIV in 1978. “And so it is appropriate that we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the NIV in 2014 and 2015.”

With more than 450 million copies distributed worldwide, the NIV is the most-read contemporary English translation. The translation came into being after Christian businessman Howard Long felt he could not find a Bible that was readable in contemporary language and reliable to the original texts.

Moo pointed out that as the evangelical movement was gaining ground it “gave birth to the NIV, and the NIV, in turn, helped to solidify and expand the movement.”

Linguistically structured to translate God’s Word into the language of the day, the NIV also carried the “sophistication of evangelical biblical scholars,” meaning that it accurately translated Greek and Hebrew into English.

The event’s emcee was Stan Gundry, Zondervan’s editor-in-chief and senior vice president/publisher of Zondervan’s church, academic, reference and reflective publishing group.

“The evening was a celebration of the worldwide impact of the NIV and of the vision that led to its creation—an accurate translation of the Bible in contemporary English,” Gundry said.

Commenting on Moo’s address, Gundry added: “Doug rightly reminded us of the importance of three critical concerns in Bible translation. Accurate translations will reflect the best of biblical scholarship, will follow established principles of linguistics and, in order for a translation to be truly accurate, it must also be easily understood by the intended readers. The NIV’s CBT prioritizes all three of these concerns, and that is the secret of NIV’s acceptance by the academy, the church and individual Christians worldwide.”

The NIV anniversary celebration will be a yearlong campaign (thenivbible.com) that will officially launch in January.

“Our hope with the anniversary campaign is to garner the attention of Bible readers, studiers and future believers to show how the NIV is made to read, made to study, made to share and, really, made for you,” said John Kramp, senior vice president and Bible publisher for HarperCollins Christian Publishing. “We believe that last night’s event really kicked off something incredible. Together with Biblica and the CBT, we are inspiring people to engage with God’s Word.”

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