Copies of the New International Version Bible are displayed in a bookstore on Thursday in Nashville, Tenn. It has been criticized by some conservatives who don't like its use of gender-neutral language.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In the old translation of the world’s most popular Bible, John the Evangelist declares: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.” Make that “brother or sister” in a new translation that includes more gender-neutral language and is drawing criticism from some conservatives who argue the changes can alter the theological message.

The 2011 translation of the New International Version Bible, or NIV, does not change pronouns referring to God, who remains “He” and “the Father.” But it does aim to avoid using “he” or “him” as the default reference to an unspecified person.

The NIV Bible is used by many of the largest Protestant faiths.

The translation comes from an independent group of biblical scholars that has been meeting yearly since 1965 to discuss advances in biblical scholarship and changes in English usage.

Before the new translation even hit stores, it drew opposition from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, an organization that believes women should submit to their husbands in the home and only men can hold some leadership roles in the church.

The council decided it would not endorse the new version because the changes alter “the theological direction and meaning of the text,” according to a statement. Similar concerns led the Southern Baptist Convention to reject the NIV’s previous translation in 2005.

At issue is how to translate pronouns that apply to both genders in the ancient Greek and Hebrew texts but have traditionally been translated using masculine forms in English.

An example from the translator’s notes for Mark 4:25 to show how the NIV’s translation of these words has evolved over the past quarter-century.

The widely distributed 1984 version of the NIV quotes Jesus: “Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”

The more recent incarnation of the NIV from 2005, called Today’s New International Version, changed that to: “Those who have will be given more; as for those who do not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

The CBMW had complained in 2005 that making the subject of a verse plural to convey that it could refer equally to a man or a woman “potentially obscured an important aspect of biblical thought — that of the personal relationship between an individual and God.”

The NIV 2011 seems to have taken that criticism into account and come up with a compromise: “Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

Randy Stinson, president of the CBMW and dean of the School of Church Ministries at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the changes are especially important to evangelicals.

“Evangelicals believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture. We believe every word is inspired by God, not just the broad thought,” he said.

So if the original text reads “brothers” — even if that word in the original language is known to mean “brothers and sisters” (such as the Hebrew “achim” or Spanish word “hermanos”) — many evangelicals believe the English translation should read “brothers.”

Stinson said a notes section would be the best place to point out that the original word could be read to include men and women.