"Traditionally", the translations that have used gender-neutral or gender-inclusive methodologies have simply been not imputing a gender that isn't present in the original languages. The change with those relative to the King James Version and other English translation was along the lines of taking a passage that conveyed the message of "God created a rock." in the original languages without specifying that God was male or female, and making sure the translation didn't say "He created a rock." just because we assume based on other passages or tradition that the male pronoun would be appropriate. God was still male where the original languages specified it, and where the original languages didn't, the gender-neutral translations made sure that they didn't either.
That mode of translation, employed by the NRSV and many other translations, has taken a lot of criticism over the years for having an agenda, even though in reality it was simply being more accurate to the original texts and stripping assumptions other translations made, putting the ball back in the court of the end reader to decide what the texts mean instead of writing a viewpoint into the translation itself. Most translations viewed as gender-neutral or gender-inclusive, though painted as having a liberal or maternal bias, are actually just stripping conservative or patriarchal bias out of the translating process and making it more accurate to the source. They never deserved the criticism that reigned down upon them, in my opinion.
*However*, the interesting thing about "The Inclusive Bible Translation" that's the topic of this thread is that it takes a step I haven't seen other translations take, and seems to, based on reviews and discussions about it (I don't actually have a copy) actually be proactively going in and stripping male references that are present in the original languages out, which is a whole other ball game, in a way, although I suspect those on both sides of the larger debate in the Christian world will simply try to assign this into a group with past gender-inclusive translations that haven't done that, and may miss that it represents something new.
When it gets to the point, arguably some theological changes are starting to be made. As the basic story of Adam's rib being fashioned into Eve becomes a gender neutral person being divided into two gendered halves, and kingdom not just becoming something like "nation" with a similar meaning but no male implication, but rather "kindom", which suggests a different relationship between God and humanity, and humans with each other, it gets interesting.
My idea for a while now has been that maybe there is a better way to explore these type of new ideas about scriptural concepts. I am concerned about taking translations to the point where they don't reflect the source texts. However, I think these new ideas and mythologies that reflect a school of theological thought informed by 2,000 years of Christian experience and human ethical development, do still deserve a hearing and a mode of expression.
So, my thought is this: Rather than other translations to this point, what about a book written in the style of scripture from scratch that could retell and rework select bible stories and other stories in the way we might tell them today, from a progressive viewpoint? Not a translation, but rather having some theologians get together and draft a quasi-scripture about God and humankind and the world. This wouldn't replace the bible, but rather could just be a new old form of religious literature that could complement the bible for some people. I mean, we don't really see people write scripture anymore, but the People of God used to do it all the time. In Jesus' time, there was no 100% agreed upon canon of Hebrew scriptures, each shul (synogoue) would decide what was read there- which is why Catholic bibles have 7 books in their Old Testament not present in most Protestant bibles (Books popular in Jesus' day read as scripture in some shuls but not others, likely originally written in Greek instead of Hebrew). Similarly, there were all sorts of "extra" Gospels and epistles and such written by Christians before all the churches came up with the final 27 New Testament books (Both Catholics and Protestants hold to the same 27)- it wasn't just Gnostic Gospels pared off, there were also things like a popular competitor to Revelation called the Apocylspe of St. Peter, and some epistles written by St. Clement (An early Bishop of Rome or Pope) that didn't conflict with the theology of the epistles that made it in, and may have at one time been more widely read, and which also may have even been written earlier (Turns out that not everything we abscribe to St. Paul and so forth were necessarily really written by them in every case).
So, while the canon is closed and I don't think I'd want to shove any newly written "scriptures" into the bible, I like the idea of people perhaps writing some thing fresh in the style of scripture, using familar figures and settings in new and different ways to make theological points, and maybe even adding some new figures and settings. I think it'd be an interesting way to handle things, and its a logical step, and maybe more honest than doing a translation that isn't what the original said. Maybe its time to retell some stories fresh and see where that gets us (Not saying we here should do it- I just mean we as in churches or thelogians or whatever). It could be interesting and inspirational to see what people could come up with.
