Why using masculine-language is harmful to women’s understandings of the bible: Studies have shown that women understand writing that uses gender-neutral language better than they understand writing that uses masculine language (in a way clearly intended to be women-inclusive). Hence, while women consciously understand that masculine-language is meant to include them on a deeper level women find it hard to really relate to the masculine language.

THE NEW LIVING TRANSLATION 1996

-         “One challenge we faced was in determining how to translate accurately the ancient biblical text that was originally written in a context where male-oriented language terms were used to refer to humanity generally. We needed to respect the nature of the ancient context while also trying to make the translation clear to a modern audience that tends to read male-oriented language as applying only to males”

>     um, okay. So we learn from this that the translators think that 1. the male-oriented language of the past was okay, there was nothing wrong with it. And, 2. the only reason we have to change the male-oriented language to gender-accurate language is because the silly modern audience is too illiterate/dumb to understand male-oriented language nowadays. And 3. the reason for the modern audience (read: “modern young females”) not understanding male-oriented language is because of the stupid feminist movement creating problems where there were none before.

>    So: no problem whatsoever with past male-oriented language. It was working fine and dandy until the Feminists distorted young Christian women’s minds, and created a problem where there was none before. This preface to the 1996 NLT gets 10 out of 10 for 1. denying any inherent problem with using masculine language; and thus – because masculine language isn’t inherently wrong/problematic – for 2. denying any sexism in past language use/translations of the bible/society; and for 3. laying the source of the problem (and blame for the problem) not in past sexism but in the Feminist movement (and in modern stupid young women).

- and, of course, the preface for the NLT 1996 also says: “we should emphasize, however, that all masculine nouns and pronouns used to represent God (for example, “Father”) have been maintained without exception. We believe that the essential traits of God’s revealed character can only be conveyed through the masculine language expressed in the original texts of Scripture”. [So we should only see God as ‘male’ but not ‘female’? So God is not genderless?]

New Revised Standard Version 1989:

-         “since the publication of the RSV, many in the churches have become sensitive to the danger of linguistic sexism arising from the inherent bias of the English language towards the masculine gender, a bias that in the case of the bible has often restricted or obscured the meaning of the original text… masculine-oriented language should be eliminated as far as this can be done without altering passages that reflect the historical situation of ancient patriarchal culture”

>  this is a wonderful preface about why the bible committee for the NSRV chose to use gender-inclusive language. The committee is humble. It accepts the faults/sexism in it’s previous translation of the bible (RSV). It does not blame ‘modern’ women, or feminism, for suddenly needing to change bible language to be gender-inclusive. Instead, it realizes that the English language has an inherent masculine bias/sexism, which was played out in translations of the bible. The bible should always have been translated in a gender-inclusive way. Translators screwed up by not doing so. They accepted the linguistic sexism/male-bias of the English language. They didn’t change this until the late 1980s.

> As a side note, the NRSV preface says that their bible committee comprised about thirty members “both men and women”. By specifically mentioning this, I know that they saw the need for women to be included in the bible committee, and I appreciate this. This translation (with it’s humble preface that blames past sexist society not modern women for the recent change in gendered language in the bible) is fast becoming my translation of choice for my new planned non-sexist bible purchase.

“[A] major difficulty comes in determining whether English masculine generics like “man” and “he” sound inclusive to English ears. That is, are they“heard” to include women as well as men? This is an area where there is significant disagreement. After all, what sounds exclusive to a young person may sound perfectly inclusive to an older person. What sounds exclusive to a woman may sound inclusive to a man…. A gender-accurate translation makes these terms clear and unambiguous for both kinds of readers”.

My response to this statement (made by a NLT bible translator):

I have been raised a Christian, my father is a Pastor, both my parents went to Bible College. I’ve heard and read the bible all my life, and almost exclusively from masculine language bible translations. The main bible I own and use is a pre-1996 translation of the NIV which uses masculine language. I have always known that the word “man” in the bible includes “woman”. This doesn’t make it okay and non-harmful for me to continue reading such masculine translations of the bible. When I do I get the sense that women are included, but in a side-thought way. That women are included but barely remembered. They are included as the “wives” of the men being addressed. Protestations like those above, “what sounds exclusive to a young person may sound perfectly inclusive to an older person,” make the issue of gender-accurate language a modern problem only brought about by women becoming ‘difficult’ due to the Feminist movement. These protestations ignore the fact that gender-inaccurate language was never okay, yet has been the norm in bible translations for the last 2000 years. It always side-lined women’s importance both in society and in the bible passages. Man was the norm in society, and women were supposed to fit into that. What I want is not a disclaimer by modern bible translators saying “Feminism has destroyed women’s understanding of the gender-inclusive word “man”” and laying the blame on modern women and none of the blame on themselves, or on men. What I want is recognition that this is not a modern ‘women’s’ problem, but a historic problem. I want recognition and acceptance that this was never okay. The blame isn’t on women it is on the previous translators of the bible, and on what society used to be. All I want is for modern bible translators to say “Up until the 1980s and 1990s bible translations have used male-oriented language. Words in the bible such as “man” are understood, and always were understood, to include women. However, using gender-inaccurate language effectively marginalized women’s importance in society and in Christianity.  In the last couple of decades we have, belatedly, been trying to fix this and make the language in the bible gender-accurate and female-inclusive.”

One of my Psychology lecturers mentioned a study that had been conducted on women’s understanding of gender-exclusive language in a passage that was obviously intended to include women as well as men. The women knew consciously that the passage they read applied to women as well as men, but subconsciously they identified less with that passage than the control group of women did when reading an identical passage written in gender-accurate language. So women consciously ‘know’ gender-inaccurate language includes them, but subconsciously they relate it less to themselves than they relate gender-accurate language to themselves. This was a relatively modern study (in the last 3 decades) I believe. But I think a similar (although less-strong) phenomenon would have been found among women 100 or more years ago as well – because even then women had to choose whether to understand the word “man” as gender-exclusive or gender-inclusive based on the context. There were two definitions of “man” and I think these definitions overlapped a bit in women’s minds – even 2000  years ago – therefore making the word “man” in obviously gender-inclusive contexts seem to apply somewhat more to actual “men” than to women.

TNIV – 13 translators total; 92% male and 8% female.  

NLT (1996; a gender-neutral version)-  92%male, 8% female.

NIV – (1984 version; used masculine-language) – 7% female (of those involved as consultants but not directly involved in translating, women make up 30%) . 105 translators total.

NRSV 1989 (gender-neutral version) - 16% female

* * * * * * * * * *

Why aren’t there more women translators? It’s not like translating is an obvious area that men would tend to prefer. There is a much higher proportion of female doctors, lawyers, accountants, judges, politicians and university lectures than there are female bible translators. Why aren’t women being encouraged into bible translating? Bible translating is not a purely objective task, much of it is discretionary and subjective. Women would bring a different approach to it and look at the women and the language in the bible differently from how men would.

I would trust my bible translations more if more women were involved in the translation process. The bible in it’s original languages is sexist enough as it is.

In particular I am thinking of the part of the Old Testament where it is noted that a man’s concubine “had an affair” and left him to return to her father. When the man came to beg to to return home with him she refused and it took some days before her father let her return with her husband. Her behavior, her husband’s behaviour and her father’s behaviour really do not look like normal responses to her cheating on her husband. The phrase that has been translated into our current translations (eg. NIV) as “had an affair” has another possible meaning: “had a disagreement/argument with”. The phrase has been used with this latter meaning in other parts of the bible. Why wasn’t it used in this section about the concubine? It should be the default translation because it doesn’t assume any reason for the disagreement. On their way home the concubine and her husband stay the night somewhere. A gang of men surround the house wanting to gang-rape the man. Out of fear, the man turns his concubine into their hands. They rape and abuse her through the night & in the morning the man finds his concubine dead. It is my guess that male translators find this story very disturbing and feel somewhat better when they see the concubine as a ‘sinner’ (she had an affair, therefore this is a bit like karma).

Below I shall list some of the discrepancies between the God in my heart and the God represented in the Old Testament and ask “What’s up with that, God?”

1. Why did God never say anything to his Israelite men about NOT raping women/girls when they went and invaded towns and villages? There are no specific recordings of the Israelite men raping women/girls while they plundered and destroyed towns however I am sure that some of the Isrealites did do that & frequently (rape is a very common occurence in any war/invasion). God specifically ordered his men to not plunder the goods (including the unmarried teen girls) from certain towns however he never ordered his men to not rape the women while they were destroying those towns. What’s up with that, God? At one stage in the early New Testament you even killed a guy for plundering some goods from a town after you prohibited the men from plundering that town. But you never even spoke to your men about not raping the young teen girls in those towns in the process of annihilating everyone in those towns.  I know that if God is not recorded as saying something in the bible this does not mean that God didn’t say it. However it is interesting that the male authors of the bible chose to record in minute detail some extremely trivial things that God said yet did not record God ever saying anything against rape, or against stealing young teenage girls as brides, or forcing your young teenage daughter to marry some random man.

2. Why did God punish Lot’s wife for looking back as she fled her town  but not Lot for offering up his two daughters to a bunch of scary rapist men? Both Lot and his wife acted out of fear and lack of trust in God. But Lot’s sin and cowardice was FAR greater than his wife’s. God didn’t only punish Lot’s wife, he actually killed her – turned her into a pillar of salt. Later God doesn’t even punish Lot when he manages to impregnate both daughters (yes, with their consent, and yes, he was drunk – but how many chances is God giving Lot compared to the chances that he gave Lot’s wife?).

3. Why is wife beating never ever mentioned in the bible? I suppose the bible beats the Koran in this respect because the Koran has a small sentence actually endorsing wife beating, nevertheless, I am disappointed, God. You mention little, little things like the exact number of gem ornaments you want on your temple, and you prohibit cross-dressing, yet you never once mention the extremely prevalent problem of wife beating? One in three women will be assaulted by a partner in their lifetimes in New Zealand. I know many women who have been in violent relationships (including one who was murdered by her husband) (none of these men were convicted).

 I count 7 women in the bible that God spoke directly to: Eve, Hagar, Sarah, Mary (mother of Jesus), Mary (mother of James), Mary Magdalene & Salome. Of these, God spoke to Eve directly and to the other 6 through an angel. God also spoke directly to one female animal through an angel: Balaam’s donkey.

 I know God did speak directly to Eve (and Adam). I don’t know of any other woman that God spoke directly to in the bible. Some women were prophets, like Miriam, so God must have spoken to them but instances of this are not recorded in the bible.

The frustrating thing about God speaking to Adam & Eve is that he spoke to Adam a lot more. He never told Eve not to touch the tree of the knowledge of good & evil – he only told Adam this. I guess we are meant to assume that Adam informed his wife of this rule. God also told Adam (not Adam & Eve) to name all the animals (including his own wife, who remains nameless until after the Fall).

 God did not speak directly to Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist). Instead God spoke to her husband when he went to the temple & told him that barren Elizabeth would have a son.

 God did not speak directly to Hannah (mother of Samuel) either. Hannah went to the temple, crying because she was barren, and the male prophet at the temple heard from God and told her that she would have a son. Her son Samuel, however, heard directly from God in a dream when he was still a child.

 God did speak directly to Sarah through an angel but only very briefly. When barren Sarah (wife of Abraham) was going to have a son neither God nor his angels spoke directly to her about it. Instead 2 angels disguised as men told her husband that she would conceive. The only time either of them addressed her was when she laughed in disbelief (because she was very old). One of the angels asked Abraham, “why did your wife laugh?” and she answers, “I didn’t laugh”, then the angel finally addresses her personally, “yes, you did laugh”.

 God did speak directly to Mary through an angel. God spoke to Jesus’ mother Mary through an angel (and to her husband Joseph twice through dreams).

God did speak to the three women at Jesus’ tomb through an angel.

God did speak to Hagar through an angel (servant of Sarah & Abraham).

 As for the men that God communicated directly with:

God spoke personally and directly to a number of men such as Adam, Cain, Noah, Moses, Saul/Paul (at least 6 men – opposed to the one women he spoke personally to, Eve). 

God spoke through dreams to men such as Joseph with the dreamcoat, Daniel, Samuel, the Pharoah, the 3 wise men, Joseph the carpenter (that is 8 men – I can’t remember him speaking in a dream to even one woman).

God spoke through angels to men such as Abraham, Lot, Elisha, Elijah.

Only one person ever saw God’s face & lived: Moses (a man). And one person actually wrestled with God in the bible (also a man). One person went to heaven & back in the bible (John, who wrote Revelations: A man). One person (a man) avoids a physical death when he is whisked away to heaven by an angel on a ‘chariot of fire’ (Elijah). God had a very close relationship with King David although interestingly I don’t think God ever spoke to David directly or through angels/dreams. He spoke to David through (usually male) prophets.

As far as miracles go I can’t recall God working through even one single women to perform a miracle in the bible (in contrast, some of Jesus’ male disciples and some male prophets raised children from the dead and healed the sick). 

 I don’t think that God is sexist but… I don’t know why he didn’t speak to more women in the bible. Men wrote the bible so perhaps they mostly included stories about men, and left out some instances where God communicated with women. However I am annoyed with God that when the barren women Sarah, Elizabeth & Hannah all conceived he did not speak directly to any of them about it, but to men who then spoke to the women on God’s behalf. God also could have spoken to Jesus’ mother Mary in a dream when her family had to flee to Egypt, but instead he spoke only to her husband Joseph in his dream. And God could have spoken directly to Mary instead of through an angel, when she was going to conceive (having said that, God didn’t speak directly to many people at all in the New Testament – the only person I can recall him speaking directly to is Saul / Paul).

 And on a happier note: the only 2 animals that God talks to in the bible (from memory) is Satan in the form of a snake (in the Garden of Eden) and Balaam’s donkey – which is a girl donkey!