The use of Gender in Bible Translations
24th April 2020
We're in the process of studying the first letter of John. Next time, we'll be looking at the next passage, which is:
1 John 2:12-14
I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and
you have overcome the evil one.
But before we do, I'd like to say a few words about the use of gender in the Bible because this passage speaks about - and to - children, fathers and young men. It doesn't explicitly mention mothers or young women.
In the original Greek, "fathers" is male. So is "young men". In Greek, and in English until the feminist revolution, male pronouns were understood to include the female. So when we read passages like Luke 9v23, "Then he said to them all: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.'" I hope we all understand that he didn't just mean males. It's obvious that for Jesus, the male included the female.
Now, since the advent of feminism, which is both a good and a bad thing in my opinion, people have tried to rewrite this verse. The latest version of the NIV renders it, "Then he said to them all: 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.'" I think they make this change because it takes away the politically incorrect idea that the male pronoun includes the female. However, it also takes away the meaning of the passage.
Jesus was saying that the decision to follow after Him is an individual decision. It's not a corporate thing to do to take up your cross and follow Jesus. And to deny oneself is an individual act. So if we say "they" instead of "he", we obscure the meaning. That makes it seem that Jesus was talking about churches, but this verse is not about churches, but individual believers. Each of us has one cross.
As an alternative to the politically incorrect "him" and the misleading "they", you could write "him or her" but that makes it a bit clunky.
We can be confident that the male is allowed to include the female. Eve was after all made from Adam. And this idea includes no superiority or hatred of one sex for the other. It's just the way language works. Can we just get over pronouns and get onto what the Bible actually means? And when people say things, can we choose not to pull them up on what pronoun they've used and just have interesting conversation instead?
Anyway, when John says "fathers", he means older people, mature people. I don't think he just means fathers according to the flesh. I think he means fathers - which means mature Christians - male and female. And when he says "young men", he doesn't mean males who are young according to the flesh, but those Christians who are no longer baby Christians, but who are not yet mature Christians. I think that's all he means.
He could say "fathers and mothers" or "young men and young women", but he didn't. He said what he said, in the inspired text of Holy Scripture. And it would have been a really boring passage if he'd kept saying "mothers and fathers", "young men and young women".
One more thing on gender: some people want to say "person" instead of "man", because that gets you out of the problem most of the time, but actually the Greek word "anthropos", which is usually translated as "man" in your older Bibles, "person" in your newer Bibles, and "them" in your ugly, clunky Bibles - if I may express an opinion - "anthropos" means "adult human". So when you read "man" in an old Bible, it usually (but not always) means "adult human", but you don't want to read "adult human" a thousand times when you read your Bible, do you? "If any adult human would come after me..." is just too is clunky. But you can't really say "person", because "anthropos" refers to an adult but not to a child.
So it's all confusing. Much better to go with the old language and deal with it, than to get caught up in all this nonsense.
Wayne Grudem has written an excellent book on this subject, called, "The Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy".
Anyway, back to Bible study next time.