1st July 2001

G’day all.

enterfornone <> writes:

>The Bible would need some significant changes in order to be

>non-sexist. I’d seriously question the accuracy of a non-sexist

>Bible.

You’re using the term in a different way than Rowland is.

I don’t think the term “non-sexist” is helpful here. A better term is “gender accurate”. That means exactly what it sounds like it does. For example, if someone addressed a group using the term “brothers” but in reality included sisters in that term, a gender accurate translation would use something more accurate, like “brothers and sisters”.

That’s because Hellenistic Greek (I don’t know about Hebrew) was a male-default language, like English was until a few decades ago. It’s no longer considered appropriate for translators producing general- interest translations translate such phrases literally when there is the option of translating them accurately instead. For the purists who need it, the more formal translation is invariably included as a footnote, nothing is lost.

The way which you used the term “non-sexist” is a different issue. You’re arguing that a collection of works written between 1900 and 3000 or so years ago does not reflect current social theory, which is almost tautological. All that really proves that gender accurate translation of the Bible is no substitute for reading it intelligently.

Cheers, Andrew Bromage

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