There are so many non sequitors and red herrings in your comment, I don’t know where to begin or whether to even begin.

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More than men, I often hear women instead condemning it, joking about it, etc.. People still refer to others as “guys” when addressing crowds, and like statements: it’s naturally understood.

It’s also not very inobvious as those pushing “gender neutral” demand such “solutions” as using “she” instead: I condemn chauvinism absolutely…and feminism just as much: too often Chauvinism is not the norm, straw men are created to be knocked-down as if it were while feminism is truly a rampant form of sexism beginning to saturate many things, whether outrageously, or with great subtlety.

It seems like much of this started with the accusations that the use of “man”, “he”, “etc.”, were due to “male bias” etc., though I liked E.B. White on the Subject: “it’s rooted in the beginnings of the English language”; he dismissed such politicization of language unflinchingly: it is tragic his work has been mauled recently by additions that are to be PC.

Anyway, I think censoring the Bible to accommodate modernism only hides, not helps; it is still eviscerating a feature of the language and thought in that time, not clarifying; when people argue “it’s just the stupid friggin’ males who were *@(#*$ chauvinists” it’s even denying the Spirit’s part in all this.

Personally I like the honest feminists somewhat: I remember reading the words of one who actually spoke-out and condemned neutralizing the bible. It’s odd that the NRSV is so often touted as being an example of this practice that others should follow…its majority translators didn’t do this, and when they discovered the style [only] committee systematically altered their work, they expressed anger and betrayal, or at least some did. That’s a Bible that was actually, in its final form, published with a systematic bias and agenda, and against the majority workers at that.

The bare truth is that the Biblical authors, and more importantly, their Inspirer, address men; without apology, without flinching that someone may be offended; throughout women are typically addressed indirectly; it is relevant, I think, to bring-in culture here in this point: it was probably considered a propriety, that is, to talk to the heads of households first and foremost: in a Biblical sense men are the heads of their households, in the sense of its representatives, etc.; this is not chauvinist, it need not include the exaltation import demeaning or disparaging of the value of one or the other sex; just as a man is to live considerately with his wife who is the weaker sex…but she’s his body and he’s to love her as Christ His Church; the Bible is not apologetic about [eternally, this isn't just cultural] calling Christ the head of His Church, His body and bride, purely patriarchal, intimating authority, representation, the final word, etc., yet he loves His body, cares for her deeply, gently, perfectly.

This is the language, imagery, and metaphor, that a man is compared to, the context of a man’s headship, and it is in utter opposition to feminism, as well as Chauvinism (though not the vague and all-we-don’t like “Chauvinism” as feminists often like to accuse all things that don’t assume women as utter equals to every task, role, etc.).

Words do not refer directly, rather they label categories.

Categories, in turn, are structured cognitively in terms of “best examples” [in technical language: prototypes]. For example, if I say bird, chances are you’ll think of something more like a robin or hawk than like a duck or a chicken.

In the Greco-Roman world, the best example of a human being was an adult male. As a result ἄνθρωπος properly ‘adult human’ can be used to refer either to a human being as opposed to an animal or a god (as Kurk Gayle likes to point out), or to a specific subtype of adult human, usually an adult male.

The equation that ‘adult male’ is the best example of ;adult human’ also works backwards. So ἄνηρ properly ‘adult male’, can be used to refer generally to ‘adult human’.

This kind of shifting to or from best examples happens constantly. Ultimately, that’s where English got the word man. Early Germanic had man only in the meaning ‘someone’. (German still has this meaning.) This meaning remains in English only in the suffix -man, which gender-correctness has almost driven totally out of PC speech.

Other examples of semantic change which involve best example equations include:

Ger. Tier ‘animal’, Eng. deer.
Eng. bone, Ger. Bein ‘leg’.
Ger. sparen ‘save (e.g., money)’, Eng. spare

Wayne, I agree if ESV is intended for a particular niche market.

Good point, Peter. I agree. The theological and translational choices made by the ESV team do make it appropriate for a niche market. And I think if we surveyed the theological and ideological makeup of ESV proponents we would find that they largely are part of that niche market. And those of us who argue for broader audiences for a translation will often be found to not be talking on the same wavelength as those who argue that the ESV is the best version for today. We talk past each other, which leads to miscommunication.

And that is a decision which the ESV team and its advocates have every right to make.

Wayne, I agree if ESV is intended for a particular niche market. But if (as its name suggests) it is intended as some kind of standard, its translation team needs to follow the kinds of procedures used by translators in your organisation, who are expected to avoid controversial readings and renderings, and seek ones which are acceptable to the widest possible range of Christians. The ESV team has failed to do this; rather, at least according to some ESV advocates, it has deliberately chosen to be sectarian in reflecting a particular theological slant. A translation like that can never be an acceptable standard.

Richie, thanks for clarifying your position, which may not be as far from mine as I thought at first. But I must insist that generic “he”, like generic “men”, is totally unacceptable among many readers here in England, as well as in Australia, Canada and many parts of the USA from what I have heard; it is considered normal only in a part of just one English speaking country. I was never in Poland, but did indeed work as a Bible translator (not as a church planter) in the Caucasus region.

Of course, there’s no perfect solution to this dilemma, but I do think that using “he” would have been a better choice and would also have been better accepted, especially by NIV users.

You’re right, Richie: There is no easy solution in English to the dilemma of how to express gender-inclusive meanings. Some languages, like French, have perfect solutions with a grammatically gender neutral pronoun. English has several grammatically gender neutral generic pronouns, but each of them has issues and there is no agreement by all English speakers about what form should be used.

“He” is a problem for many English speakers today because it sounds like it excludes females. Of course, we can take the approach that Drs. Grudem and Poythress suggest in their book and teach such people that “he” is a generic and includes females when it is used generically. But this kind of language engineering, whether promoted by secular feminists or Christian conservatives, seldom, if ever, works. None of the proposals made by secular feminists for new gender-neutral English pronouns has been adopted by the English-speaking public. And an increasing number of English speakers are continuing to use the old singular “they” which has never gone out of usage, in spite of efforts of English teachers to ban it. I observe English language carefully and I think that singular “they” is probably bypassing generic “he” among most English speakers today. Generic “he” is still used by some, especially in more formal writing, but even many scholars today are using singular “they”. When you think about it, it’s actually a pretty good solution, or at least it makes sense that it has been in use by English speakers for so long, quite a few hundred years of usage.

It’s no wonder that there are debates over English Bible versions with regard to gender language, when the English public is divided over it.

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate your interaction on the blog.

Thanks for your very well-written explanations. Yes, that does make for some confusion. It would certainly be interesting to know just how much, and in which specific cases, theological views were, in fact, instrumental in the translational choices you speak of. Perhaps we’ll find-out next year when Bill Mounce responds to Mark Strauss’ paper.

Also, Wayne, though it is true that the singular (indefinite) “they” has “competed for hundreds of years with the masculine generics in actual spoken and written English” all the way back to Shakespeare, the CBT chose to “regularize” it in the TNIV and to eliminate other forms. I understand their reasoning; however, I don’t think it was necessary to adopt this position. I also think it has greatly hurt the TNIV’s reception, irrespective of propaganda against it. Of course, there’s no perfect solution to this dilemma, but I do think that using “he” would have been a better choice and would also have been better accepted, especially by NIV users.

Having just finished re-reading all of Mark Strauss’ papers on the TNIV web-site it seems obvious to me that he, and probably others, on the CBT are also not totally, at least, happy with it.