Gender in the Evangelical Community: Concern #1

Since I did a post discussing some concerns about gender perceptions in the LDS community, I’ve decided to talk about my concerns regarding gender in the evangelical community. However, I have a lot more to say on this subject, so this will be a series of posts instead of a single post. I’ll compile these into a single post when the series is done.
My first concern:
Biased translations of the Bible which obscure and repress women’s spiritual gifts and church callings.
Consider, for example, Psalm 68:11. The Hebrew literally says:

אֲדֹנָי יִתֶּן-אֹמֶר; הַמְבַשְּׂרוֹת, צָבָא רָב

My translation would be, “The Lord gave the word: the women who proclaim it are a great host.” The verb in this passage for “proclaim” quite literally has a feminine plural ending. צָבָאcan mean host, company, or army and is often associated with warfare.
Now check out the NIV: “The Lord announced the word, and great was the company of those who proclaimed it.” What’s missing? The gender of the ones doing the proclaiming. The KJV, NKJV, TNIV, TMB, Douay-Rheims Bible and RSV all follow suit. The NRSV places the gender in a footnote. The NASB, ASV, HCS, NLT, GNT and ironically, the ESV correctly place the gender of the subjects in the main text—Wayne Grudem must have been out of the office that day.1
Point being, the notion of an army of women proclaiming God’s word has made an awful lot of Bible translators uncomfortable, and some of the most popular translations of our day have distorted the passage to conceal what it really says. Other passages which have suffered from biased translators:
  • Romans 16:1-2 ~ Translated to say that Phoebe was a “servant” and a “helper” instead of a “deacon” and a “patron.”
  • Romans 16:7 ~ Translated to obscure the possibility that Junia was a woman and an apostle.
  • 1 Timothy 2:12 ~ Translated with the neutral “to have authority” instead of “to usurp authority,” “to assume authority,” or “to domineer.”
  • 1 Timothy 3:11 ~ Translated as “their wives” instead of “the women” with no indication that this could be wives of deacons or female deacons.
There are many other examples, but those are some of the more obvious ones. I don’t necessarily expect a translation to put my preferred reading in the main text, but I do expect it to footnote the alternatives, and most of them don’t even do that.
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[1] Wayne Grudem is a hard complementarian and one of the founders of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He served on the committee overseeing the translation of the ESV and he was the General Editor of the ESV Study Bible. The ESV translation takes the preferred complementarian reading on almost all of the gender passages I listed and does not even footnote the alternative renderings, so it was nearly miraculous to me that it got Psalm 68:11 right. Grudem also regularly caricatures “evangelical feminism” as denying the authority of the Bible.
By contrast, the TNIV favors the egalitarian reading in most of the passages I listed, but footnotes the preferred patriarchalist readings. The message is clear: complementarians don’t feel confident enough in their position to convey both sides of the argument on these controversial passages, so they seek to censor the egalitarian viewpoint. Egalitarians say “bring it.”
It should also be noted that it’s a little astonishing to me that the TNIV dropped the ball on Psalm 68:11. Gender repression through bad translation runs deeper than we know.

Comments

Gender in the Evangelical Community: Concern #1 — 22 Comments

  2. Jack: A more detailed post follows. But first a hypothetical question I didn’t want to get lost amid my rambling: If you were to wake up tomorrow morning and find that all evangelical churches have adopted your favorite Bible translation, how much difference do you think it would make, and how quickly?
  3. That was an interesting post. I was aware of the issues involving the Pauline passages, but not of Psalm 68:11.
    As you almost certainly know, an exception to your observation that the complementarians hide alternative readings is the NET Bible. I have very much enjoyed using that translation for study, as it appears to do a good job of raising the translation issues for those of us who haven’t formally studied Greek or Hebrew. In the four Pauline passages you mentioned, the translators have chosen the complementarian view but have footnoted the alternatives.
    (As an off-topic aside, I have found the NET valuable in lesson preparation when teaching the Bible in an LDS context. As often than not, where LDS and evangelical understandings of passages may vary, it turns out than an LDS-like understanding is at least in an alternative reading mentioned by the NET translators. In Genesis 1:1, for example, the NET translators have very clearly pointed out that the verb for “create” doesn’t assume ex nihilo creation. And its notes on John 1:1 are fascinating.)
    FWIW, the KJV provides the preferred (to you) reading in Romans 16:7 and 1 Timothy 2:12.
    Being something of a language nut (and making a living at it), I am fascinated by translation issues. Translating from one language to another, and especially from writings centuries old to a modern, evolving language, is at least as much art as science. I do think there is some danger in what you have done here; it seems like you are trying to find a translation where the biases are the same as yours, which means you are at risk at missing out on some important truths if you believe the Bible is the Word of God. But there’s danger going in the other direction as well; the foes of the TNIV (for example) seem to be suggesting that they don’t have biases of their own and that there is some objective standard to determine that the TNIV is twisting scripture. There’s risk both in embracing your biases and in pretending they don’t exist.
    (Actually, I reject the TNIV too even though I have a TNIV New Testament and occasionally use it. Its use of “they” with a singular antecedent is jarring and linguistically abominable.)
    Ultimately, it is impossible to have a bias-free translation; the best you can do is try to be objective and then let the reader know what your biases are, which some of the better translations have done. Unfortunately, though, you may not always get that in the market-driven atmosphere we have today.
  4. my husband and I (he posts on various blogs as NoCoolName_Tom) just looked these up in the Jerusalem Bible and the bulk of their translations match yours.
  5. This is also a problem for Mormons since we use the KJV. I’m curious as to why you left it out when you posted on gender issues in Mormonism.
    I’d be very interested to know how these verses were translated in other language. Anyone have any insight? I kinda speak French but not well enough to read the French Bible.
  6. Tomchik: I don’t know about French, but I can tell you about the 1960 Reina-Valera, which is the translation the LDS church currently uses (until later this year) in Spanish:
    Psalm 68:11: The feminine form is used. The problem here arises in English because of they way we treat grammatical gender (so you have to add the word such as “women” or “female” if you want to indicate gender even though that word technically isn’t in the original text), but in Spanish it’s no issue and the Hebrew feminine gender can be (and is) translated directly.
    Romans 16:1-2: Phoebe is referred to as a deaconess and one who helps.
    Romans 16:7: Junias, highly thought of among the apostles (ambiguous as to whether Junias is an apostle)
    1 Timothy 2:12: A woman is not permitted to exercise dominion over a man.
    1 Timothy 3:11: The women …
    The original version of the Reina-Valera (the rough equivalent of the English KJV) does the following:
    Psalm 68:11: Same idea as the 1960 version.
    Romans 16:1-2: Same idea as the 1960 version.
    Romans 16:7: Junia, distinguished among the apostles (ambiguous as to whether Junia is an apostle)
    1 Timothy 2:12: I do not permit a woman to take authority over a man.
    1 Timothy 3:11: The women …
    In general, many of the issues “inclusive language” advocates raise about English Bible translations, which is the whole reason for the TNIV controversy, aren’t much of an issue in Spanish because of the way it treats gender. In Spanish you can say “his,” “her,” “his or her” or even “their” all in the same say, unlike in English.
  7. Eric ~ I get the impression that your kids are a little younger than I am, but did they ever own a Super Nintendo or a Sega Genesis back when those were the two big, competing gaming consoles? My family had both a Genesis and a SNES. The big mascot for Genesis was Sonic the Hedgehog, and the big mascot for Nintendo was of course Mario, and Nintendo and Sega were always at each others throats. I actually liked both gaming franchises though and I always wished they would quit fighting and get along and make a Sonic & Mario game.
    I feel the same way about the TNIV and the ESV. I like the ESV’s tendency toward literal translation over colloquial, but I like the TNIV’s treatment of the Pauline gender passages and the fact that it uses gender-inclusive language on passages where the writers clearly meant it to apply to both genders. I also like that they translate “οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι” to mean “the Jewish leaders” in places where the text almost certainly means “Jewish leaders” and not all Jews. So a near-perfect translation for me would be one that combines those elements.
    If I could make all evangelicals use such a translation, I think we would see a dramatic increase in the number of evangelical churches which ordain women over the next forty years, and there would be barely any that would be able to withhold the diaconate from women. I think the main reason so many men and women accept complementarianism is because they have no idea what the Bible really says about women. I’ve met many, many women who were raised complementarian and switched to egalitarianism after hearing the evidence, and some women who were raised complementarian, studied the egalitarian evidence and then stuck with their lifelong convictions, but I have yet to meet a woman who learned the egalitarian evidence first and then later switched to complementarianism. I think the comps know that if more people learn about the egalitarian interpretations of these passages, they’ll lose the war fast, and that’s why they work so hard to censor it.
    As far as bias goes, yeah, I know I’m biased, but if I’ve got to pick a version for personal study, might as well be the one that I get the most out of. I do try to examine how other translations take controversial passages so that I know what the issues are. Push comes to shove I can always examine the Hebrew and Greek myself so I can see where people are coming from.
    Good points on the NET Bible (though I think their notes are more of apologetics for their complementarian readings rather than open acknowledgment of the other side of the debate), and I did know about the KJV getting a few of the Pauline gender passages right.
    Tom ~ I didn’t bring up any concerns with the LDS church using the KJV in regards to its gender issues because the Bible is the least of the church’s problems when it comes to gender. I mean, as male-centered as the Bible might be, the Book of Mormon and the D&C are immensely worse. The PoGP is maybe on par with the Bible on a smaller scale, but the KJV contains the church’s greatest wealth of pro-woman scripture, even with the KJV’s poor renderings of some gender passages. And what am I supposed to say about the church’s stash of male-centered scriptures? “Hey guys, would you mind having the prophet get on the Bat-phone to God and ask for some gender-inclusive scriptures?”
    If the LDS church ever abandons the King James Bible, it won’t be because of concerns for its gender problems.
  8. I feel the same way about the TNIV and the ESV. I like the ESV’s tendency toward literal translation over colloquial, but I like the TNIV’s treatment of the Pauline gender passages and the fact that it uses gender-inclusive language on passages where the writers clearly meant it to apply to both genders. I also like that they translate “οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι” to mean “the Jewish leaders” in places where the text almost certainly means “Jewish leaders” and not all Jews. So a near-perfect translation for me would be one that combines those elements.
    What’s wrong with the NRSV? Seriously, is it not essentially the best of the ESV and TNIV all in one? I do like to use the TNIV as my non-literal Bible of choice – but the NRSV is simply a powerhouse – its just like a Sonic/Mario game!
    ps. I had a friend who stuck by Sega for far too long. Poor guy.
  9. CJ ~ Nothing wrong with the NRSV as far as I can tell, it just hasn’t quite “clicked” for me like the ESV and the TNIV have.
    The OT class that I’m taking at Trinity in the fall requires us to do our readings from either the RSV, NRSV, NIV, NASB, KJV, NKJB, ESV or NLT, so I think I’m going to add an NRSV Study Bible to my collection and give it a shot. See if I can fall in love with it.
    FWIW, the three versions most commonly preferred by egalitarians that I’ve talked to have been the NRSV, the TNIV and the NASB.
  11. I did a little test run of the three major NRSV study Bibles. I am no Bible scholar, so my reasons for choosing the New Oxford Annotated are not very complex. Essentially, it just felt better to look at and read. The study notes and the layout, I think, are superior to the Harper Collins and New Interpreters.
  13. This will be a lame comment because all I want to say is:
    This rocks!
    :)
    (Too sick/tired of the gender debate to contribute substance right now)…
  15. Well, Jack, at least Emma gets her own section of the DC, and she’s actually promised some pretty cool stuff and given some pretty important callings. As for the rest of the DC, I suppose it’s gender biased in that men are called on missions and women aren’t and men are called to priesthood callings and women aren’t. However, Joseph Smith was actually considered fairly progressive towards women (by 1800′s standards) because he gave them the ability to participate equally in temple rituals, for giving them the ability to officiate in the temple, and for giving them an official Church-sanctioned women’s organization (that’s Holzapfel’s take on it anyway).
  16. Oh, and Joseph also taught that women could stand in the circle when a priesthood blessing was administered (and I think he may have even included standing in the circle when giving the gift of the Holy Ghost).
  17. Check that. I don’t think he said anything about the Holy Ghost part. But the other part I am certain of.
  18. #17 Tomchik
    That’s very interesting and something I’ve never heard of. Can you tell me where you get your information from? I’d love to read more. Thanks!
  19. Tom ~ I’m not denying that Joseph Smith was somewhat progressive on women in the church for his day. A strong case can be made that he was preparing to give women a true “priestesshood” to really complement the priesthood. The polygyny thing is a bit of wildcard. Polygyny afforded women more marital autonomy than their contemporary monogamous counterparts, but at the same time polygyny is overtly patriarchal and unquestionably calls for the subordination of women, while monogamy can at least theoretically be equal.
    But the D&C, the BoM, and most early LDS keystone events were a male-palooza. The witnesses were all men, all of the resurrected beings and angels who appeared were men, the people being called, ordained and sent on missions are almost always men. Emma sometimes has a part to play, but usually she’s a background figure, and she’s always been problematic in LDS history because of her apostasy. Given the church’s teachings on gender, it’s actually somewhat striking that there are no official accounts of glorified female beings appearing.
    Maybe I’m overstepping my boundaries here, but I also know that Eve is the only female character in the endowment drama, and she doesn’t get a lot of speaking time compared to all of the male characters.
    As for the D&C specifically, I know Emma has section 25 and gets mentioned in section 132. Do any other women get mentioned or get anything addressed to them? I don’t think that they do.
    To close, here’s something Seth said about the Book of Mormon back in March:
    Jack, a simple reading of the Book of Mormon text shows a highly male-centered and chauvinistic culture that pretty-much ignored women entirely.
    They appear to be even worse than ancient Jews in this respect. Whatever you want to say about ancient Israelite chauvinism, they at least bothered to give their women a shout-out on a regular basis. Reading Nephite accounts, by contrast, the women might as well not even exist. The only times they get mentioned is as chattels (like Captain Moroni’s Title of Liberty). Most of the writing that bothers to pay any attention to women at all (when not forced to) comes from Nephi – who was a fresh exile from the mother Jewish culture. The other references all apply almost solely to Lamanite culture (who, for all their faults appear to have treated their women more warmly than the coldly indifferent Nephites).
    My own feeling is that once Nephite culture “went indigenous,” it picked up the local chauvinist tendencies as well (which is consistent with what we know about Aztec and Maya societies, for whatever that’s worth). After a few hundred years, the disregard for women had permeated the culture and its assumptions. Mormon was likely bearing these cultural assumptions as he compiled the text.
    It could well be that the problematic state of women in the LDS Church is at least partly due to the fact that we have a central religious text that doesn’t seem to care two straws about them.
    Bad luck, that.
    I’m kind of surprised that Mormon feminists don’t spend more time mining the good material about women in the Bible. It’s the best scriptural stuff they’ve got.
  20. Carina,
    You can find the information about women standing in on priesthood blessings in Joseph Fielding Smith’s “Answers to Gospel Questions”
    I don’t know what volume, but I believe he quotes Joseph Smith. The distinction is made that they are participating by their faith (which is the operative principle, even when it’s “priesthood” involved).
    Certainly, all in attendance when a priesthood blessing is given are lending their faith.
    Nowadays I doubt you’d see it because we have many brethren with the priesthood (whereas in olden times there may have been a shortage of people to stand in from time to tim).
    It may be the same source that says it is appropriate for mothers to also lay hands on a child’s head during a priesthood blessing pronounced by the father. I personally would have no problem with that since the sealing ordinance is given equally to men and women, and it is the highest order of the priesthood we can receive in this life. And we receive it TOGETHER, as husband and wife in the temple. That is beautiful to me.
  21. Thanks, Tomchik. I’ll have to find someone with a copy of that volume to read more.
    I agree with the sealing ordinance–that is beautiful, indeed. Thank you for sharing!
  22. Carina,
    I think if we truly understood what the sealing ordinance was that there would be a lot less strife over gender issues in the Church. Every time I attend a sealing I sit there dumbfounded thinking, “What does that even mean? What is God promising us?” It’s something beautiful beyond my comprehension and He gives it to man and woman equally through the sealing ordinance.
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