Gender Neutrality in the Bible

The newest editions of various versions of the Bible, including the New International Version and the New American Bible, contain changes including attempts at converting the typical historical language with more modern language. “According to the Rev. Joseph Jensen, executive secretary of the Catholic Bible Association, the new edition uses more "inclusive language" by rearranging words so that masculine pronouns do not appear when referring to both men and women. It also replaces "He" with "God" in many places” (taken from an article from the Duquesne Duke).

The changes have received some backlash, and I can understand both sides of the argument. One of the main goals of the editors was to make the Bible easier to read by using modern language. Their argument was that we do not “technically” know what sex God actually was. Keeping things gender neutral would actually make things more accurate. They also wanted to equally represent both males and females in the passages. The passages that were directed specifically toward males were edited as such, while passages directed toward everyone were edited from masculine-derived words to all-inclusive words (“humankind,” for example).

I think as editors, part of our job is to make sure that what we are saying as being represented as accurately as possible. Therefore it could be necessary to edit something from “man” to “humankind” if, in fact, the phrase was meant to be all-inclusive. The problem (well, there are more than one) with editing a text as historic as the Bible is that the text has already gone through a number of edits, including translations from language to language. Things get lost in translation easily, especially after being translated over thousands of years. Furthermore, when translating something from one language into another, there often times is not an exact word or phrase for the translation, and the meaning is slightly altered. Going back to my original point of making things gender neutral- it’s hard to judge when things are supposed to be gender neutral and when one specific sex is being referred to when the original meaning of the text is not clearly known to begin with.

There also comes a point where historical rhetoric has to be taken into account. We use “slang” gender terms today (for example, “man, that was a tough loss” does not refer to a “male,” but instead is a common phrase) that do not link the gender reference to the actual sex. Who’s to say that thousands of years ago they did not do the same thing? At that point, editing for gender neutrality could alter the meaning as well. The editors were attempting to edit for clarity, which can be accomplished by using modern language. But at the same time, they are also making assumptions about the text that may not be true, therefore changing the meaning of the original text. I can also see the benefits of changing the “He” references to “God,” because the meaning is not lost and could actually make things clearer in terms of who is speaking. I can see some benefits of editing the Bible to be gender neutral, but I can see the setbacks and issues as well.