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Three tags have just been added to the page, which really should be backed by specific points for improvement on the talk page. Since I agree with the tags, I'll just note that here.
The specific tags that have been added are:
This, of course, is not a minimum word requirement, the problem is that the lead currently only paraphrases the title of the article. Instead, a summary of content is needed. This need not await a finished product in the rest of the article, it can be written in such a way as it actually describes a framework for the rest of the article.
I propose something like:
Regarding original research and essay tags, I think POV could be added to this. There is a long and sustained advocacy of gender neutral Bible translation, which is unsupported by references and misleadingly described as though it is the only view. In fact, it is possibly the minority view (I'm not sure unless I see stats).
Much of the text is repetitive opinion, so I expect I shall delete most of it at some point, now it's been tagged. But I'll leave sufficient to cover single statements of each opinion, and add a "cite required" tag. If no-one else supplies those cites, I'll get around to it eventually myself.
Anyway, there's a plan for this article. Looking forward to any help others may offer.
If I don't get around to doing all this work myself, I hope the information above can be useful for improving the article. Alastair Haines ( talk) 01:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
The article title states that this is about gender in Bible translations. But it was really cut and pasted from the article on Gender of God, and in that context:
I thus will be restoring some of the text within this article back into the main article, and wish to hear from other editors about what we should do with this article. Rename it? Rewrite it? Split it into two articles? (Perhaps creating a Gender of God in prayerbooks article?) RK ( talk) 17:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
In its current revision, this article is simply awful, but leaving that aside I think I hear what you're saying. You want coverage of the Gender of God in official and/or liturgical works, including (but not limited to) the Bible.
For the sake of the Wiki Bible project, I want an article on the broad subject of gender in Bible translation, including (but not limited to) the gender of God. The namespace Gender in Bible translation is linked to from Wiki project Bible. It is a subject area with its own primary and secondary literature. Renaming doesn't seem the way forward. Rewriting certainly does, and is actually one of several priorities I have for the coming year (and a high one).
As far as I can tell, many people are interested in the actual gender of God (I've seen newspaper articles on that, but not your issues or mine).
I can imagine your material being an asset to the Gender of God article and to this one. I see no reason why it couldn't be repeated in both, be featured in one or the other, or have its own article, referenced from these two articles.
Is there any reason why Gender of God in prayerbooks couldn't be featured within Gender of God, and similar material specific to the Bible be featured in both? When last I checked, saving space is explicitly not to be a consideration in editorial decisions. Alastair Haines ( talk) 18:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
If we already have Bibles that are adapted to feminist ideologies, why not have Bibles that are better suited for LGBT people ? [1] The problem is that at one point, every imaginable sociological or ideological clientele will have their own adapted version of the Bible and the original meaning of the sacred text will be utterly lost to a culture that seeks to adapt everything to itself. ADM ( talk) 19:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
While appreciate Alistair's efforts to fairly represent the "gender neutral translation" POV, I think he misses the mark. He certainly missed the mark for where I stand. The article says,
However, I would argue that a belief in gender egalitarianism is not the same as a belief in gender neutral translation (though the ideas are related). I would argue - contrary to the paragraph above - that gender neutral translation seeks only to correct grammatical androcentricism and does not attempt to correct conceptual or social androcentricism. Ironically, Alistair's example ("you shall not covet your neighbour's wife", Exodus 20:17), illustrates my point. The NRSV still translates that verse as "wife".
The point of gender-neutral translation - from my POV - is that English has changed. Consider "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked" (Psalm 1:1, NIV). When this was originally written, "man" meant "man or woman". In 1950, "man" here still meant "man or woman". But since about 1980 (give or take a decade), "man" in common English does not mean "man or woman". It simply means "man".
So the NRSV (and presumably the TNIV, though I'm less familiar with it) is not attempting to minimise the patriachal culture of the Bible. It is merely trying to render accurate 21st century English. I think that is reflected by the explanation offered in the NRSV preface:
In contrast, gender egalitarianism is an application issue, not a translation issue. Egalitarians freely admit that there are "sexist" commands in the Bible, and do not translate them otherwise. The issue for the egalitarian is "Are these commands universal across all times and cultures?". But the issue for gender neutral translation is, "what did the original author mean to say?". (Wow, that was much longer than I intended. Sorry). Peter Ballard ( talk) 07:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Hmm. Reading your (Alistair's) comment at my own talk page (!), maybe you;re well aware of all this and just edited the article a bit hastily. Peter Ballard ( talk) 07:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Part of this debate seems related to the question of the gender of the Holy Spirit. Most biblical translations explicitly use the article He when refering to the Holy Spirit, even the ones that would qualify as modern or modernist. Given that most mainstream Christian theologians agree that the Holy Spirit is truly God, and given that contemporary translations haven't changed at all with regards to the Spirit, it could perhaps be agreed among translators that the Holy Spirit attests Himself in a way that truly preserves the sanctity of the Word of God. ADM ( talk) 14:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Another issue in this debate is whether the term mankind includes women. In classical language, it certainly does, although many modern women would probably have problems in coming to terms with this perspective. The logic behind this is that there is only one human species, the homo sapiens, and not two human species. If women were not part of mankind, then they would be a whole different animal, which is a logical absurdity. This topic was actually discussed in the Middle Ages, there was a synod of Mâcon in the year 585 that mentioned the issue gender in Bible translation. There is also a myth surrounding this synod, namely that women were not included in mankind, when in fact the synod only asserted that the word mankind also comprised of the female sex. ADM ( talk) 14:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
A Gender-Neutral Bible is a translation of Christian scripture that minimizes the original language's emphasis on gender. Such translations have become controversial in some circles. Conservative theologians believe that minimizing gender through translation alters the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek text, which they believe is perfectly inspired by God. Others argue that gender-neutral translations simply update the ancient text for modern English speakers.
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This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Gender in Bible translation article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
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Three tags have just been added to the page, which really should be backed by specific points for improvement on the talk page. Since I agree with the tags, I'll just note that here.
The specific tags that have been added are:
This, of course, is not a minimum word requirement, the problem is that the lead currently only paraphrases the title of the article. Instead, a summary of content is needed. This need not await a finished product in the rest of the article, it can be written in such a way as it actually describes a framework for the rest of the article.
I propose something like:
Regarding original research and essay tags, I think POV could be added to this. There is a long and sustained advocacy of gender neutral Bible translation, which is unsupported by references and misleadingly described as though it is the only view. In fact, it is possibly the minority view (I'm not sure unless I see stats).
Much of the text is repetitive opinion, so I expect I shall delete most of it at some point, now it's been tagged. But I'll leave sufficient to cover single statements of each opinion, and add a "cite required" tag. If no-one else supplies those cites, I'll get around to it eventually myself.
Anyway, there's a plan for this article. Looking forward to any help others may offer.
If I don't get around to doing all this work myself, I hope the information above can be useful for improving the article. Alastair Haines ( talk) 01:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
The article title states that this is about gender in Bible translations. But it was really cut and pasted from the article on Gender of God, and in that context:
I thus will be restoring some of the text within this article back into the main article, and wish to hear from other editors about what we should do with this article. Rename it? Rewrite it? Split it into two articles? (Perhaps creating a Gender of God in prayerbooks article?) RK ( talk) 17:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
In its current revision, this article is simply awful, but leaving that aside I think I hear what you're saying. You want coverage of the Gender of God in official and/or liturgical works, including (but not limited to) the Bible.
For the sake of the Wiki Bible project, I want an article on the broad subject of gender in Bible translation, including (but not limited to) the gender of God. The namespace Gender in Bible translation is linked to from Wiki project Bible. It is a subject area with its own primary and secondary literature. Renaming doesn't seem the way forward. Rewriting certainly does, and is actually one of several priorities I have for the coming year (and a high one).
As far as I can tell, many people are interested in the actual gender of God (I've seen newspaper articles on that, but not your issues or mine).
I can imagine your material being an asset to the Gender of God article and to this one. I see no reason why it couldn't be repeated in both, be featured in one or the other, or have its own article, referenced from these two articles.
Is there any reason why Gender of God in prayerbooks couldn't be featured within Gender of God, and similar material specific to the Bible be featured in both? When last I checked, saving space is explicitly not to be a consideration in editorial decisions. Alastair Haines ( talk) 18:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
If we already have Bibles that are adapted to feminist ideologies, why not have Bibles that are better suited for LGBT people ? [1] The problem is that at one point, every imaginable sociological or ideological clientele will have their own adapted version of the Bible and the original meaning of the sacred text will be utterly lost to a culture that seeks to adapt everything to itself. ADM ( talk) 19:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
While appreciate Alistair's efforts to fairly represent the "gender neutral translation" POV, I think he misses the mark. He certainly missed the mark for where I stand. The article says,
However, I would argue that a belief in gender egalitarianism is not the same as a belief in gender neutral translation (though the ideas are related). I would argue - contrary to the paragraph above - that gender neutral translation seeks only to correct grammatical androcentricism and does not attempt to correct conceptual or social androcentricism. Ironically, Alistair's example ("you shall not covet your neighbour's wife", Exodus 20:17), illustrates my point. The NRSV still translates that verse as "wife".
The point of gender-neutral translation - from my POV - is that English has changed. Consider "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked" (Psalm 1:1, NIV). When this was originally written, "man" meant "man or woman". In 1950, "man" here still meant "man or woman". But since about 1980 (give or take a decade), "man" in common English does not mean "man or woman". It simply means "man".
So the NRSV (and presumably the TNIV, though I'm less familiar with it) is not attempting to minimise the patriachal culture of the Bible. It is merely trying to render accurate 21st century English. I think that is reflected by the explanation offered in the NRSV preface:
In contrast, gender egalitarianism is an application issue, not a translation issue. Egalitarians freely admit that there are "sexist" commands in the Bible, and do not translate them otherwise. The issue for the egalitarian is "Are these commands universal across all times and cultures?". But the issue for gender neutral translation is, "what did the original author mean to say?". (Wow, that was much longer than I intended. Sorry). Peter Ballard ( talk) 07:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Hmm. Reading your (Alistair's) comment at my own talk page (!), maybe you;re well aware of all this and just edited the article a bit hastily. Peter Ballard ( talk) 07:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Part of this debate seems related to the question of the gender of the Holy Spirit. Most biblical translations explicitly use the article He when refering to the Holy Spirit, even the ones that would qualify as modern or modernist. Given that most mainstream Christian theologians agree that the Holy Spirit is truly God, and given that contemporary translations haven't changed at all with regards to the Spirit, it could perhaps be agreed among translators that the Holy Spirit attests Himself in a way that truly preserves the sanctity of the Word of God. ADM ( talk) 14:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Another issue in this debate is whether the term mankind includes women. In classical language, it certainly does, although many modern women would probably have problems in coming to terms with this perspective. The logic behind this is that there is only one human species, the homo sapiens, and not two human species. If women were not part of mankind, then they would be a whole different animal, which is a logical absurdity. This topic was actually discussed in the Middle Ages, there was a synod of Mâcon in the year 585 that mentioned the issue gender in Bible translation. There is also a myth surrounding this synod, namely that women were not included in mankind, when in fact the synod only asserted that the word mankind also comprised of the female sex. ADM ( talk) 14:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
A Gender-Neutral Bible is a translation of Christian scripture that minimizes the original language's emphasis on gender. Such translations have become controversial in some circles. Conservative theologians believe that minimizing gender through translation alters the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek text, which they believe is perfectly inspired by God. Others argue that gender-neutral translations simply update the ancient text for modern English speakers.
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Gender in Bible translation. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 10:08, 12 October 2017 (UTC)