Gender Inclusive Language and the Bible: the USA’s largest Protestant church produces a new translation
In autumn 2016, the Southern Baptist Church, the largest Protestant denomination in the USA, has seen a new edition of their translation of the Bible published. The “Christian Standard Bible” or “CRB” has now rendered the language of the holy book in a way that is more gender inclusive. These include “father” being changed to “parent”, “man” being changed to “mortal” and “son” to “child”. Some scholars argue that translations such as this express the true meaning of the text in today’s terms.
Such translations have not been free of controversy in the past, and have been heavily criticised by some in the Southern Baptist Church itself. In the late 1990s the church issued statements railing against other translations attempting to use more gender-neutral language. Indeed, the first edition of the CRB was intended “champion the absolute truth of the Bible against social or cultural agendas that would compromise its accuracy,” a seeming rebuke to more gender inclusive versions, including various editions of the NIV (New International Version). Some in the Southern Baptist Church saw this tendency as undermining masculinity and tampering with the scripture for the sake of being politically correct.
A page on the CSB explains that gender language is used in the translations where “the original context did not exclude females”. Therefore, where there is language that refers to people or members of the church as a body, rather than exclusively men, male gendered words are not used. However, this is similar to the argument has given by those involved in creating more recent NIV revisions, which were opposed by the Southern Baptist Church. This indicates that, perhaps, the church has now decided to adopt a more liberal outlook on the matter. Nevertheless, others have argued this merely reflects a change in the English language, which has a growing tendency to avoid referring to mixed-gender groups or subjects whose gender is unclear using male pronouns. In this regard the CRB still has some way to go: using male pronouns to refer to people in the abstract, as well as using expressions such as “Son of Man” and “father and son.”
Sources:
http://www.wnd.com/2017/06/major-denomination-goes-gender-neutral-on-bible/