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Winter 2017 Men and women serving and leading as equals Gender and Bible Translation Page 4 Page 12 4 Bible Translation Basics Every Misinterpreting “Head” Can Christian Should Know Perpetuate Abuse Page 16 4 Reasons to Use a Gender-Accurate Bible Translation CONTENTS DEPARTMENTS 3 From the Editor More than Words: 4 Bible Translation Basics Correctness, Not Political Every Christian Should Know Correctness 4 There’s more to translation than most of us know or appreciate. 26 Reflect with Us by Ron Krueger Enough A Tale of Two Translators 27 Giving Opportunities Remembering two female Bible translators and their legacies. 8 28 Ministry News by Bronwen Speedie 29 President’s Message Misinterpreting “Head” Can Perpetuate Abuse Tracking Errors in Bible What does “head” really mean and what does that mean for marriage? Translation 12 by Becky Castle Miller 31 Praise and Prayer Just for Men? 4 Reasons to Use a Gender- Accurate Bible Translation EDITORIAL STAFF It’s not about political correctness. It’s about doing right by God’s Word. 16 Editor: Tim Krueger by Gail Wallace Graphic Designer: Mary Quint Don’t Minimize Us! How Bible Translation Publisher/President: Mimi Haddad Shapes Our View of Women in God’s Story 20 Too many Bible translations obscure the truth about women. by Amy Davis Abdallah Translation Troubles: 1 Corinthians 14 as a Test Case 23 An in-depth look at translation in a key gender-related passage. by Jeff Miller Mutuality is published quarterly by CBE Advertising in Mutuality does not imply International, 122 W Franklin Ave, Suite 218; organizational endorsement. Please note that Minneapolis, MN 55404-2451. neither CBE International, nor the editor, nor the editorial team is responsible or legally We welcome your comments, article liable for any content or any statements made submissions, and advertisements. Contact us by by any author, but the legal responsibility is email at [email protected]. For writers’ solely that author’s once an article appears in guidelines and upcoming themes and deadlines, Mutuality. visit cbe.today/mutuality. CBE grants permission for any original Mutuality vol. 24, no. 4, Winter 2017 All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise article (not a reprint) to be photocopied indicated, are taken from the 2011 revision for local use provided no more than 1,000 Cover design by Mary Quint of the Holy Bible, New International Version®, copies are made, they are distributed free, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by the author is acknowledged, and CBE is Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights recognized as the source. Mutuality (ISSN: 1533-2470) reserved worldwide. exists to make egalitarian theology accessible to the non-scholar and to explore its intersection with everyday life. 2 MUTUALITY | Winter 2017 website: cbeinternational.org From the Editor by Tim Krueger Correctness, Not Political Correctness In November 2016, the Christian satire website The Babylon our understanding of women in church history. This in turn Bee published an article called “God Apologizes for Gendered informs our ideas of what the church can be today. Language in Bible.” In it, God expresses remorse for using Patriarchal bias also prevents some from accepting more gender-specific language, saying: accurate language. It’s a fact that language changes, and Please accept my deepest and most sincere apologies translations should reflect those changes. Today, it is less and for using such offensive terminology when describing less common for “man” to represent humanity in general, and humankind and myself throughout the pages of fewer people use masculine terms to address mixed gender Scripture, and feel free to edit the eternal Word of God groups. Correcting masculine-only language where the original so that it aligns more closely with your current, advanced texts speak about humanity or mixed-gender groups is not about understanding of the nature of things. changing God’s Word, but translating it accurately. It’s about making sure God’s Word is translated into the language we While the article is satire, it conveys a very real sentiment held actually speak! by many evangelicals. (Not to mention popular misconceptions As we remove the lens of patriarchy from our Bible translations, about gender-accurate Bibles.) we allow God’s Word to speak with clarity. That’s a good thing! Evangelical tradition places a high value on the biblical text, It’s not about political correctness; it’s about correctness. which is a good thing. But too often, we buy into a myth that our favorite translation is God’s true Word, pure and untainted by bias. Changes are seen as a threat to God’s truth, motivated by a social or political agenda. As we remove the lens of patriarchy from We may mean to protect the Bible from secular culture, but we actually protect our biases from biblical challenge. If we are our Bible translations, we allow God’s really dedicated to honoring God’s Word, we need to recognize Word to speak with clarity. where our biases may have led us astray, and then correct them. Bias and agenda have a long history in Bible translation. During the rule of King James I of England, the most popular English Bible was a Puritan translation called the Geneva Bible. In this issue, we look at some of the ways that Bible It had margin notes that some thought downplayed divine right translation has shaped (and been shaped by) our understanding (that God puts kings and queens in power). So King James of gender in the church and family. I’m proud to welcome my gladly authorized a new version, free of such notes. The resulting dad, a translation consultant with Wycliffe Bible Translators, to translation still bears his name. Is either translation bad or the pages of Mutuality for the first time. He lays a groundwork wrong? Not necessarily, but they both reflect their translators’ of Bible translation basics that we should all become familiar biases—which they no doubt thought were simply truths (if with. From there, we explore gender and Bible translation in they were aware of them at all). greater depth. We’ll meet little-known women translators, We tend not to see our own biases. But over time, we are better dive into why gender-accurate language matters, how our able to recognize how they have shaped Bible translations. This understanding of a single word has justified abuse in countless is something to be thankful for. Yes, we should be discerning, marriages, and how translators have minimized women. but correcting bias is an important way to honor the Scriptures Whether Bible translation is something you’re thinking and God’s revelation to us. about for the first time or something you think about every Patriarchy is a major bias that has shaped our Bible day, there’s something for you in this issue. May we gain a translations, with or without the translators’ knowledge. Why greater appreciation for the work of Bible translation and for did Junia, a female apostle, become Junias (an otherwise the urgency to liberate our Bibles from biases that diminish the unknown male name) in later translations? And later when power of God’s Word for all people, female or male. everyone agreed she was actually Junia, why could she no longer be an apostle, but only esteemed by the apostles? Patriarchal In Christ, bias has obscured not only the text and Junia herself, but Tim Krueger bookstore: cbebookstore.org MUTUALITY | “Gender and Bible Translation” 3 More than Words: 4 Bible Translation Basics Every Christian Should Know by Ron Krueger An elderly woman learned of the the challenge of translation and many language groups in our world approach gender (and other) debates without Bibles in their languages. with knowledge and humility.1 Jesus would’ve known Koine She had no training, but was eager to Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. help, so she asked for a dictionary of 1. The building He probably spoke Aramaic in one of the languages so she could go blocks his daily life, and would’ve used to work to translate the Bible herself! Hebrew and Greek in particular If only the task were that Languages 2 straightforward! As well-meaning settings. This means that as this woman was, she was quite Most Christians know the Bible was most of Jesus’ words in the unaware of what she’d be getting not written in English. The writings Greek New Testament were into. The complexities and challenges we find in our Bibles were written themselves translated from are many. I’ve spent my career as in a few languages—ancient Hebrew Aramaic to Greek. a missionary and Bible translation (most of the Old Testament), Aramaic consultant working primarily in the (a few parts of the Old Testament, Philippines, and I can testify to the including the book of Daniel), Though the Old Testament fact that translators spend as much and Greek (the New Testament). was written in Hebrew (based time on their knees as at their desks! Specifically, Koine (meaning on oral tradition), it was Bible translation matters. Even “common”) Greek. Koine Greek was translated into Koine Greek a single word can change how we spoken all over the Mediterranean even before Jesus was born. understand the Bible. Important and Middle East during the time of This translation was done the New Testament. questions, including over women’s by seventy scholars, and is leadership in the church and home, Source material called the Septuagint (often often hinge on translation issues. abbreviated LXX), from We don’t all need to be translation A translator needs something experts, but a basic understanding to translate. We have none of the the Latin word septuaginta, of Bible translation concepts helps original documents that make up meaning “seventy.” New us judge whether the arguments we our Bible.