New Bible draws critics of gender-neutral language

The NIV Bible is used by many of the largest Protestant faiths. The translation comes from an independent group of biblical scholars that has been meeting yearly since 1965 to discuss advances in biblical scholarship and changes in English usage.

OK - this makes sense. The bible is an old text, originally written in a variety of now dead languages. People who are concerned about translating it ought to be reviewing their work now and then.

But then it gets - well - hilarious interesting.

You see, the new translation is trying to accommodate the fact that the original language had gender-neutral pronouns. English does not. The convention in English, for centuries, has been to use male pronouns as the default when gender is neutral or unspecified. As our society has grown, though, that convention has become awkward.

OK - no big deal, right?
Well actually, apparently it is.
You see there are evangelicals who, well:

"Evangelicals believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture. We believe every word is inspired by God, not just the broad thought," he said.

So if the original text reads "brothers" — even if that word in the original language is known to mean "brothers and sisters" (such as the Hebrew "achim" or Spanish word "hermanos") — many evangelicals believe the English translation should read "brothers."

So, if I am understanding this correctly, because the English language does not include a gender-neutral pronoun, then their god "inspired" the use of the English convention of a gender specific pronoun and now that pronoun has taken on special meaning and defined gender roles with god.

And what defines "the original language?" We are back to English? And modern English at that. Are the original Latin, Ancient Greek, or earlier translations not "original language?"

Here is the rub:

Before the new translation even hit stores, it drew opposition from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, an organization that believes women should submit to their husbands in the home and only men can hold some leadership roles in the church.

The council decided it would not endorse the new version because the changes alter "the theological direction and meaning of the text," according to a statement

Huh. So I guess these gender roles are only applicable to gods whose primary language is English, not Spanish or Hebrew, or for that matter Aramaic (which was likely the language spoken by Jesus, or at least the people in that time).

I guess that would mean that this god inspires different gender roles depending on the language being translated. That seems pretty complicated to me. Actually, I think a better word is "hypocritical."

Happy Pi Day (3.14)

Although Pi has been calculated to one trillion digits, this approximation of the number pi:


3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971


is adequate to calculate the circumference of a circle the size of the known universe to an accuracy of +/- less than the width of a hydrogen atom.