The Bible is now 'gender friendly'...are we really THIS screwed up now?Are women really so offended by "him" or "his"? REALLY?
See, maybe we all should go back to the King James Version and just leave everything with "THOU" and "THY", then we wouldn't need to worry about HIM and HER and ...whatever :-)
Think this Bible's a necessary, good idea?
41 comments:
"In acknowledgement of our progenitor who resides in a metaphysical realm of utopian splendor, significantly renowned is your reputation. Your monarchial dominion expands, your inclinations fulfilled, on the third planet of the Sol system as it is in the aforementioned metaphysical realm of utopian splendor. Distribute to us immediately our cyclically requisite carbohydrate intake, and waive our outstanding balances and surcharges remaining, as we clear the accounts of others. And do not direct us towards distracting enticements, but rather extract us from ethically negative situations. This is ratified."
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Nah. It loses something.
Not that 'we' are really this screwed up. 'They' are indeed screwed up, those who are in constant fear of being offended by the least 'offense.'
Those same numbskulls were pushing for manhole covers to be changed to personhole covers. GeeeeeZ!
Short answer, NO. I hate political correctness in all its forms.
MY Bible [the Douay Rheims] doesn't have this crap, and I never have one that will.
Apparently, there is no end to stupidity.
As for me, I prefer the KJV.
Beamish, what the heck is that? I Googled it and it doesn't come up...
The Lord's Prayer by Beamish? :-)
Ya, it sure does lose something...that new bible isn't THIS extreme, it's just 'gender friendly' :-)
Hi, Fredd, welcome to geeeeZ (I like your expletive there :=)
Right, I thought of that when I wrote the post...actually it's NOT "WE" who are screwed up, it is definitely 'THEM'....
personhole covers...good one.
Karen and AOW...imagine this stuff?
If we used only the KJV, we wouldn't have to worry, right? How gender specific is THOU or THY?!!
It's the Pedantic Sarcasm translation, Z :P
well, see...you wrote it, right?
And it's brilliant, indeed :-)
what are YOU up this early for!?
I'm not due for sleep for another three days. :P
Actually, my writer's block broke away, so I've been pecking away at a couple of reworks of my short fiction stories into something more polished. I lose track of time when this happens. Ah well.
The question is WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP SO EARLY? California is like two hours in the past from my time zone :P
Excessive. Doubt this version will gain much popularity but some will want it. But the issue of multiple translations is nothing new.
Hi from the lodge, z. Yeah we got a "ton of snow". Three inches, z. I'm a New Englander. A bad storm is two or three inches an hour.
We just need it to be gay friendly as well and we'll be all set (sarcasm).
Beamish..insomnia for me..
I'm so so glad you're writing, unless you keep them in your computer forever. Making hard copies and sticking them in file drawers doesn't count, either. GET THEM OUT THERE!
Ducky, enjoy the snow...glad the storm they mentioned for the berkshires isn't bad.
FB...That's probably coming.
"Adam and Adam..." Well, Jesus was born immaculately! :-)
I only read out of the KJV because I trust it and I believe it is the infallible Word of God.
This political correctness is getting way out of hand. And remember most feminists believe that God is a woman. How they figure that, is beyond me.
I wish people would quit tweaking the bible and changing it to make everyone happy.
I love the thee's and thou's. Because it is specifically speaking to the reader, regardless of what sex they are.
That shall be known from now on as the BIFV. :) I know Mr. B will be the one to figure that out!
Back on topic: The gender friendly thing reminds me of a few years back when I started noticing in magazine articles, etc., where one used to read 'he' it became 'she' and 'him' became 'her'...for instance when speaking of some childhood illness, instead of something like "If you notice that your child has any of the symptoms, you should, immediately, have 'her' seen by a doctor."
Did I 'splain' that clearly? I know what I said, but I'm not sure you will. :)
BIFV?
Bandwidth Intermediate Frequency Version?
I give up.
I'm good with complex things. Simple things confuse me. :P
Hmmm, well, God is referred to as "He" throughout the Bible. Possibly (though I think not personally), "He" may be genderless. But, He is the only one we might be confused about.
However, Ruth, Esther,Deborah, Elizabeth, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Martha were all female. Adam was Male. Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, Micah, Jesus, James, John, and Paul were all men.
I see no reason to change any of their genders.
Using the word "gender," itself, is a nod to political correctness. The proper term for use in such matters would be "sex."
The term "gender" used to refer only to grammatical usage in languages such as German, French or Italian where every noun is assigned a masculine or feminine identity. This designation is, apparently, quite arbitrary.
To make it even more confusing in German nouns can also be neuter. To make it even more puzzling than that what's feminine in French may be masculine in another language. There's no intra-lingual consistency in matters of this sort.
I suppose, if one wanted to be truly faithful to the Bible in its purest, most original form, one would have to learn Hebrew, ancient Greek and Aramaic, then closely study whatever original or ancient manuscripts may still be extant.
To us English speakers it would doubtless seem disrespectful to refer to God as "It," or "Shim" or "Herm" or some other artificial variant designed to soothe the ever-fraying nerves of malcontents and adherents of whatever Cause du Jour may currently be in fashion.
In short all attempts to change historic texts to make them "Gender Neutral" or "Female Friendly" are asinine. Not only that they are untruthful and have already done much to debase the language.
Look at Orwell's masterful portrayal of Government-Dictated Changes in Language Usage ostensibly designed to promote fairness, simplicity and clarity. No better argument against the practice could hope to be made.
BIFV?? I don't get it either, tell us, Jan!
Bible In Flavorful Varities?
Bible In Fifty Vernaculars? !
Bible In Faulty Vision?
Bible In Female Vernacular?
???!!!
Okay, Z and Beamish, but remember..I just couldn't resist! LOL
BIFV
Beamish Intestinal Fortitude Version :)
Good one, Jan!
The motives of the translators (one of the translators is a friend of mine) had nothing to do with political correctness. Their intent was to be more accurate in its meaning relative to today's language. It is the job of every translator to translate the meaning of what was written. In passages where it is clear that all people are spoken to/about (not just men) they translated it appropriately. When the verse was in reference to just men--they left it at just men. Lets not get caught up in the political rheteric and prescribe motivations to the translators that simply aren't true. They are trying to make the Bible translation make sense in today's language--not trying to change the meaning.
Lets not get caught up in the political rheteric and prescribe motivations to the translators that simply aren't true. They are trying to make the Bible translation make sense in today's language--not trying to change the meaning.
Granting that is so as far as their own conscious motivations go, language is different now in these ways precisely because it has been changed by the political correctness of the last few decades. It's naive to pretend that by conforming the Bible to "today's language" they are not themselves affirming the whole political mental set that brought about the changes.
T, politically correct revisionism, is not translation, it is changing what was originally written. In this case to assuage women.
It's arrogant to assume the right to change any original text to suit one's conception of what it should be.
"It is the job of every translator to translate the meaning of what was written. In passages where it is clear that all people are spoken to/about (not just men) they translated it appropriately."
If it is clear that all people are spoken to, and you or I, or the "translators" understand that from the original text, then so will anyone else who reads it.
This is not translation, it's revisionism.
Pris
LOL!
[I think...]
Very well put, Pris.
However, I suppose after another fifty or a hundred years our politically correct "gender-sensitive" English might have become standard even if it was artificially created. THEN the translators might be right to use it. There is no one-to-one equivalence between languages after all, translation does require finding the best way of expressing something in whatever the common language is. But it isn't yet our common language.
Thank you Faith.
I just shudder to think that some of the great classics would be revised to suit the times.
If we read a book as it was meant by the author, we come to have a perception of the author too, not just the story.
To change it in any way, is to lose those quirks, passions, or humor an author might reveal through his writing. It's all part of the story itself.
Or to put it another way, we can read between the lines, so to speak. A book of long ago reflects those times and we learn as we read, and form a picture in our minds.
To update to the vernacular of current times, we lose the flavor of long ago.
I just can't stand political correctness.
Pris
Me either.
This year, 2011, by the way, is the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible -- published in 1611 -- so there are many celebrations and discussions and appreciations of it on the web. One remark I really like was an answer to the people who complain that it's too archaic: "the Bible should be a bit archaic." Even the original Hebrew and Greek texts were archaic within a couple hundred years and those are the ones we still translate from.
Faith, I just gave a talk on St Patrick and learned that he kind of saved civilization!
He insisted that all the Christians become literate, this was in the 400's...and they did, within 2 generations...and they saved all the Jewish,Roman, Greek and Christian writings from Barbaric disposal from people who wouldn't have known what they were. I found that fascinating.
They think he started 300 churches and baptized 120,000 people.
AND, I think this new Bible gender mess speaks even MORE for the importance of the KJV! The more THOU and THYs the better...no need for GENDER APPROPRIATE!
Patrick was one special evangelist. I just learned about him a couple years ago myself. I didn't know those statistics but it fits what I do know. The Celtic church of which he was a part was a true church and very strong in its day.
As for the KJV, I'm still ambivalent about it. There is no other version I could choose, myself, but I do think the KJV needs an updating. It used to get updatings periodically but since all the modern versions came out it's been left in its 1769 condition. Not an extensive revision you understand, just to change the more obviously outdated words.
Faith, isn't you who's practically fought to the death here for the KJV being the only Bible you'd read??!!
Did you read yesterday that polls show that religion's going to be extinct soon in 9 countries and Ireland is one of them? makes me so sad for them.
No, I don't fight for the KJV, I fight against the modern versions. There really is a big difference. I'm not one of the KJV-only defenders who start from the premise that the KJV is perfect. A few years ago I became convinced that the new versions are all based on corrupted Greek texts that there is even some reason to believe had been altered by gnostic heretics in the early centuries, as well as horrible English translations ever since then, and that led me to reject them all.
If I fought to the death it would have been with people who believe the new Greek text is better than that for the KJV rather than corrupted.
Anyway, my position leaves the KJV as the only reliable Bible, but I've never argued for its perfection and do think it needs to be -- gently -- revised.
I hadn't read that about the extinction of religion, by which I suppose they mean Christian religion? I know an Irish believer though, and if it's only him, his wife and his mother, there will continue to be an Irish church for some time.
Took a quick look through the google offerings on the extinction of religion and find there was a study that came to that conclusion but there are people challenging the scientific claims for the study. Not that there's anything odd about the idea that Christianity is dying out in the west as that has been the trend for a few centuries by now, even in places where it once thrived as in early Ireland.
Unfortunately what the stories fail to recognize is that the dying of Christianity isn't the dying of "religion," as Islam has been rushing in to fill the gap. Hello Sharia law.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110324/ap_on_re/us_rel_hell__no
A pastor's saying a lot there which is very sad....and he, like a Methodist minister I heard speak a few years ago, actually suggests God's most important message is LOVE....when SALVATION is a lot more important; unless you believe there is no real hell, as this Pastor's come to believe...wow
The link doesn't work for me, but let me guess, the pastor's name is Rob Bell or something like that?
Faith: Rob Bell it is!
This is what Christians know is from the pits of hell...the LIE.
I have just read a book by a young woman who, when 15, shot herself in the chest; she experienced hell in ways I hope NOBODY does...but then a bright shining hand lifted her up, she saw heaven for only a while, then came back to life. The docs say she's a total miracle and, of course, she's spent her young life talking and writing about what she learned from this experience; and the one thing she emphasizes is DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIE....there IS a God, He IS Righteous and loves us, and ...over and over again: DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIE.
This Bell is a LIAR..
and dangerously seductive to CHristians who actually do believe God's most important message is LOVE, as he says. I'd say SALVATION is, wouldn't you?
DURHAM, N.C. – When Chad Holtz lost his old belief in hell, he also lost his job.
The pastor of a rural United Methodist church in North Carolina wrote a note on his Facebook page supporting a new book by Rob Bell, a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for billions of damned souls.
Look who wants some more changes in this new version?
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