sexist Roman slogan (and what Paul may do with it)

Kay Bonikowsky has a post up in which she suggests that "Paul was quoting a slogan" when writing in Greek to men and women in Korinth, Greece.  Translator Ann Nyland, likewise, says the following, right in the middle of her translation of what we call Chapter 14 of Paul's letter; Nyland says: "Paul now quotes from the letter sent to him by the Corinthian assembly."

The Corinthian men had quoted the Law of the Roman empire at Paul.  So how did that go?  Well, in a bit, I'll show you.  First, I want to let Cheryl Glenn remind us about that Roman law:

A particular point of Roman male pride seems to have been the deliberate exclusion of women from civil and public duties; and in the first centuries of its history, Roman law reflected rigid legal inequalities between males and females.  Cicero reportedly contemplated with utter dismay a society which "included women in assemblies" and which allowed women "soldiery and magistracies and commands."  "How great will be the misfortune of that city, in which women will assume the public duties of men" (Lactantius, Epitomes 33.[38.]1-5, ascribed to De re publica 4-5, qtd. in Hallett, Fathers 8)....  Over centuries, Roman law constructed and guaranteed the sexual distinction -- and division -- between males and females.  The differential between the legal status of women and that of men was justified by the natural inferiority of women:  their congenital weakness, limited intellectual faculties, and ignorance of law....  Roman women were perpetually restrained by law. [ Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance, pages 61-62, emphases mine: the red font the Roman exclusions, the blue the more liberal inclusions elsewhere.]

Glenn goes on from her research to discuss at great length the effects of the Law.  The legal constraints applied to women more severely under Roman rule even more than they had under the old laws and customs of the Greek empire.  The oppressive Law worked to silence women in Rome, in Athens, in Jerusalem and in Korinth:

Like the Greek matron, then, the Roman woman was oppressively busy managing her household and family [i.e., the Roman Domum as the counterpart of the Greek οἰκοδομή -- the OIKO-DOMĒ -- the domain of the home].... Because the Romans clung to the ideal of the domina, of the strong privatized woman, they [i.e., the Roman men] often reacted with perplexity or disgust at the women who pursued intellectual or political aspirations. Unlike the very few Greek women who found acceptance and admiration in the public domain, no Roman woman seems to have succeeded in establishing herself as a public figure in her own right....  The Greeks and Romans [i.e., the men] regarded most women as ciphers, whose worth varied according to the property and family connections accompanying them.  Women were to be traded among men.  And historians -- from the first -- have had little more to say about these women, who were always, particularly in their exceptions, defined by the private, feminine sphere.  The women in my study who passed into the public sphere, even if only temporarily, found themselves vulnerable to assaults on their families, their honor, their sexuality, their "feminine" influence.  These women endured the closest of inspections and critiques by males and females alike, usually being disarmed of their influence and respect in the process.  [ Rhetoric Retold, pages 63, 72-73, emphases mine: the red font the Roman exclusions, the blue the more liberal inclusions elsewhere.]

Okay, so what was the slogan, the Roman law, that the men of Korinth wrote to Paul?  And how did he reply?  Let's look, first at their Greek, then at our English.  (What my translation attempts is to show Paul's play with "feminine" words, with HOME-DOMAIN and with SILENCE and with ALL-inclusion in the ASSEMBLY and with the creative, maternal words of BIRTH.)  Here, hear:

Τί οὖν ἐστίν, ἀδελφοί;
Ὅταν συνέρχησθε ἕκαστος

ψαλμὸν ἔχει,
διδαχὴν ἔχει,
ἀποκάλυψιν ἔχει,
γλῶσσαν ἔχει,
ἑρμηνείαν ἔχει.

Πάντα πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν γινέσθω.

Εἴτε γλώσσῃ τις λαλεῖ,
κατὰ δύο ἢ τὸ πλεῖστον τρεῖς,
καὶ ἀνὰ μέρος,
καὶ εἷς διερμηνευέτω·
ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ᾖ διερμηνευτής,
σιγάτω ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ·
ἑαυτῷ δὲ λαλείτω καὶ τῷ θεῷ.

Προφῆται δὲ δύο ἢ τρεῖς λαλείτωσαν,
καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι διακρινέτωσαν.
Ἐὰν δὲ ἄλλῳ ἀποκαλυφθῇ καθημένῳ,
ὁ πρῶτος σιγάτω.

Δύνασθε γὰρ καθ’ 

ἕνα πάντες προφητεύειν,
ἵνα πάντες μανθάνωσιν,
καὶ πάντες παρακαλῶνται·
καὶ πνεύματα προφητῶν
προφήταις ὑποτάσσεται.

Οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀκαταστασίας ὁ θεός,
ἀλλὰ εἰρήνης,
ὡς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῶν ἁγίων.

Αἱ γυναῖκες ὑμῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις σιγάτωσαν·
οὐ γὰρ ἐπιτρέπεται αὐταῖς λαλεῖν,
ἀλλὰ ὑποτασσέσθωσαν,

καθὼς καὶ ὁ νόμος λέγει.

Εἰ δέ τι μαθεῖν θέλουσιν,
ἐν οἴκῳ τοὺς ἰδίους ἄνδρας ἐπερωτάτωσαν·
αἰσχρὸν γάρ ἐστιν γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ.

Ἢ
ἀφ’ ὑμῶν ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθεν;
Ἢ
εἰς ὑμᾶς μόνους κατήντησεν;

Εἴ τις δοκεῖ προφήτης εἶναι ἢ πνευματικός,
ἐπιγινωσκέτω ἃ γράφω ὑμῖν,
ὅτι κυρίου ἐστὶν ἐντολή
Εἰ δέ τις ἀγνοεῖ, ἀγνοεῖται.
Ὥστε, ἀδελφοί μου, ζηλοῦτε τὸ προφητεύειν,
καὶ τὸ λαλεῖν μὴ κωλύετε γλώσσαις·
πάντα δὲ εὐσχημόνως
καὶ κατὰ τάξιν γινέσθω.

In English, that goes something like this:

What is it, then, brothers?
When you meet together, each one may

have a Psalm,
have an Instruction,
have a Revelation,
have a Tongue,
have a Translation.

All gives birth to the Domain of the Home:

Whether it's a Tongue that is uttered,
by two or at the most three,
both a Top Part,
and through to a Translation.

Should there, however, not be the Translation, then: 
Silence in the Assembly!
To oneself, nonetheless, is an Utterance, and to God.

Prophesy, nonetheless, by two or three Utterances,
And the others through to a Judgement. 

Should there come, in fact, some Revelation to another seated, then:
For the first one, Silence!

You all, in fact, are quite able:

One and all may Prophesy
So that all may be Apprenticed
And all may be Called to Encouragement.
And may the Spirit of a Prophecy
Be given Order Under Prophets.

There's not, in fact, a God of Disruption,
but rather of Peace,
which is in all, in the Assembly, of the Holy ones. 

Your women, in the Assembly, are to be Silent! 
Give, in fact, to them no Turn to Utter anything there,
but rather give them their Order Under. 

just as the Law also states

If, however, some wish to be Apprenticed,
Then it's in the Home where their own men are that these may Question.
It is shameful, in fact, for women to Utter anything in the Assembly.

What?!
Is that from you all, The Statement of God springing out like your baby?
What?!
Is this your special delivery?

If someone opines that they have so Prophesied, or are so Spiritual,
then let him understand what I have written to you all:
our Master is giving Commandments.
If, nonetheless, someone is without understanding, then he lacks understanding. 
Therefore, my brothers, yearn to Prophesy,
and to Utter (don't forbid it) a Tongue.
All, nonetheless, with Blessed Form
and according to Arrangement be birthed! 

Classics Greek Scholars translate Ephesians 5

------------------------

"... and subordinating yourselves to each other in awe of Christ.  Wives should subordinate themselves to their husbands as to the Lord."

   -- Richmond Lattimore

------------------------

"   Be submissive to each other in awe and fear of the Mashiah.

Husbands, wives, and rules of the household
    Wives, submit to your husbands as to the lord.*

*Few passages have aroused more controversy and ire, on both sides, than these instructions about wives and husbands. As an apology for the commanding position of the husband, it is argued that there is a reciprocal agreement of responsibility that affects both husband and wife, especially with regard to love and loyalty. However, in the end [by this "complementarian" argument] the wife must obey her husband, and given his CEO position (financial images, from wages to redemption are favorite metaphors in New Testament persuasion), there is no question [in the minds of "complementarians"] where ultimate authority lies: 'Wives, submit to your husbands as to the lord.' ...

Between the initial and end verses that prescribe a wife's position in the household, it should be seen [contra the hierarchical argument] that there is also a core of idealized love between man and woman, with emphasis on the mystery of caring for person and flesh. After the diatribe against ill use of the body, an idealized love appears immediately in verses 31-32, ending with 'This is a great mystery.' However, the author immediately catches himself and warns inconsolably in verse 33, 'and a wife should be in awe and fear of her husband.'"

   -- Willis Barnstone

------------------------

"... while you are supporting one another out of love and respect for the Anointed One, wives, with your own husbands, as with the Lord.*

*ὑποτασσω, hupotasso, support. The oft-quoted verse, "Wives, submit to your husbands" does not occur in any known Greek text, yet has made its way into nearly every Bible version. The word, erroneously appearing as an imperative (in verse 22 where no verb appears), is in fact a participle and is in verse 21: 'supporting one another'. Even if mistranslated [in this context as] 'submitting', it would be 'submitting to one another'...."

   -- Ann Nyland

------------------------

Of all three scholars, Nyland is the one whose English translation follows the Greek syntax and phrasing in such a way that the participial verbal ὑποτασσω, hupotasso, is part of a subordinate clause running down from an important main-clause imperative right through to expectations of one positioning oneself to one's others, under those others, always keeping the holy spirit and Jesus and God-as-Master in view.  The main verbs for Paul and his readers in Ephesus are further away from the "submit" verbal, the commanding imperatives much much earlier in what we call verse 18.  These main verbs are a negative and a positive put in contrast well before the subordinating verbs.  So pardon my pun, my looking at how subordinate is submitted below what's truly more important, start to finish:

μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ,
ἐν ᾧ ἐστὶν ἀσωτία,
ἀλλὰ πληροῦσθε
ἐν πνεύματι,
...
ὑποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις
ἐν φόβῳ χριστοῦ
αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν
ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ

"Don't be intoxicated with wine,
in a way that's unsavory,
Do instead be filled up
in Spirit...

positioning oneself under one's others
in fearful awe of Messiah
the women to their own men
as to Master."

The phrasing is clearly ambiguous, allowing the Greek reader and the English translator to interpret according to his or her own viewpoint.   Where one breaks the section headers, the verses, the sentences, the clauses, and the phrases matters.  Whether one sees women as inherently and naturally equal ontologically and functionally with men matters.

In Viet Nam, when I grew up there, left handers were seen as naturally and inherently inferior to right handers.  Get this; lefties were ontologically equal with righties.  But, functionally, they were not equal.  Hence, left handers were not accommodated in the school classrooms.  Left handers had to sit in desks made for right handers.  Left handers had to hold their pencils and chalk in their right hands to write.  This  was actually prescribed in the school code and also in the culture.  If you were born a lefty, as all of my siblings were, then nothing else about you mattered; you had to submit yourself to the right handers and their world.  When my mother started teaching my siblings and me, however, she threw these rules right out.  She was our schoolmaster.  We submitted ourselves to new rules that allowed for my siblings to learn to write with their left hands.  There was a new school code of freedom for each and all of us.  None of us could  feel or act superior to the other because of which hand we used naturally.  Turns out, one of my sibs found out he was ambidextrous.  The point?  Our new school master made all the difference, gave new freedom, didn't give room for superiority because of default or majority biology.

any person ... faithful to their partner

In the previous post, I quoted Ann Nyland's exegesis of a Greek phrase in I Timothy 3:2.  Let's look at that a little more.  First, however, let's back up to I Timothy 3:1.  Eventually, then, let's go even further back to Aristotle and his Politics.

In I Timothy 3:1, Nyland translates the Greek pronoun τις as "any person."  NRSV translates it "whoever" and so does NIV 1984, TNIV, and NIV 2011; ESV, similarly, translates it "anyone."  Lest anyone misses it, Nyland also gives a footnote to make clear that the little pronoun is "Non gender-specific in the Greek."

The question then becomes, for I Timothy 3:2, must the "anyone" or the "any person" be restricted to males only.  Is this what Paul was writing to Timothy as we read their mail?  For Nyland, it doesn't really matter so much because she finds that Paul uses similar phrases for partner faithfulness in a relationship, whether he's specifying a one-woman man or a single-man woman.  Thus, she has her readers consider together Paul's two phrases:

μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρα, mias gunaikos andra. "faithful to one's partner".  See also 1 Tim. 5:9, ἑνὸς ἀνδρὸς γυνή, henos andros gune. 

Let's just compare what NRSV, TNIV, NIV 2011, NIV 1984, ESV, Richmond Lattimore, Willis Barnstone, and Julia Smith have respectively done with these Greek phrases in English translation.  And then we'll get back to Aristotle.

married only once / married only once - NRSV

faithful to his wife / faithful to her husband - TNIV, NIV 2011

the husband of but one wife / faithful to her husband - NIV 1984

the husband of one wife / the wife of one husband - ESV

married to one wife / widow of one husband - Lattimore

a man of one wife / the wife of one man - Barnstone

husband of one wife / wife of one man - Smith

Most translators specify some sort of marriage relationship in the phrase.  The Greek, nonetheless, does not demand this.  Moreover, most of these translators use a gendered spouse word for the one phrase or the other.  NRSV and Nyland, nonetheless, see this spouse gender specification as not so important for Paul.  The context of widows makes clear what is what in 1 Tim. 5:9.  And the "any person" or "whoever" or "anyone" of 1 Tim. 3:1 (the τις) seems to leave wide open the question of the gender, although clearly Paul has written ἄνδρα and the γυνή when referring to the sorts of persons who might be faithful to their partner.

Now, when we leave Paul and go back to Aristotle, the household rules and the politics of city states and the practices of leadership get much, much more restricted.  One little and very clear example is Aristotle's assertion as follows.  There's his Greek and then H. Rackham's English translation (1277b, around line 20):

ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικὸς ἑτέρα σωφροσύνη καὶ ἀνδρεία (δόξαι γὰρ ἂν εἶναι δειλὸς ἀνήρ, εἰ οὕτως ἀνδρεῖος εἴη ὥσπερ γυνὴ ἀνδρεία, καὶ γυνὴ λάλος, εἰ οὕτω κοσμία εἴη ὥσπερ ὁ ἀνὴρ ὁ ἀγαθός· ἐπεὶ καὶ οἰκονομία ἑτέρα ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικός· τοῦ μὲν γὰρ κτᾶσθαι τῆς δὲ φυλάττειν ἔργον ἐστίν).

temperance and courage are different in a man and in a woman (for a man would be thought a coward if he were only as brave as a brave woman, and a woman a chatterer if she were only as modest as a good man; since even the household functions of a man and of a woman are different—his business is to get and hers to keep).

What Aristotle is assuming and is asserting to be scientific fact is that men and women are different such that they really are not partners at all in the human race.  They're not partners, that is, unless you objectively see females as deficient males and as lesser than males in every role, in each domain.  Aristotle would regard Paul and Timothy as barbaric if they allowed a woman to hold office over a man, to be the bishop of a church, and so forth.  The real interesting question for us today is How much, if at all, did Paul follow Aristotle and whether he tried to get Timothy and other men to do the same?

Nyland (and perhaps the NRSV for I Timothy) seems to suggest that Paul is much more egalitarian that Aristotle's Nature would let him be.  What matters for Paul, Ann Nyland appears to claim, is that any person may prove responsible and may be recognized when faithful to their partner.

Jesus Identified with Women around Wayne Grudem

"The way [Wayne] Grudem has always understood that text ... so clearly excludes me [a woman] from being one of those [mortal humans that] Jesus came to identify with."

     --Kristen

"We can look at some examples of these changes from the 1984 NIV to the 2002 TNIV.

NIV Hebrews 2:6 What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
TNIV Hebrews 2:6 What are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

What's wrong? The TNIV removes the possibility of connecting this verse with Jesus, who called himself 'the Son of Man.' It mistranslates the singular Greek words huios ('son') and anthropos ('man'). It no longer refers to the human race as a unity named 'man' (the name given by God in Gen. 5:2), but 'mere mortals.' This adds the idea of mortality that is not in the Greek text. (Note that man as created by God was not mortal, and this passage has creation language in it.) But the TNIV's goal has been achieved: The male-oriented details are erased."
     -- Wayne

Kristen reads what Wayne wrote.  She gets us all wondering whether the text of the Bible has Jesus identified with women as much as with men, whether Jesus is identified in the Bible as a mortal, a mere human being.

Wayne is dead set against the TNIV, saying it "mistranslates" Hebrews 2:6.  Is his "understanding" justified?  Where does he leave women around him in relation to his Jesus, a Jesus whom he understands does not have any "idea of mortality" and, more importantly, does have each and every one of his "male-oriented details" intact and emphasized?

Let's look first at a couple of really good translations by a couple of really good translators on this verse.  Then, second, let's look at the original languages again.  Then, third, let's come back to the NIV 1984 translation and the TNIV; finally, we'll come to the NIV 2011.

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First, here is how Richmond Lattimore and Ann Nyland translate Hebrews 2:6.  Both of these translators know their Greek very well.

Richmond has this (and I'm using bold font the way Wayne does to mark certain words):

What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you consider him?

Ann has this (and I'm still using the bold font):

What is humanity that you remember it, or the Human Being that you visit him?

The translations are quite different.  Has one mistranslated?  No.  Has Ann just liberally added "the idea of mortality that is not in the Greek text"?  Has she erased the "male-oriented details"?  No and no.

Richmond is sticking with a more traditional English for his translation of the Bible.  He's following the English of the KJV.  But please notice that he uses other, different English for his translation of Homer's Iliad.  He uses "mortal men" and "mortals" and "humanity" and "human people" for the plural of anthropos; this is not a mistranslation.  Likewise, Richmond uses of "child" and "children" for huios; this also is also not a mistranslation.  Richmond's English is not adding "the idea of mortality that is not in the Greek text."  That idea of mortals and of mortality really is already in the Greek text of Homer.   Similarly, Richmond is not erasing the "male-oriented details" of the children in the Greek text.  Let's look:

In his time two generations of mortal men had perished, (1.250)

But the gods give to mortals not everything at the same time; (4.320)

his heart out, skulking aside from the trodden track of humanity.  (6.202)

as is natural for human people, between men and women. (9.134)

Askalaphos led these, and Ialmenos, children of Ares, (2.512)

children of Euenos, king, and son of Selepios. (2.693)


child of Iphikles, who in turn was son to Phylakos (2.705)

Next he killed two children of Dardanian Priam (5.159)

So Richmond is free to translate the Greek text without adding and without erasing anything.  For Hebrews 2:6, he's decided to stick with the old traditional English he finds in the King James Version.  However, he could have translated that this way, the way he correctly translates Homer's Iliad again and again.  (If anyone wants, I'll also show more examples from his translation of Homer's Odyssey.)

Richmond would have had no problem correctly rendering Hebrews 2:6 like this:

What is humanity, that you are mindful of it, or the child of a mortal, that you consider him or her?

Now let's go back to Ann's English for the Greek.  But let's go first to how she correctly goes back to the Psalms.  She's noticing in her translation of Hebrews 2:6 how the writer is quoting the Psalms, either Psalms 8:4-5 or Psalms 144:3 or both.  When Ann translates this, that is, when she translates Psalms 8:4-5 and Psalms 144:3, she looks at both the Greek and also the Hebrew.  The Psalms are also in Greek because of a very early translation of them from Hebrew into this Hebraic Hellene.  The Greek writer of Hebrews is quoting from this Greek translation of the Hebrew Psalms.  So let's look at how Ann translates these Psalms from the Hebrew and from the Greek into English:

what is the humankind, that you should notice them, human beings, that you should pay attention to them? and make them a little less than the elohim?  You crown mankind with honor and significance.

Yahweh, what is the human race, that you should notice them, humankind, that you should be concerned about them?

Notice how Ann is not mistranslating.  She is not adding mortality, not erasing male-oriented details.  She is letting the psalmist sing as in the Hebrew and as in its Greek translation.  The idea of humanity, of humankind, of human beings, of the human race, is already in the text before translation.  And the gender neutrality is already there in the original languages.  And so, in Hebrews 2:6, Ann is letting the writer of Hebrews quote the Psalms this gender inclusive way.  She's letting the Bible speak of Jesus in a gender neutral way, in a way that includes women and men, females and males, girls and boys.  The Psalmist and the writer of Hebrews, like Homer too, are all making distinctions between God and humans, between immortal divinity and mortal humanity.  Richmond Lattimore and Ann Nyland do well to let the original language writers be inclusive for the human beings.

-----

Second, now, let's look at the original languages again.

Here's the original in Hebrews:

Τί ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος [anthrōpos, mortal human, gender neutral man]
ὅτι μιμνῄσκη αὐτοῦ,
ἢ υἱὸς [huios child, son]
ἀνθρώπου [anthrōpou, mortal human's]
ὅτι ἐπισκέπτῃ αὐτόν;

Here's the original Greek translation of the Hebrew [and the Hebrew] of the two Psalms quoted by the writer of Hebrews:

τί ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος [anthrōpos, mortal human, gender neutral man] [אנוש, 'ĕnôsh, properly a mortal, man, person, mankind]
ὅτι μιμνῄσκῃ αὐτοῦ 

ἢ υἱὸς [huios child, son] [בן, ben, son, grandson, child, member of a group, children (pl. - male and female)]

ἀνθρώπου [anthrōpou, mortal human's] [אדם 'adam, person, human, man, Adam]
ὅτι ἐπισκέπτῃ αὐτόν; 

κύριε τί ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος [anthrōpos, mortal human] [אדם 'adam, person, human, man, Adam]
ὅτι ἐγνώσθης αὐτῷ 

ἢ υἱὸς [huios child, son] [בן, ben, son, grandson, child, member of a group, children (pl. - male and female)]

ἀνθρώπου [anthrōpou, mortal human's] [אנוש, ''ĕnôsh, properly a mortal, man, person, mankind]
ὅτι λογίζῃ αὐτόν

Notice how the Hebrew words for mortals, for humans, in Psalm 8:4 are reversed in Psalm 144:3.  But notice how the Greek translation of both words is always the same word for human beings in the two Psalms.  But really notice how both the Hebrew and its Greek translation, and its Greek quotation by the writer of Hebrews, all have the sense of mortality, of humanity, and the inclusion of males-and-females without the male-only detail.

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Third, now, let's look at the NIV translations again.  They do what the Greek and the Hebrew do.  When you read the original languages of the Bible, then you can see how, in many ways, in fact, the TNIV and the NIV 2011 are improvements over the NIV 1984.

NIV 1984 Hebrews 2:6 What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 

TNIV Hebrews 2:6 What are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

NIV 2011 Hebrews 2:6  What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him?

NIV 1984 Psalm 8:4  what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

TNIV Psalm 8:4  what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

NIV 2011 Psalm 8:4  what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?  [footnote: Or what is a human being that you are mindful of him, / a son of man that you care for him?]

NIV 1984 Psalm 144:3  O LORD, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him?

TNIV Psalm 144:3  LORD, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them?

NIV 2011 Psalm 144:3  LORD, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them?

-----

Could it be that Wayne Grudem and the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood are relying only on Bible translations that are only gender accurate when they exclude women and when they only include "male-oriented details'?

Could it be that the writer of Hebrews has identified the really biblical Jesus with mortal human beings, both men and women, in ways that really go around what Wayne prefers?

Yes, it could be.

cheering or groaning? laughing or laboring towards liberty?

There are lots of ways to look at the Earth and earthquakes.  In an earlier post today, I looked at how the Bible (at least I Maccabees in Greek and in English translation) shows mother Earth as sympathetic and empathetic.

Then, similarly, there's what Paul writes to Romans (in Greek, for which I'll also supply some great English translations below).  Paul, we all know, was an earthquake survivor, was actually literally liberated by this act of God.  More on that in a moment.

But first, here's what an American radio talk-show host says to his audience.  Notice how he's assuming that "the quake and subsequent tsunami" are to be viewed as a vengeful act.  Notice how he's saying that "Gaia" (i.e., Mother Earth) mocks and "just wipes out" the Japanese, to spite them:

"On his Friday [March 11, 2011] show, Rush Limbaugh wondered if environmentalists will 'cheer' the earthquake in Japan, since the quake and subsequent tsunami hit the region of the country that thrives on car manufacturing."

"Rush Limbaugh laughed about Japanese refugees recycling after the earthquake that struck the country on his Tuesday [March 15] show.... 'They've given us the Prius. Even now, refugees are recycling their garbage.' Here, he began to laugh, continuing, 'and yet, Gaia levels them! Just wipes them out!'"

Now here's the contrast to Rush Limbaugh.  It's Bible, and not just the turn-or-pay preacher's Bible either.

Here's the Bible showing Mother Earth to be our mother, showing her quakes to be labors toward our liberty.

Here's the Jewish Paul writing to men and women living in the capital city of the Jew-mocking Roman empire.  I'm giving you a few English translations because the translators, without some committee weakening the force, were able to render the Greek in some powerful ways, fitting for the noted events:

... ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι ὅτι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις ἐλευθερωθήσεται ἀπὸ τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ. Οἴδαμεν γὰρ ὅτι πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν. Οὐ μόνον δέ, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτοὶ τὴν ἀπαρχὴν τοῦ πνεύματος ἔχοντες, ἡμεῖς καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐν ἑαυτοῖς στενάζομεν, υἱοθεσίαν ἀπεκδεχόμενοι, τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν.
....--Paul

We know that all creation groans. Till now
It suffers labor pains, and not only creation
Aches but we too, the first fruits of the spirit,
Groan and in eagerness wait for adoption
And for the redemption of our bodies.
....--Willis Barnstone (translating Paul)

Yet there was the hope that creation itself also would be set free from slavery to decay, and have the glorious freedom of God's children. We know that all creation keeps sighing deeply together and is in birthing pains together up to the present time. Not only that, but also we ourselves who have the Spirit given to us as the first offering, we also keep sighing deeply within ourselves looking forward to our adoption, that is, the setting free of our body.
....--Ann Nyland (translating Paul)

... but there is hope, because this world will be set free from slavery to decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole world groans and is in labor together, until now; not only that, but even we who have some foretaste of the Spirit also groan within ourselves as we await adoption and the redemption of the body.
....--Richmond Lattimore (translating Paul)

... in hope, That also the creation itself be freed from servitude of corruption to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that all creation groans together and travails together until now. And not only, but also they having the first fruits of the Spirit, and we ourselves groan in ourselves, waiting for adoption as a son, the redemption of our body.
....--Julia Evelina Smith (translating Paul)

And here's the Jewish physician Luke, for his friend, Theo-Philus, making a record of how an act of God actually freed Paul's body, how an earthquake liberated not only Paul but also other prisoners and even one of the imperial prison wardens:

ἄφνω δὲ σεισμὸς ἐγένετο μέγας, ὥστε σαλευθῆναι τὰ θεμέλια τοῦ δεσμωτηρίου· ἠνεῴχθησαν δὲ παραχρῆμα αἱ θύραι πᾶσαι, καὶ πάντων τὰ δεσμὰ ἀνέθη.
....--Luke, at the onset of this act of God, this liberating earthquake

Suddenly there was an earthquake so great that it shook the foundations of the prison, and all the doors came open and everyone's chains came loose.
....--Willis Barnstone (translating Luke)

Suddenly there was such a major earthquake, that the foundations of the prison were rendered unstable! Immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains became loose.
....--Ann Nyland (translating Luke)

and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and all the doors came open, and the chains fell off all of them.
....--Richmond Lattimore (translating Luke)

And suddenly was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and the bonds of all were let loose.
....--Julia Evelina Smith (translating Luke)

Ann Nyland Translates the Psalms

Ann Nyland has just published The Psalms: Translation with Notes.  I'm especially excited about it because she's doing some things with translation that are fairly important and fairly rare.

Two remarkable things about Nyland's translation are these:

first, she keeps Jewish words Jewish (or rather "retains the divine names of the Hebrew");

second, she uses not just the newer Masoretic Text of Hebrew (MT) but also the older Septuagint (LXX) text of Greek (both reflections, of course, of even older Hebrew).

In addition, it's worth noting that Nyland is like Willis Barnstone and Richmond Lattimore in that she's a Greek scholar.  Her translation of the New Testament like theirs attends to Greek word meanings prior to the NT, including meanings in the Septuagint and early and ancient Greek classics.  And each of these classics translators has translated the NT alone, and not as part of committees.  (Here's a post that compares the way the three handle a Greek "hapax legomenon").

Nyland's Psalms are similar to Barnstone's New Testament books and letters in that they retain Hebrew (i.e., Jewish) names.  Moreover, Barnstone does not read the Christian translation tradition back into his Restored New Testament; likewise, Nyland "does not read the New Testament back into the text" of the Psalms.  (A comparison between how Barnstone and Nyland translate Matthew 16:15-19 is here; note that Nyland when translating the New Testament used the more Christianized transliterations for the names.).

Nyland, like Robert Alter, who also translates the Psalms, uses both the MT and the LXX to render the psalms into English.  The poetry of the original languages is some reflected in the English; Nyland puts it this way: "as this [the book of Psalms] is a poetic work, the translation does leave in some of the poetic style of the original at the expense of good English." Nyland also handles "several Hebrew words or sentences the meaning of which is uncertain or unknown" by "leav[ing them] ambiguous, with an endnote, instead of making a decision for the reader."  Alter, similarly, avoids what he calls the "heresy of explanation" in translation by using footnotes to mark textual issues that need clarification for the reader.

There are at least three fairly unique things to note about Nyland and Nyland's translation:

First, she, by her translation, "avoids the Biblish dialect, that is, the type of [English] language that follows the syntax of the original language."  For Nyland, such a dialect may cause a "translation error" in that it might "invent a tone that was not there in the original."  She gives several examples of biblish or "common [language] use with Christians" both in translations of the Bible and in social communication.

Second, Nyland's "translation does not attempt to translate the Psalms into poetry" as Alter's translation of the Psalms does and as Barnstone's translation of some of the gospel writings does.  Nyland does offer commentary on some of the poems in her endnotes; for example, she distinguishes Canaanite and Israelits poems and explains when the Septuagint but not the Hebrew Bible contains a poem.

Third, Nyland has had to work in ways that most men don't.  Neither Alter nor Barnstone nor Lattimore, of course, were ever disparaged for being a woman, for being a feminist, as Nyland has been so disparaged.  Her interview with Wayne Leman at Better Bibles Blog gets into some of that.  To be clear, Nyland has taken on the mostly male Bible translation establishment with essays such as in More Than Meets The Eye: THE CAMPAIGN TO CONTROL GENDER TRANSLATION BIBLES.  Nyland has a blog at which she says this rather explicitly about herself: "I breed, ride and train the old-fashioned type of Arabian horses; also Quarab horses, am a Bible translator." And elsewhere on the Internet, she converses about translation as the woman Bible translator, Ann Nyland.  Her Bible Translation blog is worth a careful read:  http://womenministers.blogspot.com/


For a sample of Nyland's work on the Psalms, I've included her translation of Psalm 8 in another post today.

Ann Nyland Translates Psalm 8

Ann Nyland has translated the Psalms in a new volume published with her notes just last month (March 2, 2010).  Her translation of Psalm 8 follows (from pages 15 - 16 and page 213, which you might compare with other translations and appropriations I've been looking at recently).

8.

For the music director.  According to the gittith,²⁶ a psalm of David.
1 Yahweh, our Adon,²⁷
how majestic is your name throughout the earth,
you who place your magnificence upon the heavens.
2 From the mouths of children and nursing babies
you establish strength because of your enemies,
so that you might silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers,
and see the moon and the starts, which you established,
4 what is humankind, that you should notice them,
5 and make them a little less that the elohim?²⁸
You crown humankind with honor and magnificence,
6 you permit them to rule over works of your hands,
you have place everything under their authority,
7 including all the sheep and cattle,
as well as the beasts of the fields,
8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,
and everything that moves through the currents of the seas.
9 Yahweh, our Adon,
how majestic is your name throughout the earth!

²⁶  The Septuagint has, "For the end, concerning the wine presses, a psalm of David."
²⁷  Adon, a divine name.  Used of a lord, a master, a ruler, a prophet, a priest, or a king.  Used for example as "master" in Psalm 12:4
²⁸  Elohim, a divine name, also used for rulers, heavenly beings, divine possessions.  Not translated here as referent unknown.

of sheep and men: overlooking wordplay in translation

There's an interesting discussion on translation with respect to gender inclusiveness and the Bible.  First, the background on the problem.  Then a look at a couple of translator's brilliant wordplay in the text in question.

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BACKGROUND

In his post "On Translation and Explanation," Joel M. Hoffman takes the TNIV and the Message bible translations to task for "explanation" but "not a translation."  Then Peter Kirk defends the TNIV and takes Joel to task for his explanation about the "original text."

The point of issue is whether Matthew the gospel writer means "a man" (which Joel says is the real "translation") or "a human being" or "people" (which Joel says is the seeming "explanation" of the TNIV and the Message respectively).

Peter suggests that Joel is seeing the original as meaning "only male human beings, not female ones"; Gary Zimmerli had also suggested the gender question in his comment here, saying "I think the [TNIV] translators don’t want to leave the door open to the idea that a woman may be less valuable."

The discussion is around Matthew 12, especially verses 10-12, especially in TNIV.

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TWO TRANSLATOR'S BRILLIANT WORDPLAY TRANSLATIONS

Below, you'll see how two brilliant translators work here.  The issues of whether the speakers, writers, translators, listeners, and readers get it should be clear.  What there is to get is how gods and humans are in contrast; and how humans and sheep are in contrast.  The larger context of the wordplay is something that both Joel and Peter have overlooked.  Matthew is emphasizing and is having Jesus emphasize who he is, as a human.

First, Ann Nyland translates [my italics added]:

10 There was a person who had a withered hand!...

11 This was Jesus' response.  

"Let's say one of you [persons] had a sheep.... "

12 "Isn't a person worth more than a sheep?...  "

13 Then he said to the person,...

In a footnote, Nyland also says [her italics below]:

...ἄνθρωπος, anthropos, is the word for human, humanity, person.  Grammatically, it is the common gender and not the masculine.

Both Nyland's translation and her explanation are just fine, don't you think?  [Note: she elides the word in v 11, as my bracket above notes].  Her translation doesn't have to explain, and Matthew's Greek doesn't either.

Second, then, I'm bringing up Matthew here because, very likely, he's also translating.  His Greek plays with words.

The fact is that we do not know what Jesus said in Hebrew Aramaic.  Matthew translates that to Greek.  Our best guess is that Jesus was referring to himself as בר אנש (bar 'anash).  So Matthew, in 12.8, makes that ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (which gets readers thinking perhaps of the aramaic of Daniel 7.13 or of its Greek translation in the Septuagint or both). 

Matthew wastes little ink before getting right into wordplay as he introduces a story about Jesus and as he translates a story-parable Jesus tells within the story.  You don't even have to read Greek to see the repetition of the word ἄνθρωπος, anthropos:

8 Κύριος γάρ ἐστιν τοῦ σαββάτου ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. 

9 Καὶ μεταβὰς ἐκεῖθεν ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν συναγωγὴν αὐτῶν. 

10 Καὶ ἰδού, ἄνθρωπος ἦν τὴν χεῖρα ἔχων ξηράν· καὶ ἐπηρώτησαν αὐτόν, λέγοντες, 

Εἰ ἔξεστιν τοῖς σάββασιν θεραπεύειν;

 ἵνα κατηγορήσωσιν αὐτοῦ.

11Ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, 

Τίς ἔσται ἐξ ὑμῶν ἄνθρωπος, ὃς ἕξει πρόβατον ἕν, καὶ ἐὰν ἐμπέσῃ τοῦτο τοῖς σάββασιν εἰς βόθυνον, οὐχὶ κρατήσει αὐτὸ καὶ ἐγερεῖ;

12 Πόσῳ οὖν διαφέρει ἄνθρωπος προβάτου. Ὥστε ἔξεστιν τοῖς σάββασιν καλῶς ποιεῖν.

13 Τότε λέγει τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, 

Ἔκτεινον τὴν χεῖρά σου. Καὶ ἐξέτεινεν, καὶ ἀποκατεστάθη ὑγιὴς ὡς ἡ ἄλλη.

At this point, we're curious to see how Nyland translated verse 8, aren't we?  Well, it's masterful!  She is translating Matthew translating Jesus, as follows:

8 "... The Human Being is the Master of the Sabbath!" 

Nyland also offers a wonderful explanations in a footnote.  Here they are:

ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ho huios tou anthropou, meaning a person associated with humanity, a translation of bar nasha, an Aramaic periphrasis for "person," would be read word for word as "one associated with humanity" (as non-gender specific language and "humanity" in the singular.  However, bar nasha means one associated with people", "a person", "the person", "humanity", "the representative person".

υἱὸς, huios, with a noun refers to a member of a class of people, and should not be translated as "son/child of".  The Benai Israel, translated in the KJV as "children/sons of Israel" should be translated as "members of the class of people called Israel" = "Israelites".  The expression is also Greek, and found as early as Homer.  Note also that ἄνθρωπος, anthropos, is the word for human, humanity, person.  Grammatically, it is the common gender and not the masculine.

 What are your thoughts about how Matthew translates Jesus and how Ann Nyland translates Matthew?

Challenging: the Challenge

A POEM

So I throw out a challenge
As Karen Parsegian throws out the first pitch.
But Vladimir Nabokov throws out interpretation first
As, he says, Margot Peters “leaped to the window, flung it open
and was about to throw herself out.”

“But at that moment” 

[he throws out his authorial intention
as if he’s thrown out his back or something],
people were throwing things out the other windows,

and “She was so interested in the fire that
she forgot her intention” 

[which he’d thrown out on his readers, her accosters,
originally, in two different languages all the same]:

“She had very little money left. In her distress
she went to a dance hall as abandoned
damsels do in films. Two Japanese gentlemen accosted her
and, as she had taken more cock-
tails than were good for her,
she agreed to spend the night
with them.”

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SOME COMMENTARY (SORT OF)

I’m afraid my blogger friends won’t like my poem any better than I do. There’s too much said (about sexism, necessary ambiguity, interpretation, and nasty word play) and, at the same time, not much said (about the bible, blind people like Karen Parsegian and those whose eyes were opened, the Greek and the English two-word verb with different meanings in a single passage, and how the author and translator can take advantage of a reader abandoning her own interpretation just because she’s been hurt before and abandoned and wants to numb the pain by throwing out intentions and throwing away money in some endless addictive cycle. What should I add about Nabokov and his 1932 (Russian) and 1933 (English) novel we know as Laughter in the Dark? We notice how Margot is no longer Russian, and we know his “‘Woman’ is another famous poser,” and we take note of what he wants when he says, “I want translation with copious footnotes, footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers to the top of this or that page so as to leave only the gleam of one textual line between commentary and eternity.”

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A GOOD TRANSLATION

Let me instead just say what Ann Nyland says Matthew says others say:

“If your right eye sets a trap for you, rip it out and throw it away!”

“The demon-gods kept begging him, ‘If you're going to throw us out, please send us into that herd of pigs!’ So he granted it, ‘Off you go!’”

“he said, ‘Get out of the way! The young girl's not dead - she's just asleep!’ They responded by poking fun at him. His response was to throw the crowd outside. Then he went inside and grabbed the young girl by the hand. This news spread all over the land.”

“When Jesus left there, two blind people followed him. They yelled out, ‘Have pity on us, David's descendant!’ . . . . ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ . . . ‘Yes!’ . . . Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘It will happen to you because of your faith!’ And their eyes were opened!”

“While they were leaving, some people brought a mute who had an evil spirit to Jesus. When the demon was thrown out the mute person spoke plainly. . . . The Pharisees’ opinion was, ‘He’s throwing out demons by the power of the demons’ ruler!’”

“But when he saw the crowds he was deeply moved with compassion, because they were stressed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said, . . . ‘On the one hand there’s a big harvest, but on the other hand there are not enough workers. So then put a request to the Harvest Master so that he will throw workers into his harvest!’”

Has she and have they met my challenge? Isn’t it all as Hebraish and Greekish and English as it can be? Or as Matthew's Jesus liked to ask those like us who are critics and are curious, How do you read it?

feminist Bible translation: not "anything goes" but a lot more personal

Suzanne McCarthy has announced a series of posts on the translation of a Hebrew Psalm. She’s looking at a variety of issues, some of which I’ve found include the question of ambiguity. Ambiguity is something modernists and masculinists tend not to favor in language, especially when it comes to Bible translation. But, in this post, I am going to make a big deal out of ambiguity for better (Bible) translation. For a feminist translation, ambiguity is huge. Ambiguity actually and ironically helps the best translators disambiguate to make meanings clear, to make the text more “wholly” and personally meaningful. And, below, I want to explain that and then illustrate it with a feminist translation of a Greek language passage my pastor had us read for the Easter Sunday sermon. It’s just a snippet of a narrative: Luke 24:8-12.
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Let’s make six things clear initially. First, McCarthy is not necessarily making the arguments I am. In fact, she states very cogently in a comment on her first post in her series that she “cannot perceive what relevance gender might have to this post”; I’d raised the issue that a particular Hebrew word is ambiguous in multiple ways, even with respect to grammatical gender. (In an update here, I note that McCarthy suggests ambiguity needs to be "resolved" in or by translation, especially of the Christian scriptures.)
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Second, I’m not trying to invent ambiguity where it does not exist, but I will agree with Richard Rhodes that I find much more ambiguity in language than he feels is necessary or is necessarily there. Ambiguity, I must say, has its limits; even though we users of language enjoy what Nelson Goodman calls “radical relativism,” there are what Nelson Goodman says are “rigid restraints”
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Third, then, the radical relativism of language, including ambiguity, is related to several things Kenneth L. Pike observes about language. [Pike’s a teacher of mine who’s profoundly influenced my thinking about these things. Pike is as much interested in the nature of language as he is how we human beings look at—i.e., theorize—and talk about—i.e., know—language. The first SIL staff member and Wycliffe Bible Translator to earn a Ph.D., Pike began with some very radical ideas; his acclaimed dissertation “A Reconstruction of Phonetic Theory,” completed in 1942, foreshadowed postmodern methods as it emphasized the need for reworking rigid, traditional and modern ways of viewing language. With one of his favorite books—Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of Human Behavior—Pike commenced emphasizing “a wholistic view.” In a later introductory book—the book Linguistic Concepts, which he had some of us his students read for a seminar on this “wholistic view” —Pike starts with the following one-sentence paragraph: “In this volume person (and relation between persons) is given theoretical priority above formalism, above pure mathematics, above idealized abstractions” (page xi).] Language, Pike says, is N-Dimensional with respect (a) to hierarchy of features; (b) to salient context and unity of features; and (c) to “fusion, merging, gradients, change, growth, education, and indeterminancies” (xi). Persons may and do determine whether to view language as (a) field, (b) particle, or (c) wave. Persons are above logic. One person can learn another person’s language, not in spite of ambiguity and not just by formal logic, but because of such ambiguity and because we all are above such logic. Persons make language ambiguous, and radically so.
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Fourth, I think confusing (1) ambiguity with (2) postmodernism or with (3) feminism or with (4) gender difference is not helpful. Aristotle can be of help to us here; for he does not want confusion of categories (and absolutely, in language, he does not want ambiguity; and he does name ambiguity as a category of language to avoid). And yet, I can’t agree more with Cheryl Glenn who puzzles over the male-only histories of western rhetoric; Glenn, who reads the masculinist and modernist accounts of rhetoric’s history says that, helpfully, “[p]ostmodernism influences our resistant readings of the paternal narrative, particularly since it demands our awareness of situatedness, our angle (in my case [i.e., in Glenn’s case], reading as a feminist, as a woman)” (page 5 of Rhetoric Retold). Glenn, “as a feminist, as a woman,” and as a postmodernist, employs “three methodologies” which she calls “three angles”: “historiography (which informs the entire enterprise of feminist remappings); feminism (which specifically works to situate female rhetorical figures); and gender studies (which refigure gender as a category for historiographical analysis)” (page 4). Here we begin to see some methodology overlap. We might call it methodological ambiguity. For Glenn, ambiguity, postmodernism, feminism, and gender studies all “do” different things; and nonetheless they still all do similar sorts of things. For me, Glenn and Pike do similar things, even though Pike resists some rather non-Pikean forms of “postmodernism” and even though he never called himself a “feminist.” For that matter, Glenn and Carolyn Custis James do similar things. The former situates the predominately male history of classical rhetoric from the perspective of women; the latter rewrites the predominately male history in the Bible from the perspective of women. Nonetheless, Custis James is not an academician using postmodernism, feminism, or gender studies per se. What is common for Pike, Glenn, and Custis James is this: language is ambiguous because of persons. Feminism as methodology set is also ambiguous because it speaks to feminism also as the aim or goal to be achieved by the method. Hence, Glenn can situate herself postmodernly “as a feminist, as a woman”; likewise, I can situate myself personally “as a feminist, as a man.” McCarthy, Pike, and Custis James might rather situate themselves as linguists and Christians and historians (who may or may not admit to doing the kinds of things I want to follow Glenn in doing, as a feminist). The personal, and the ambiguities created by persons, allow us to tease out and to embrace the differences as long as, feministically, our epistemology works out the self evident truths that all men and women are created equal. (Aristotle insists on formal logic that would dictate to us no ambiguity; his end is to confirm by objective observation what is nature—including the nature of males over females and of logic over subjective rhetoric and of an original Greek text over any translation into a barbarian mother tongue.)
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Fifth, when I call what I’m doing “feminist translating,” I am emphasizing as much the methodologies as I am what the methodologies produce. I am not, for example, wanting to go “Beyond the Personal,” not wanting to go beyond the methods of feminisms, which is what Joy S. Ritchie and Gesa E. Kirsch want to do when one of their students turns to Christianity and when they conclude, therefore, that her move is now necessarily opposed to feminism, which their ultimate goal (but no longer their method) in “Theorizing a Politics of Location in Composition Research.” In addition, I am not wanting to use a methodology that is not also part and parcel of the aim of the method. This, for instance, is what Ann Nyland is wanting to do by using ambiguity in language combined with the applied “Relevance Theory” of Bible translator Ernst-August Gutt for her goal: a Study New Testament for Lesbians, Gays, Bi, and Transgender. Nyland may rightly challenge whether the “word arsenokoites in 1 Cor. 6:9 and 1 Tim. 1:10” in English should be “homosexual”; nonetheless, she turns to Gutt and even to E. D. Hirsch for methodology to say that “[t]he reader’s context determines how a certain passage will be understood.” What Gutt does (and Hirsch and Nyland with him) is to resort to a reader’s-context method of masculinist logic. Such logic (i.e., “this context but NOT that one”) may find ambiguity determined. Such logic is not—and I will emphasize this emphatically here—such logic is not a methodology that is lesbian, gay, bi, or transgender. (Generally, the Nyland translation gets favorable reviews by bloggers at BBB; it seems “accurate” in the places spot checked.) Nyland uses Gutt’s “relevance theory” for her method (to achieve her lesbian, gay, bi, and transgender translation) which is a method that is not Pike’s tagmemics nor is any of Glenn’s three angles either. Feminist translating uses both a personal methodology and also (by those angles) works the personal aim of valuing females as equally as males are valued; a feminist translation valorizes the personal connections that a person using language makes, regardless of and with regard to gender especially.
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Sixth, when I call what I’m doing “feminist translating,” I am calling attention to what male-dominant logic in translation neglects methodologically and teleologically.
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In Luke 24:8-12, there is attention given to women that does come across in the history. But in the Greek language that Luke uses there is more ambiguity than traditional English translators attend to because they tend to use masculinist logic. Masculinist logic wants to abstract the meaning to the text; masculinist logic wants to pretend objectivity (i.e., to say there’s no theological agenda even if there’s an attempt to say the a priori commitment to “plenary inspiration” theory of Christian scriptures is not a theological agenda); masculinist logic wants to be over subjective person; and masculinist logic wants to eliminate ambiguity when it drives some inclusive goal, such as Nyland’s NT fo LGBTs. As a consequence, traditional English translations can ignore the importance of women and their rhetoric. Sometimes, this is an unwitting consequence. Most Bible translators will very explicitly and publicly express their commitment to the value of women. And Bible translations born out of masculinist logic do not hide the fact that Luke gives historical attention to women.
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So what difference does a feminist translation make? Well, let’s look. First we’ll look at the King James Version; the Revised Standard Version; and the Nyland. Then we’ll check the texts of Luke. Finally we’ll examine feminist translating. (My formatting of the texts is for purposes of comparisons and contrasts).
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KJV
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And they remembered his words,

And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.

It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.

And their words seemed to them as idle tales,

and they believed them not.

Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre;

and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves,

and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.

RSV

And they remembered his words,
and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.
Now it was Mary Mag'dalene and Jo-an'na and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told this to the apostles;

but these words seemed to them an idle tale,

and they did not believe them.
……

Nyland

Then they remembered what he’d said.

They returned from the tomb and reported all this to the Eleven and to all the others.

And it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and their companions who told this to the apostles,

but they didn’t believe them,

because they thought their words were a lot of nonsense.

However, Peter got up and ran to the tomb.

He bent over to peep in and saw the strips of linen lying by themselves,

and he went off wondering what on earth had happened.
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Luke
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καὶ ἐμνήσθησαν τῶν ῥημάτων αὐτοῦ
καὶ ὑποστρέψασαι ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου ἀπήγγειλαν ταῦτα πάντα τοῖς ἕνδεκα καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς λοιποῖς
(ἦσαν δὲ ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ Μαρία καὶ Ἰωάννα καὶ Μαρία ἡ Ἰακώβου καὶ αἱ λοιπαὶ σὺν αὐταῖς ἔλεγον πρὸς τοὺς ἀποστόλους ταῦτα)

καὶ ἐφάνησαν ἐνώπιον αὐτῶν ὡσεὶ λῆρος τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα
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καὶ ἠπίστουν αὐταῖς
(ὁ δὲ Πέτρος ἀναστὰς ἔδραμεν ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον
καὶ παρακύψας βλέπει τὰ ὀθόνια μόνα
καὶ ἀπῆλθεν πρὸς ἑαυτὸν θαυμάζων τὸ γεγονός)
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Feminist Translating
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The women remembered the sayings he’d spoken.
They returned from the memorial grave announcing every bit of this to the eleven men and to the other men.
(There were Miyam from Magdala and Johanna and Jacob’s Miryam and the other women with them, stating this to the men he’d sent out.)
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They appeared in front of the men as if this were a bunch of silly sayings.
The men disbelieved the women.
(There was “Rock” standing up; he ran to the memorial grave;
bending over, he looked at the linen cloth only;
he left, amazed at what was birthed.)
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Commentary:

As mentioned, the blip of history that Luke provides here does not obscure women (in his Greek or in any translation above). Women are the first on the scene at Jesus’s tomb; they’re the first to remember what he said (because they listen to the angels jogging their memories); the women are the first believers; the first apostles (i.e., the male apostles’ apostles); and the first disciples to follow Jesus’s kinds of rhetorics (i.e., parable that requires personal reflection; hyperbole that appears silly; and miracle that can make radical changes for and in a body). We might say Jesus’s rhetorics are feminisms. Luke and the translations are not masculinist with respect to these facts of history.
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What Luke and the feminist translation do show (in contrast to KJV, RSV, and Nyland) are the following. The Greek gendered pronouns and verbs and played-on phrases (i.e., τοῖς λοιποῖς vs. αἱ λοιπαὶ) highlight whether the referents in English are females or males. There’s a bit of play also in the first action of the women (i.e., ἐμνήσθησαν or remembering) and the place they turn from (i.e. μνημείος or tomb for memorial). The main lines of action and the parenthetical comments are marked (i.e., in Greek by καὶ plus aorist verb for mainline action, by δὲ plus proper noun subject for parethetical comment; in English by “The [wo]men” or “They” for mainline action, and by the parentheses plus the existential there for parenthetical comment). What’s more, the initial main line for both resulting paragraphs is punctuated by a repeated clause object (i.e., τῶν ῥημάτων and τὰ ῥήματα); but even the repeated ταῦτα (i.e. “this”) following τὰ ῥήματα does not make clear whether the men think they are λῆρος because women are presenting them or because they were that way when Jesus first said them—there’s vagueness (not helpful ambiguity) in this bit of language. In addition, since the Greek proper names are common Hebrew names or peculiar Aramaic nicknames, the English tries to signal these personal connections (both to the people in Luke’s history here and to his later readers) with common Old Testament counterparts (in translation) or with scare quotes. (In showing the Hebrew senses of proper nouns, I’m following Willis Barnstone). Joshua (aka Jesus) had sent the men out to announce his kingdom, but they are hiding away when the women are sent to them; hence, “sent out” seems more personal and more to the point than a non-translation transliteration “apostle”. Finally, the final word here has a generative meaning in Greek that means something to those of us who are parents, or who have parents, especially mothers; hence, in English it’s “what was birthed”.

(Oh, one more little thing that Luke plays with, from verse 7 just before the lines noted above: He has angels reminding the women of the sayings of Joshua--i.e., Jesus--and ends with the one in which Joshua says this
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τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὅτι δεῖ παραδοθῆναι εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων ἁμαρτωλῶν καὶ σταυρωθῆναι καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστῆναι
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Of course, that last word is the one Luke picks up when he describes what “Rock”--i.e., Peter--does when he hears the women repeating the sayings of Joshua. “Rock,” like Joshua from the dead, stands up. That Joshua and the women can have such an effect is no small thing. Matthew hints at this power, and so does the feminist translation.)