344 Bible 15 – Gender in Bible Translation

Did you know that controversies surrounding how to translate gender in the Bible had a major impact on Bible translation over the last 30 years?  In this episode we’ll briefly overview various feminist movements before examining the NRSV, which proved to be a forerunner for gender inclusive Bible translations.  Next we’ll take a journey through the NIVI and TNIV controversies at the turn of the 21st century before seeing how evangelical Bible translations both reacted against (ESV, HCSB) and appropriated (NIV2011, CSB) varying degrees of gender accuracy into their Bibles.

—— Books ——

• The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing: For Writers, Editors, and Speakers by Casey Miller and Kate Swift, 1980
• “Femme Fatale” by Susan Olasky, World, March 29, 1997
• Colorado Springs Guidelines “Statement by Participants in the Conference on Gender-Related Language in Scripture” May 27, 1997
• “Bailing Out the Stealth Bible” by Susan Olasky, World Magazine, June 14, 1997
• “Hands Off My NIV!” by Doug LeBlanc, Christianity Today, June 16, 1997
• What’s Wrong with Gender-Neutral Bible Translations? by Wayne Gruden, 1997
• D. A. Carson, The Inclusive Language Debate: A Plea for Realism
• Mark L. Strauss, Distorting Scripture? The Challenge of Bible Translation and Gender Accuracy
• The Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy: Muting the Masculinity of God’s Words by Wayne Gruden and Vern Polythress, 2000
• Two Views on Women in Ministry by Linda L. Belleville, Craig L. Blomberg, Craig S. Keener, Thomas R. Schreiner, 2001, updated 2005
• Southern Baptist Convention Resolution “On Today’s New International Version,” June 11-12, 2002
• How To Choose a Translation for All It’s Worth by Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss, 2007 (see especially chapter chapter 7)
• “Why the English Standard Version (ESV) Should Not Become the Standard English Version” by Mark Strauss, 2008 (presented at ETS)
• “An Evaluation of Gender Language in the 2011 Edition of the NIV Bible,” Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, June 6, 2011
• Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles by Kathy Keller, 2012

—— Links ——

• Check out all the lectures in How We Got the Bible
• See what other classes are available here or on the Restitutio Classes podcast (subscribe in Apple, Spotify, RSS feed)
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• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library