Language police and Bible translation
Yesterday Shane Raynor of Wesley Blog blogged in a balanced way about when political correctness can go too far in Bible translation. Shane refers to the demands for getting rid of gender references for God as coming from the "language police," which makes me wonder who they are. Maybe I just am not in contact with those police. In any case, I continue to resist all efforts at language engineering, whether the calls come from social liberals or our friends on the right who are now trying to take English back to a prior stage of the language where grammatically masculine generics were more widely known and understood. I think that it is important to be sensitive to how some words can impact individuals wrongly. My wife and I would never allow our children to use negative terms for ethnic groups or other segments of society. But I don't think we should revise the Bible to get rid of things which were part of people's cultures in Bible times. We simply can read what the cultures were like back then and determine to do better, if there is a need for that.
Categories: Bible translation, political correctness, inclusive language
Categories: Bible translation, political correctness, inclusive language
posted by Wayne Leman at 2:41 PM
3 Comments:
Have you ever seen "The Inclusive Translation" which came out about ten years ago? It's the most politically correct translation imaginable in my opinion. I've started a blog about it on my site which I will probably post tomorrow. Recently I corresponded with the original editor of "The Inclusive Translation" to inquite whether they were considing finishing the entire Bible. His response was quite interesting.
I believe Shane's last name is "Raynor" :)
I believe Shane's last name is "Raynor"
You're so right, Kenny. Sorry, Shane. I'll fix it now. My brain has been having more of these lapses recently. I appreciate all the keen eyes helping out.
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