Yet more on gender and anthropos

Gerald Hiestand, on his iustificare blog, has posted on Gender and the Image of God: Another Run at anthropos. His posting focuses on the meaning of this one Greek word. Suzanne McCarthy has posted a response to this on her Powerscourt blog. It seems that Gerald, Suzanne and I are in agreement that the default or unmarked reference for anthropos is male, so that the word is not used for individual females or all-female groups. But I think we also agree that the word is not primarily male and does not indicate that the referent is necessarily male, and so can be used of mixed groups, and of individuals of unknown or indefinite gender.

Gerald concludes, from the point about the default reference, that anthropos should be translated "man". I accept that that would have been appropriate in English about 50 years ago, when "man" in English could be used rather similarly to anthropos. But I would argue that English has changed over the last 50 years to the extent that, at least for many speakers, "man" can no longer be used of mixed groups or of individuals of unknown or indefinite gender. This implies that "man" is no longer an appropriate rendering, except in cases where the referent is known to be male.

I would also disagree with Gerald's comments about Hebrew 'ish in Psalm 1:1. He implies that 'ish is necessarily a male only term, and so distinct from anthropos. To an extent he is correct; in general Hebrew 'ish corresponds approximately to Greek aner, and Hebrew 'adam to Greek anthropos. But 'ish also has a more or less gender generic sense "each, everyone", used most commonly in expressions like אִישׁ... אָחִיו 'ish... 'axiw and אִישׁ... רֵעֵהוּ 'ish... re`ehu, literally "each... his brother" and "each... his friend" and meaning "each other". It is at least possible that in Psalm 1:1 'ish is being used in something like this sense, and so gender generically.