For Sunday’s reading:
I notice this from Luke 2:3
“And everyone went to HIS own town to register.” NIV
“And everyone was on HIS way to register for the census, each to HIS own city.” NASB
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WOMEN?! At least one is recorded as making the journey, does Mary not quite count?
This is, partly an issue with English, I understand. We don’t have a way of doing first person singular (he/she/it) that is gender neutral. Nonetheless the days of claiming that “he” “him” and/or “man” counts as a gender neutral category too are long over.
This sort of thing really irks me.
Luke 2:1-7 (NRSV, Anglicized Version):
“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.
He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
Hallelujah.
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December 23rd, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Okay, this I do not understand at all. Perhaps a gender-neutral personal pronoun would be useful, but is the NIV text at all unclear? Would any half-educated speaker of English actually misunderstand it?
Certainly, a translation consists of trade-offs. I, as someone who knows no Greek, would usually prefer the ambiguity of gender that comes with a generic masculine pronoun to the ambiguity of number that comes with making /everything/ plural regardless of the text being translated. I am used to reading and understanding the former.
New compositions are another issue entirely, and I don’t blame anyone for usual plurals, generic masculine, generic feminine, whatever. (I do find it incredibly distracting when the author switches between generic masculine and feminine every couple paragraphs, and I prefer plural or generic masculine myself, but those are aesthetic preferences only.) Even then, though, I prefer to be allowed use of the full range of English.
(Random aside, but Mary likely didn’t go to her own town to register– she went to Joseph’s, right? So isn’t the NRSV version subtly inaccurate?)
December 23rd, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Wow, I thought I’d paragraphed that by adding newlines. Do your comments allow/require markup?
December 23rd, 2006 at 4:26 pm
don’t know, this is a new site for me
bold text
(edit) yes some html is allowed