When did bibles start using "gender-inclusive" language? (eg. 'any man' became translated as 'any person')?

Question

I've just realised that the bible that I've been using my whole life doesn't use gender-inclusive language - and, realising that now is really making me angry! I have to buy a new bible. The one I was using is an NIV translation published in 1985.

When did NIV translations decide that they should use "gender-neutral" language?

I did a Psychology paper a couple of years ago, and in that paper I learned of a study they did where women were given two texts to read, one with gender-neutral language and the other with male-oriented language. The study found that the women understood that both texts were meant to include both women and men. But the women found it harder to connect/relate with the male-oriented language text - mentally they knew that it refered to them as well as to men, but they couldn't identify with it as well as they could with the gender-neutral text.

Answer 1

This happened when the world decided to go crazy with

"Political Correctness".

I still use my ancient one that I've had for many years.  It is much easier to find a particular quote when I want one.

Answer 2

The problem is not the Bible. It is the language.  The English language has no pronoun for a sentient being that is not gender specific.

Answer 3

Changing it is just a nice way of saying "this bible says really bad stuff, but we are going to pretend it doesn't"

There is a lot of sexism in the bible, women are treated as second to men, women are treated as property.

Why have God and Jesus both got to be referred to as "he"?

Changing a few "men"s to "person"s won't destroy the rest of the sexism you will find.

As a Christian does it not worry you that men can edit the bible? It would worry me. How much of it is true to word? How do you know what has been changed over the years?

You say Christianity is reluctantly dragged along behind society when gender is concerned and you are entirely right. I personally would never believe in something that treated my gender as anything but physical.

Why be a Catholic knowing you can never be Pope because you haven't got a p***s? Doesn't sound like the sort of institution I would get myself caught up in. Self respect and all.

Answer 4

"mankind". have you ever heard of "womankind". man as to refer mankind, or human, and therefore it is ---man. if to refer to the male mankind, perhaps it would be written specifically as "men" and not "man", as holy books are meant for everyone, not only a person.

there is no male-oriented kind and gender-neutral as to balancise the word usage. there is only man-oriented not male, by which it is, MANkind, or huMAN, or huMANkind.

i find it very hard to read my holy book too, as they use "man" which makes me felt very discriminated that i even wished for it to be written as "person" instead of "man". only after a while living  finding my female nature while checking books of religious authors that explains this and that words from the holy book, then i could understand this. it's for both.

perhaps what women need is a little more of self-notice to read the original version without any negative feelings of discrimination.

this might be also one of the reason why this category is named "gender&women's studies".

Answer 5

The Bible says we are not to change one jot or tittle of what God told writers to put down.(which equates to dotting an i or crossing a t)  So that we are now changing to fit our needs is seriously disrespectful to the Creator of the Universe. Whether it's a bit harder to read or not, it should have been left alone. I'm sure putting forth a little extra effort on reading is alot easier than hanging on a cross for 6 hours like Jesus did!!!

Answer 6

Some translators started using gender-neutral terms as soon as the language had gender-neutral terms to use.

The Bible was translated from Greek, where most nouns were gender-specific, into early modern English, where most nouns still were gender-specific. It has been retranslated since then. A few recent translations try to include the Greek genders in the English, while most try not to. ("Man" is an exception; it was originally gender-neutral, and could still refer to either men or women in early modern English.)

People have known about the problem for some time. The early church fathers knew that Greek Logos (Word) and Sophia (Wisdom) referred to the same being, but had opposite genders.

Answer 7

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible was being re-translated from the original languages way back in the late 80s when my husband was in seminary at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. Some of the faculty were associated with the translation team. My husband took all of the classes available from the Feminist Theology professor, as well as Liberation Theology, and shared this new info with me.

A new United Methodist Hymnal was coming out about that time too, with team members from Candler. This was a very exiting time to be there because so many wonderful scholarly and creative avenues were opening up regarding gender.

For those of you who accept the "Bible fell from the sky in it's black cover" nonsense: if you read the Bible in it's original languages, you will see that many of the references to God, Spirit, etc. are gender-neutral or feminine, as well as being masculine (though Jesus Christ is definitely male, because no one would have listened in that male-dominated society unless the Christ was male). If you recall, God made humans in God's image, which means everyone, which means male and female. The image referred to means God's attributes, not whether God has a p***s or not!