Should the Bible call God the "Father" or "Lord"? Should Jesus be termed the "Son" of God or "Son" of "Man"? Should masculine words such as "king" and "kingdom" be allowed? Should Holy Writ have so many male pronouns?
Not if militant feminists have their way, as they do in an awkward rewrite of the complete Bible issued in four volumes: The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures (three volumes subtitled The Torah, The Prophets, and The Writings) and The Inclusive New Testament (all from AltaMira).
These "degendered" Scriptures were produced for the liberal Roman Catholic Priests for Equality. The revisers say that "most scriptures read in worship services are still grossly sexist," and "the continued self-destructiveness of an all-male clergy" only worsens matters.
They don’t appear to like the Bible all that much.
The basic concept here is nothing new. In 1983-85, a National Council of Churches (NCC) panel performed similar surgery on familiar Bible readings in a three-year liturgical listing. NCC Protestants then published these in a trade edition.
Some gleanings from The Inclusive New Testament:
Start with the Lord’s Prayer — er, make that the "Teacher’s" Prayer. Since God can no longer be addressed as "Father" and his — er, make that God’s — "kingdom" cannot come, we get: "Abba God in heaven, hallowed be your name! May your reign come."
"Abba" is simply Aramaic for "father," so the change seems pointless. But it’s preferable to a proposed NCC option, "O God, Father and Mother," which sounded like two gods. "Reign" is awkward for oral readings because it hits the ear like a prayer for "rain." Elsewhere, the translation invents "kindom" minus "g" to replace the supposedly sexist "kingdom."
Euphemistic replacements for "Lord," designed to be "free of oppressive connotations," include "Our God," "Most High," "Almighty" and "Sovereign."
Shunning "Son of Man," these Catholics came up with "Chosen One" or "Promised One." That’s preferable to the NCC’s "the Human One," which sounded like an utterance by the Coneheads space aliens from "Saturday Night Live."
Or take Babylon, "the mother of harlots." Please. The famous symbol of the evil Roman Empire in Revelation 17:5 is deemed "genderist" and full of "misogyny" because "male prostitution is as old as female prostitution." The squeamish substitute: "Source of All Idolatry."
The revisers add words that are not in the Hebrew and Greek texts, inserting women’s names when genealogies name only men, for instance.
On pronouns, the revisionists de-emphasize "his" or "him" in passages that describe Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry, and bar them altogether following the resurrection.
Besides women, the inclusive Catholics are worried about "marginalized" minority groups, such as gays and lesbians. They shun "slave" and change "Jews" to "Temple authorities." "The poor" become "poorer people" or "people in need."
This Bible uses "partner" in place of traditional marriage terminology "to acknowledge and value nontraditional relationships." In the list of sinners in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, instead of the usual "homosexuals" it restricts the denunciation to "hustlers" and "pederasts." In 1 Timothy 1:10, criticism of "sodomites" is rewritten to target only "men and women who traffic in human flesh."
Overall, the theology underlying this effort runs as follows: "The Bible is not itself the Word of God, for that would be idolatry. Rather, the Bible contains the Word of God — or better yet, the Bible is the unique document of human beings’ encounters with the Living God."
Turning briefly to the Old Testament, we read of the creation of "an earth creature." Whatever this being was, it certainly couldn’t be called a "man," much less a particular fellow named Adam. But when "the woman" appears on the scene, she joins "the man," and eventually they are called Adam and Eve.
On the Priests for Equality (PFE) site they show part of the translation for Genesis 1.
"In the beginning
God created the heavens
and the earth. But the earth became
chaos and emptiness, and darkness came over
the face of the Deep – yet the Spirit of God
was brooding over the surface of the waters"
Arg, what a bad translation and they haven’t even got to the inclusive language stuff yet. PFE is made up of a couple of priests but is mainly laity and some religious so there name isn’t exactly truthful. They are part of the Quixote Center "titling at windmills since 1976" – yes that is there actual tag line. The Quixote center is linked with the suppressed New Ways Ministry Dignity and Sister Jeannine Gramick is the "chaplain" for Quixote. PFE is supported by the usual suspects such as Hans Küng and Bishop Gumbleton.
On their web site they say in their history on the inclusive bible translation that they started with some texts developed by Dignity and got permission to use them in church. This is of course a massive lie. The Vatican has never given any approval for biblical texts using inclusive language and would never give approval to any texts coming from Dignity. This is the pattern of such organizations who claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit and then use outright lies and misrepresentations to further their cause.
4 comments
“Earth creature! We come in peace from the Galactic League!” AAAAARRRRRGBGHHHHHHH!
I particularly note the lesson from the “Inclusive Language Lectionary” where “the Jews” demand “Who is this man? We have Abraham our father…” and the editors simply inserted “and Sarah and Hagar our mothers.” Now, this is something which could only be said by a mixed crowd of Jews and Arabs. In a synagogue in Capernaum? As a certain Slayer would say, does the expression “Give me a break” mean anything to you?
Are we sure this isn’t a joke ala Landover Baptist Church, Thoroughly Modern Mary, or Postmodern Liturgical resources?
Please, please, oh pretty please, tell me it’s a joke.
Nope. No joke. A few years ago, I did a comparison of the passage in Ephesians 5 in that Bible (I tripped over it when I was looking for something else at the public library) to the RSV and NSRV. It was interesting to say the least. If I remember it correctly they didn’t use the work Jew either. I think they changed that to the “Temple Authorities” or something else.
I also found it interesting in the “Introduction” where they say they received the text from Dignity. They also won’t mention the names of the people that worked on the translation for fear they would be persecuted in their jobs. (I took this to assume they would have jobs at the Chancery Offices of different dioceses.)
Liberals are the source of their own destruction. Their ideas are simply too stupid to take seriously.
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