This blogging thing is odd. I spent most of yesterday thinking there was nothing to say, then I saw the news, and immigrants smashing up the council offices in Kensington after the Grenfell disaster, and the left demanding we all emote over this tragedy and resign. That we converge.
Then I note that the Holman version of the Bible has gone gender inclusive. To quote:
In email correspondence this week, Trevin Wax, Bible and Reference Publisher for Holman Bibles, defended the translation. He rejected the notion that the translation is “gender-neutral,” calling it “gender-accurate” instead. “It uses male pronouns for God, for pastors, and in places where its obviously male—and it uses male and female, where that’s what the author intended,” Wax said.
A gender-accurate approach often uses inclusive language, Wax said, but only in places “when the original would have been understood to refer to both males and females.” Such a defense of the CSB mirrors those offered by NIV defenders in years past.
Although the CSB’s translation isn’t totally gender-neutral, it’s difficult to deny its significant deviations from rigidly literal interpretation methods. Perhaps gender-inclusive would be a more accurate term. The examples listed here are not exhaustive, after all. In the CSB, there are hundreds of verses that fall within the “gender-neutral” category condemned in Southern Baptists’ own resolutions. Together, they provide an illustrative survey of the kinds of quietly progressive changes that have been inserted into this conservative denomination’s Bible translation.
Such changes in Southern Baptists’ Bible translation of choice are more than a mere denominational matter. The SBC is America’s largest Protestant denomination and one of its most conservative. If its leaders and members are tolerating a softer, more inclusive approach to gender, it might be a bellwether of things to come in the culture war over gender.
This week, Southern Baptists will gather in Phoenix for their annual gathering. Whether they ignore or resist the new version of the Good Book may tell us much about the future of gender debates in American society.
This is driving me into a methodological spiral. I use the Revised Common Lectionary and Daily readongs from the PCUSA, and I’m not eve sure what translation they use: my current preference for English translations is NASB or ESV (I flick between them). If I am forced into exegesis, I pull out a greek New Testament and various scholarly aides and then check with the commentaries from trusted, older scholars.
Those who have written since the universities converged and went stupid are generally left unread. I can handle the English of the last centuries, and my Latin is serviceable.
So ridiculous. Every language present in the bible, Hebrew, Aramaic and Ancient Greek, employs gendered nouns. The very idea that you can police a language for political correctness on this front is only possible in a language like English, which only very loosely associates gender with nouns.
It is a complete and massive failure of philology, anthropology, and linguistics that this ridiculous debate isn’t squashed like a bug the second it comes up. It’s a transparent attempt at thought control from the beginning, anyway. This idiotic attempt is simply unsupportable in any substantial way by any scholar worth one iota.
The insane and sustained level of SJW convergence we face is just appalling.
Expect this to get worse as the celestial endgame gets near. Expect the truth to be unacceptable. Expect more scholars entering to stea and destroy. Expect troll logic. For it has been predicted.
1Then I saw another portent in heaven, great and amazing: seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is ended.
2And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. 3And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: “Great and amazing are your deeds, Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, King of the nations! 4Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your judgments have been revealed.”
5After this I looked, and the temple of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, 6and out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues, robed in pure bright linen, with golden sashes across their chests. 7Then one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever; 8and the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were ended.
35Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.37Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
10:1Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.2These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John;3Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;4Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
5These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.7As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’8Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.9Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts,10no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for labourers deserve their food.11Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave.12As you enter the house, greet it.13If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.14If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.15Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.
16“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.17Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues;18and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles.19When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time;20for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.21Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death;22and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.23When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
We are in the middle of a conflict. Those who are of the lie will protest any minor mishap. They will try to destroy the church. They will march because they did not maintain, indeed made unsafe, their habitation.
They will support terror.
We need to endure. There will be suffering. The narrative belongs to the prince of lies, and it will mutate whenever it is held to the light. Shine the light of truth on it.
But be aware that you will be hounded from the lecture theatre, shunned in the playhouse, and cast out of the pulpit for this.
But is is far better for this to happen to you than you become one of them. Damned, converged, and heading to hell.