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b-greek-digest V1 #700
b-greek-digest Tuesday, 9 May 1995 Volume 01 : Number 700
In this issue:
Seminary Help Thanks
Re: inclusivity test
Re: inclusivity test
Re: Inclusivity
Where to order books?
Re: Translations/Inclusivity
Exclusive language, generic words, etc.
Omission from slightly garbled message
Daniel 7:13, Contra NRSV
Re: Translations/Inclusivity
Re: Historical Present
Overly inclusive translation
Re: inclusivity test
Course on Paul
OLB GNT question
Re: inclusivity test
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Yirah@aol.com
Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 13:44:54 -0400
Subject: Seminary Help Thanks
Instead of burning up my $$$ on directory assistance in trying to find the
phone number of the seminaries I inquired about, I thought I'd use the
helpfulness of those on the b-hebrew and b-greek lists. My wife asked "Won't
that take a long time?" I replied, "I bet I have all the information I need
within the hour." I was right. Thank you all very much.
William Brooks
Port Angeles, WA
Pastor In Waiting
------------------------------
From: Carl W Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 14:19:05 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: inclusivity test
On Mon, 8 May 1995, Mari Olsen wrote:
> Man is the only animal that breastfeeds his young.
>
> Does this jar? You're not alone. Similar studies of
> children have shown them NOT to interpret man/kind etc. as inclusive.
> In fact, I remember reading that the original inclusive usage had to
> be legislated; that is, it was a rule in a grammar book (man stands
> for man and woman).
Aye, and 'twas ever so, I suspect. Perhaps we really need an
English-speakers' equivalent of l'Academie Francaise to decide upon
correct usage for us. In the meantime, there's apparently the editorial
committee of the NRSV.
About which same (i.e. NRSV) I'm about ready for Sackcloth & Ashes
Posting #2; I've probed the NRSV quite a bit since last Friday and have
come away pretty much impressed. I know that there were specific items
that emerged recently that seemed to me misrepresentative of the Greek
text, but by and large, I really think it does a pretty splendid job of
overcoming the masculine bias built into the RSV's translation patterns.
To be sure, there are anomalies. I wonder, for instance, whether the text
of the NRSV at Mk 4:32, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are
outside, asking for you," is based upon the better MS variant or on the
requirement of inclusive language.
But, returning to Mari's point about the "inclusive usage" of "man" and
"men" and its having been actually LEGISLATED. I wonder: BY WHOM? spelled
out in a grammar? That may be, but are we to say that this accounts for
the gender-agreement rules in Classical Greek and Latin: that, e.g., a
group of masculine and feminine nouns will take a plural adjective that
is masculine (e.g.: pater materque liberique omnes taciti sedebant,
where TACITI is a predicative adjective, m. pl., agreeing with masculine
nouns pater and liberi but including feminine noun mater--and Greek
certainly behaves the same way): were these rules laid down by
grammarians? The answer may be "Yes," but what evidence have we for this?
Certainly the grammar works this way before Aristotle and Stoic
grammarians began to describe and prescribe for the language.
And I'm asking this question seriously, from genuine curiosity. Lucretius
in De Rerum Natura 5 has an interesting discussion of language and even
talks about such a sort of "legislative process" for language. Sanskrit
evidently had rules imposed deliberately. We do know that there was a
debate over proper Latin usage in the mid-first century B.C. between
those who (Julius Caesar among them, not surprisingly) sought to
eliminate irregularities and construct the morphology as far as possible
analogically. Or another example: my great-grandfather came over from
Germany following the 1848 revolution and our family has kept the name
spelled Conrad with a "C" although today German-speakers would regularly
spell it with a "K." I remember walking the streets of Munich and seeing
older street signs reading "Carolinenstrasse" with newer ones reading
"Karolinenstrasse." Who makes these decisions, and how? Perhaps someone
has some clear answers for some of such changes. Comparable in classical
Greek is the alternation between the Attic -TT- of prattw as opposed to
the more common Ionic/Koine -SS- of prassw. I've read the theory that the
Koine -SS_ is best explained by the fact that the colonists going out to
the new cities established in the east in the wake of Alexander's
conquests were largely Macedonian, and Macedonians spoke Ionic. Is that
really true?
Sorry, folks, if this is boring to some. But my appetite is readily
whetted when linguistic change enters into discussion. I'd like to
understand how it happens better, and I don't think legislation is
regularly the answer (although it IS true that the Athenians adopted the
Ionian alphabet with its distinct characters for Epsilon and Eta, Omicron
and Omega, in a given year).
Tim Staker posted a number of instances of ANHR that had been given
"inclusive" equivalents questionably in NRSV. I'm not sure that these
will all qualify as objectionable translations, inasmuch as ANHR does
have a way of getting attached to adjectives pretty much in the sense of
"person" where the sex of the party is not necessarily an issue.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
------------------------------
From: GLENN WOODEN <glenn.wooden@acadiau.ca>
Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 16:37:53 ADT
Subject: Re: inclusivity test
Carl,
I saw an email post about three years ago (I forget its source) that
referred to an act of the English Parliament in a certain year. The
act of parliament legislated that "man" could be used inclusively.
Although not really Greek related, having accurate information
about this matter would help clear up certain points in the debate we
are having.
> But, returning to Mari's point about the "inclusive usage" of "man" and
> "men" and its having been actually LEGISLATED. I wonder: BY WHOM? spelled
> out in a grammar?
Glenn Wooden
Acadia Divinity College
Wolfville N.S.
Canada
wooden@acadiau.ca
------------------------------
From: JacksonMH@aol.com
Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 16:34:12 -0400
Subject: Re: Inclusivity
How about this example? Titus 1:6, NKJV and NRSV (courtesy of BibleWorks for
Windows 3.0):
NKJ Tit 1:6 if a man is blameless, the husband of one
wife, having faithful children not accused of
dissipation or insubordination.
NRS Tit 1:6 someone who is blameless, married only
once, whose children are believers, not accused of
debauchery and not rebellious.
The Greek here, naturally, is MIAS GYNAIKOS ANHR. Used in the context of NT
overseers (bishops, pastors, whatever) this passage most definitely refers to
males only. (qv also 1 Tim 2; no matter what your opinion on women's
ordination, I don't think anyone would argue that Paul intended females to be
included in this statement.)
If that does not reflect a translation serving a theological bias in
violation of the text, I don't know what does.
Martin Jackson
jacksonmh@aol.com
Candidate of Theology
Bethany Lutheran Seminary, Mankato, Minnesota
------------------------------
From: Jeff Kloha <kloha@sauron.multiverse.com>
Date: Mon, 08 May 95 11:28:14 EDT
Subject: Where to order books?
I need to order Micheal Palmer's _Level's of Constituent Structure in
NT Greek_ (New York: Peter Lang) and Stanley Porter's _Verbal Aspect
in the Greek of the NT_ (Sheffield: JSOT Press). CBD doesn't carry
them. Any ideas? No need to post to the group, just respond to the
address below. Thanks.
///////+\\\\\\\
Jeff Kloha [] Lakewood, OH
kloha@po.multiverse.com [] KCICXC
------------------------------
From: "Philip L. Graber" <pgraber@emory.edu>
Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 17:04:51 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Translations/Inclusivity
Glenn,
Thank you for a very helpful reply. A few comments more (now that I'm
already on the end of the branch):
On Mon, 8 May 1995, GLENN WOODEN wrote:
> Were they psychologically inclusive? I agree that "man", "men" and
> "mankind" were USED inclusively, i.e., they were MEANT to be
> inclusive, but, I have a hard time believing that the intention was
> perfectly understood by all concerned.
...
> Again, I agree that translations were possibly MEANT to be inclusive,
> but were they understood by the readers in this way?
Part of my puzzlement is the fact that I grew up with women who understood
the translations (and things that were written in English originally) in
this way, and I married such a woman. (Lest you wonder, my wife marched on
Washington in favor of the ERA, and my mother had the audacity to major in
pastoral studies at a conservative Bible Institute--since she had no
intention of seeking ordination, they let her do it). The reaction (often
hostile in seminary environments) to "non-inclusive" language would be
much easier for me to understand if I had ever run into it before it
became an academic crusade. I'm not just being stubborn here (that
doesn't mean I'm not stubborn :-); I'm truly perplexed.
> We now live in a time when "men"
> means "males", regardless of what it was supposed to have meant
> before.
Or it least it means that to some people now, and probably increasingly
so. What got me started on this in the first place is my lamentation of
the struggle for the survival of the pronoun. I'm inclined to agree with
the NRSV editorial decision to retain pronouns for God, but changing to
"inclusive" language for human beings (see, I can be reasonable!) saddens
me because it seems to make it unavoidable that the masculine pronouns
will be understood as making God male, something that I was raised to
think was heresy (I don't know where the idea of God as an old man with
white hair and a beard came from, but it wasn't from the church I grew up
in!), even though I was raised on the KJV. I have no desire to exclude
anybody, but I sure do miss my pronouns when they disappear. There is so
much more to the pronoun than gender. [insert sigh here]
Philip Graber Graduate Division of Religion
Graduate Student in New Testament 211 Bishops Hall, Emory University
pgraber@emory.edu Atlanta, GA 30322 USA
------------------------------
From: Edward Hobbs <EHOBBS@wellesley.edu>
Date: Mon, 08 May 1995 17:46:24 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Exclusive language, generic words, etc.
Although I do not want to enter the fray over inclusive/exclusive language,
since I have such a sense of deja-vu in reading it, I have a couple of
emarks to make.
The Nicene Creed in English (pre-ICET) said "who for us men and for
our salvation" all right. But in the years since 1976 (or maybe 1979), the
usual translation has been "who for us and for our salvation." The nun who
felt left out should go to a different parish church.
Queen Elizabeth -- an excellent scholar in Latin and Greek, among
other things -- referred to herself on a number of occasions as "King" in
English, and as "Rex" in Latin. Her rejection of the invitation to attend
the Council of Trent as an obsever, rather than as a member, remarked that
she had a right to attend, speak, and vote, "as any other Catholic King."
"Good Queen Bess" was, in her own usage, a King.
Do you suppose that Isabella (of Castile), called by many of her
subjects "La Catolica", felt that she was leaving herself out when she
referred to herself and Ferdinand as "los Reyes Catolicos"?
As one who has does as much as he has found possible over the years
to fight sex discrimination, even in language, I confess to being
distressed when linguistic history is rewritten to attribute intentions,
feelings, and offenses to times, places, and persons in whose time the
terms functioned differently than now. I am especially amazed that the
terminology "masculine and feminine" is assumed to have been handed down
from on high, with the languages (at Babel?), when in fact.
The NRSV, incidentally, benefited enormously in this matter of
gender-based translation, by the presence and work of my predecessor here,
Lucetta Mowry. She was a lonely female voice on the Committee, but she had
genuine--and good--influence.
Edward Hobbs
------------------------------
From: Edward Hobbs <EHOBBS@wellesley.edu>
Date: Mon, 08 May 1995 17:50:12 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Omission from slightly garbled message
My previous posting somehow left out the end of the next last paragraph.
The phrase "when in fact" should be followed by
"it was, in many languages, a matter of unmarked and marked forms."
Sorry for the garbling.
Edward Hobbs
------------------------------
From: Paul Moser <PMOSER@cpua.it.luc.edu>
Date: Mon, 08 May 95 17:11 CDT
Subject: Daniel 7:13, Contra NRSV
I wonder if it was excessive concern with gender
sensitivity that prompted the NRSV translators to
go with "human being" rather than "son of man" at
Daniel 7:13. This, of course, was a blunder, given
the importance of the Danielic title "son of man"
in the ministry of Jesus. The gender-inclusive
term offered by the NRSV obscures an important
parallel for understanding Jesus's self-understanding.
We have, then, a clear case where gender sensitivity
makes for interpretive obscurity.--Paul Moser,
Loyola University of Chicago.
P.S. We should be grateful that the NRSV does not
portray Jesus as calling himself "the human being"!
------------------------------
From: GLENN WOODEN <glenn.wooden@acadiau.ca>
Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 19:12:23 ADT
Subject: Re: Translations/Inclusivity
Philip,
I have no quarrel with your statement that: "I grew up with women who
understood the translations (and things that were written in English
originally) in this way, and I married such a woman." Most people of
both genders understood the terms "man", "men" and "mankind" as
inclusive in certain contexts. That does not mean that this usage
did not have negative results.
> The reaction (often
> hostile in seminary environments) to "non-inclusive" language would be
> much easier for me to understand if I had ever run into it before it
> became an academic crusade. I'm not just being stubborn here (that
> doesn't mean I'm not stubborn :-); I'm truly perplexed.
That you and I did not hear of it before it became an academic crusade
does not mean that it was not an issue. Because it is championed by
academics does not mean it is bad or wrong, does it? Surely we
should not dismiss an argument because of WHO puts it forth, but
rather because it is faulty.
> What got me started on this in the first place is my
lamentation of
> the struggle for the survival of the pronoun. I'm inclined to agree with
> the NRSV editorial decision to retain pronouns for God, but changing to
> "inclusive" language for human beings (see, I can be reasonable!) saddens
> me because it seems to make it unavoidable that the masculine pronouns
> will be understood as making God male, something that I was raised to
> think was heresy (I don't know where the idea of God as an old man with
> white hair and a beard came from, but it wasn't from the church I grew up
> in!), even though I was raised on the KJV. I have no desire to exclude
> anybody, but I sure do miss my pronouns when they disappear. There is so
> much more to the pronoun than gender. [insert sigh here]
I concur with your sentiments! Language that is devoid of the
personal is boring; pronouns insert the personal. That is why in part,
e.g., the NRSV editorial team chose to use pronouns for God-God is
personal and IT does not relate that to the reader/listener! While I
am not in favour of deleting every reference to gender from
translations of the Scriptures, I do think that where terms are
clearly meant to be inclusive, it behooves us to render them in such
as way as to indicate that inclusivity to the modern reader. If that
means that the translations will be boring, then we must work harder
to find ways to get around that side effect of this necessary
procedure.
Glenn Wooden
Acadia Divinity College
Wolfville N.S.
Canada
wooden@acadiau.ca
------------------------------
From: Bruce Terry <terry@bible.acu.edu>
Date: Mon, 08 May 1995 17:19:03 CST
Subject: Re: Historical Present
On Mon, 8 May 1995, Carl W Conrad wrote:
>No, I really don't think that the NT present tenses in narrative are
>explicable in terms of Semitism; and I AM inclined to think that the
>evangelists and Luke shift into the present tense quite deliberately when
>they use it--that the present tense is a narrative device. Certainly the
>same thing happens in prose and verse narrative in Latin: the tense
>shifts into the present when the action slows down and takes place before
>the reader/listener's mind's eye. This is a matter that deserves, I
>think, a much fuller study. Does anyone know of classic works on this
>subject? I certainly don't offhand, but I can't believe that it hasn't
>been dealt with by someone somewhere at some time.
Sometime between the first and third centuries A.D. the unknown writer today
called Longinus wrote in chapter 25 of his _On the Sublime_ that the present
tense was used in narrating past time in order to increase vividness. In some
ways this is similar to Longacre's concept of *peak*, an area of grammatical
turbulence usually marking the climax and denouement of a narrative, and
sometimes the inciting incident. Chapter 1 of Longacre's _Grammar of
Discourse_ shows that this technique is still used by modern writers and
storytellers. On the other hand, at times I get the impression that something
other than peak is at work in N.T. narratives; perhaps it has to do with
foregrounding and backgrounding, or with episodic peak. More specific
research is needed.
********************************************************************************
Bruce Terry E-MAIL: terry@bible.acu.edu
Box 8426, ACU Station Phone: 915/674-3759
Abilene, Texas 79699 Fax: 915/674-3769
********************************************************************************
------------------------------
From: Bruce Terry <terry@bible.acu.edu>
Date: Mon, 08 May 1995 17:26:28 CST
Subject: Overly inclusive translation
On Thu, 4 May 1995, Micheal Palmer wrote:
>I wonder if there are any places where it is clear that the Greek text
>refers exclusively to males, yet the NRSV has rendered an inclusive
>translation. Do any of you know of one? (Notice that I am not denying
>that they exist. I'm simply saying that I am ignorant of them.)
In 1 Cor 13:11 the NRSV translates ANHR as "adult" rather than "man."
********************************************************************************
Bruce Terry E-MAIL: terry@bible.acu.edu
Box 8426, ACU Station Phone: 915/674-3759
Abilene, Texas 79699 Fax: 915/674-3769
********************************************************************************
------------------------------
From: Carl W Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 18:07:39 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: inclusivity test
On Mon, 8 May 1995, GLENN WOODEN wrote:
> Carl,
> I saw an email post about three years ago (I forget its source) that
> referred to an act of the English Parliament in a certain year. The
> act of parliament legislated that "man" could be used inclusively.
> Although not really Greek related, having accurate information
> about this matter would help clear up certain points in the debate we
> are having.
>
> > But, returning to Mari's point about the "inclusive usage" of "man" and
> > "men" and its having been actually LEGISLATED. I wonder: BY WHOM? spelled
> > out in a grammar?
This is exactly what I was hoping to discover. Can anyone supply further
details?
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
------------------------------
From: Robert Kraft <kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 20:51:22 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Course on Paul
In response to Micheal Palmer's appended request, please note that
anyone who is able to access gopher or WWW is invited to make use of my
own Paul Course materials (with appropriate credit, of course), gathered
over the years. They reside on the gopher@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (credit
courses > religious studies > 436 Paul), and can also be reached
conveniently through my home page
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html -- you might find other
goodies there, too.
Bob Kraft, UPenn
The original request:
Subject: Textbooks on Paul
I will return to my post as Assistant Professor of Religion (Greek, New
Testament, and Philosophy) at Bluefield College, Virginia in August. In
the Spring semester I will teach a course on the pauline literature. I am
interested in corresponding with any of you who have recently offered a
course on Paul. What text materials would you recommend? How did you
organize the course? What worked and what didn't?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Micheal W. Palmer
Mellon Research Fellow
Department of Linguistics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
------------------------------
From: Shaughn Daniel <zxmli05@student.uni-tuebingen.de>
Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 02:40:28 +0000
Subject: OLB GNT question
Tim Staker wrote:
> Using the OLB GNT software I searched for forms of ANHR ("Man") and found
>it is used 188 times. Then I cross referenced these occurances with the
>NRSV. Here's what I found:
Could you tell me more about OLB GNT? What does the abbrev. stand for? What
platform is it running on? When you say you "cross referenced" the
occurrences, does that mean that the program did that work for you, or did
you have to do it by hand?
Shaughn Daniel
Tuebingen, Germany
------------------------------
From: Stephen Carlson <scc@reston.icl.com>
Date: Mon, 8 May 95 22:52:03 EDT
Subject: Re: inclusivity test
>On Mon, 8 May 1995, GLENN WOODEN wrote:
>>I saw an email post about three years ago (I forget its source) that
>>referred to an act of the English Parliament in a certain year. The
>>act of parliament legislated that "man" could be used inclusively.
Without knowing the actual language of the law, I would say that it is
most likely a statutory rule of construction similar to the following
(American) Federal law, 1 U.S.C. $ 1:
$ 1. Words denoting number, gender, and so forth
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context
indicates otherwise --
. . . words importing the masculine gender include the feminine as
well . . . .
Stephen Carlson
- --
Stephen Carlson : Poetry speaks of aspirations, : ICL, Inc.
scc@reston.icl.com : and songs chant the words. : 11490 Commerce Park Dr.
(703) 648-3330 : Shujing 2:35 : Reston, VA 22091 USA
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #700
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