gennawing males

Bart Ehrman behrman at email.unc.edu
Wed Dec 1 14:47:26 EST 1999


Jim,

   So if gender is irrelevant, doesn't "given you birth" seem to work?

-- Bart



On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Jim West wrote:

> At 01:03 PM 12/1/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >   The reason I'm interested in GENNAW just now is because 1 Clement
> >quotes Ps. 2:7 (or, at least, quotes the quotation of Ps. 2:7 in Heb. 1).
> >Why *not* translate it: "You are my son, today I have given you birth"?
> >Is it only because we know that God is a man instead of a woman, and so
> >can't give birth?  Seems like the logic of that could be pushed in lots of
> >directions (e.g., the pressure points: "know," "man," "and so").  But are
> >there other reasons?
> 
> i dont think it has anything to do with gender (since God, male or female or
> neuter, doesn't really father, give birth, or anything of the sort).  It is
> a metaphor.  For folk to understand what Clement (and Hebrews, and Ps) mean
> we have to use terminology with which they are familiar.  Begat is old and
> senseless for most.  "Mothered" would be silly. "Fathered" is clear,
> concise, to the point, and easily understood.  "Generated" sounds like a
> bloody science fiction story.  There is, in short, nothing wrong with the
> dread politically incorrect terminology of patriarchal society- because
> people understand it!
> 
> Jim
> 
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
> Jim West, ThD
> jwest at highland.net
> http://web.infoave.net/~jwest
> 
> 




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