A Question about Gender
Daniel
dlc at multnomah.edu
Tue Jul 30 13:24:11 EDT 2002
Waldo,
This whole gender issue was batted about recently on the list, so you might
wish to do a search in the archives. However, if I may, I would like to respond
briefly to part of your question (I fear that the PNEUMA issue is impossible to
deal with, without the discussion quickly becoming a purely theological one).
You wrote:
> The example I ran across was in Matthew 24:40 and 41.
> There, DUO are in the field, hEIS is taken. Since hEIS
> is masculine, we say it is one MALE. In the next
> verse, MIA is taken, and since it is feminine, we say
> one FEMALE.
Actually, this is not correct. Since hEIS is masculine, and MIA is feminine, we
understand these adjectives to refer, respectively, to ANQRWPOS and GUNAI. Now, it
is true that ANQRWPOS would here refer to a biologically male person, and GUNAI to
biologically female persons; however, the sex of the referent is not what
determines which grammatical gender to use.
> Or, this note appears in the NET Bible at John 2:
>
> Grk all. The word people has been supplied for
> clarity, since the Greek word PANTAS is masculine
> plural (thus, indicating people rather than things).
>
> But that requires that Gender is a semantic part of
> the adjective.
Grammatical gender is certainly part of the word--sex, on the other hand, is not.
In this passage, would you argue that only men and boys are being referenced? The
choice of PANTAS is due to an implied ANQRWPOI (human beings) or even LAOI, not to
the biological characteristics of the referent.
If the implied referent were PAIDION, the adjective used would have been PAN,
though nobody is going to argue for the non-personality of children, based on the
grammatically neuter adjective. Of course, this has implications for your question
regarding PNEUMA, but I think that the discussion should be continued offlist, if
you wish to delve more deeply into that particulat issue.
Daniel
-----
Daniel L. Christiansen
Professor, Bible & Theology, Biblical Languages
Multnomah Bible College and Biblical Seminary
(503) 251-6436 (new number)
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