[B-Greek] RE: Masculine pronouns referring to both men and women

moon at sogang.ac.kr moon at sogang.ac.kr
Fri Dec 17 22:16:49 EST 2004




  
> I recently read some articles on 1 Cor 14:26- 40. Those articles 

> claim that the masculine expressions in v. 26 - 33, e.g. 

> 

> (1)  hEKASTOS, hEIS, hEAUTWi, PROFHTAI, ALLWi, DIERMHNEUTHS 

> indicate that this passage talks about only men.

> 

> (2) hUMAS MONOUS in 14:36 also indicate that the referent of this

expression is men only, because MONOUS is masculine. 

> 


  
[George wrote]

Moon, 



I'm surprised that Ann Nyland hasn't responded to you as yet since this

is a subject very near and dear to her heart.  It is correct that the use

of a masculine form does not exclude women.  To bring up an old chestnut

I refer you to Rom 16, but I'm not going to reference the question of

IOUNIA (or IOULIA) / IOUNIAS.  In 16.3, 4 we read 



3 ASPASASQE PRISKAN KAI AKULAN TOIS SUNERGOUS MOU EN XRISTOU IHSOU

4 hOITINES, hUPER THS YUXHS MOU hUPEUHKAN . . . 



While TIS, TI has a common M/F form, OSTIS does not. [See: Jdg 21.14; Mt

25.1, 27.55; Lk 8.3, 23.55; Philip 4.3; 1 Tm 1.4, 6.9; Heb 10.8, 11; 1 Pt

2.11] Note that the 
  masculine is used here for this husband & wife team. 

  
 

  
[MOON writes]

  
So, you seem to say that  the example sentences using  TIS is 
  ambiguous with respect to our problem, because we can say that

  
TIS is a common gender pronoun, which Ward Power calls 

  
"personal pronoun". But the example sentences using 

  
hOITINES, hAITINES, hATINA are good for our purpose. Rom 16:3,4

  
use the masculine pronoun hOITINES, which refers to  both 

  
a man and a woman. (All the other examples you cited use

  
hAITINES.)

  
 

  
This is a good example, but could you give other examples?

  
In this case, the referent of hOITINES is the husband and the wife. 
  

  
There might be some people who would argue that the 

  
husband and the wife is a one unit represented by the husband,

  
and it would be the best to use the masculine pronoun to refer to them 
  under the condition that there is no common gender pronoun.

  
 

  
Moon Jung

  
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea

  
               








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