[B-Greek] 1 Pet 2:17 Knowing when a noun is gender-inclusive

Kenneth Litwak javajedi2 at yahoo.com
Thu Apr 17 15:31:55 EDT 2008


  I'm sure we all know about the issue of gender
inclusivity/neutrality in translation.  I am wondering
about a specific example in terms of what it might
indicate.  In 1 Pet 2:17, Peter says to love the 
)ADELFOTHTA.  This word means "brotherhood."  One
might be tempted to offer a gender-inclusive
translation like "love all the members of God's
family" but there is a potential problem.  In both
Jewish and Greco-Roman culture in the first-century
A.D., the status of women was pretty low (as
exemplified in 1 Pet 3:1-7, with lots for a wife to do
and hardly anything for a husband to do).

  Do we actually have any good reason to think that
nouns like this in the first century were
gender-inclusive or is that only our 21st century
agenda?  Does brotherhood really mean all members of
God's family or does it actually mean "all male
members of God's family"?  I know all about the
generic use of words like "man" and I am sympathetic
to using the actual word of the text in translation
but I wonder if we can legitimately go beyond that in
interpretation.    Would Polybius or Josephus or
Aristotle have thought that )ADELFOTHTA actually
referred to males and females in any context?  Thanks.

Ken Litwak  


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