Featured Challenging traditional Translation choices.

Where is the beef? What verse demonstrates the need to corrupt the grammar. Anyone can rationalize shoddy practice.

How about He arose and departed?

 

Snip I was not translating a Greek word in the singular into an English word in the plural.

 

Thus, this version of 1 Corinthians 11:3 is consistent with Greek grammar:

Yet I am willing you be aware that the head of every person is the Christ, even so the head of a wife is the husband, as God is the head of Christ

While each born anew person's head is Christ, the wife models our relationship with God by acting under the authority of her loving husband, as we operate under the authority of our loving God. This helps to imbue our families with an understanding of doing for others based on love. For example, if you love God, you will keep His commandments.

 

Luke 11:31-32 The Queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon – and now, something greater than Solomon is here! The people of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented when Jonah preached to them – and now, something greater than Jonah is here! (NET)

tn Grk “men”; the word here (ἀνήρ, anhr) usually indicates males or husbands, but occasionally is used in a generic sense of people in general, as is the case here (cf. BDAG 79 s.v. 1, 2). The same term, translated the same way, occurs in v. 32.

James 1:20 For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. (NET)

tn The word translated “human” here is ἀνήρ (anhr), which often means “male” or “man (as opposed to woman).” But it sometimes is used generically to mean “anyone,” “a person” (cf. BDAG 79 s.v. 2), and in this context, contrasted with “God’s righteousness,” the point is “human” anger (not exclusively “male” anger).

The premise that "anhr" could not be used generically in 1 Corinthians 11:3 is false, and to deny Christ is the head of every believer, male and female is false. Women are taught to submit to their husbands as they submit to the Lord, thus Christ is their head too.

 

Should all the cases where traditional translation use "he" or "his" but the individual could be of either gender, be corrected using "he or she" and "his or her" instead.

For example, consider James 1:7, (NASB95) "For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,"
Since women can also be unsure, double minded if you will, the verse would be better translated as "For that person ought not to expect that he or she will receive anything from the Lord."

 

Here is another example of how easy it is to entrench masculine identity into the text.
NASB95 (James 1:8) being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

The Greek word translated "man" is "anhr" and contextually seems to be better translated as "person." However what does "his" indicate if not a man? Is there a handy way to have autos translated as indicating a person of either gender? Nope. Some change the singular into a plural, thus "unstable in all their ways." But if you stick with translating according to the grammar of the Greek, then that choice introduces error. Some eliminate the word, thus unstable in everything. And to go with "unstable in all of that one's ways" seems awkward. No, I am not claiming the KJV translators took the easy way out into error, but just that fixing a view that many accepted as true is not easy.

Here is a way the verse could be translated: "being a double-minded person, unstable in all his or her ways."

To claim James was only addressing male doubters and intended on excluding female doubters is dubious.

 

Mark 8:36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? (NASB95)
A less masculine biased and more accurate translation choice would be: For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world, and forfeit his or her soul?