Theology Today - Vol 41, No. 1 - April 1984 - ARTICLE - The Inclusive Language Lectionary

26 - The Inclusive Language Lectionary

The Inclusive Language Lectionary
By Patrick D. Miller, Jr.

"All persons are equally loved, judged, and accepted by God ... Basic to a sense of equality and inclusiveness is the recognition that God by nature transcends all categories ... Seeking to express the truth about God and about God's inclusive love for all persons, the Division of Education and Ministry of the National Council of Churches of Christ authorized the preparation of An Inclusive Language Lectionary."

THE decision of the National Council of Churches to appoint a committee of scholars to prepare an edition of lectionary texts, couched in inclusive language as much as possible, has produced considerable reaction. It is not surprising, therefore, that the actual appearance of this lectionary for "Year A" in the lectionary cycle has stirred up an even larger response, most of it negative, at least as far as public reaction through the media is concerned.

As a member of the committee, I can claim no less bias than any of the persons, scholarly and otherwise, who have reacted so quickly and so negatively. I have had the experience, however, of having come on the committee well into its process when many decisions had already been made and reacting in part with surprise, hostility, and even scholarly disdain upon first encountering samples of the committee's work even though I was very sympathetic to the concern lying behind it. It is only as I have lived with the decisions, reflected upon them, listened to the analyses and rationale of the committee, and attempted myself the task of putting the Scripture in inclusive language, that I have come to appreciate the care with which this committee has worked and the combination of linguistic and theological sensitivity together with a devotion to Scripture that mark its efforts to a degree that is not always

Patrick D. Miller, Jr. is Professor of Biblical Studies at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. A graduate of Davidson College and Union Seminary in Virginia, he did his doctoral study at Harvard. The author of several books on Old Testament theology, his most recent volume is Sin and Judgment in the Prophets (1982). A member of the RSV Old Testament Committee, Dr. Miller also serves as a member of the Inclusive Language Lectionary Committee.
The quotation above comes from the Preface of the Lectionary, published for the Cooperative Publication Association by John Knox Press, The Pilgrim Press, and The Westminster Press (1983, $7.95)

27 - The Inclusive Language Lectionary

present in its critics. I hope that others outside the committee will also come to experience a growing appreciation of its work.

There are, however, some issues growing out of the committee's work, and the initial response to it, that need to be addressed. The two that I want to take up in this context are: (a) the function or place of this lectionary; and (b) the nature of the translation task as it surfaces in this project.

The experimental and voluntary character of the lectionary needs to be underscored, although it is in danger of being generally ignored in reactions to it. The lectionary is not being put forth in the place of some already existing and officially adopted lectionary or translation. The National Council instructed its committee to prepare the inclusive language lectionary that it might be available for those persons or groups that choose to use it.

Most of the press and at least some of the scholarly community assume that the lectionary is avant-garde and out of touch with where people in the churches are. To a large degree that is the case if one simply polls the church population. But it ignores the number of women (and men) in the church (and those who have left or are on the periphery of the church) who are linguistically and theologically aware. There are also significant numbers of pastors who already modify their translations in the liturgy. They are sensitive to linguistic change and do not believe the excluding language of most of the translations, or the translation choices that offend or put down persons in relation to their race, sex, or physical condition, correctly convey the intention of Scripture and the Gospel. The inclusive language lectionary may not be helpful to such pastors and laypersons, but it is riding their coattails rather than pulling them out where they do not choose to be.

In recognizing the experimental and voluntary character of this lectionary, one needs to distinguish between the work, of the committee revising the RSV, which is a formal translation that is intended for wide, general usage for various purposes and is officially or unofficially recognized in different contexts, and the inclusive language lectionary, which is a project that does not carry official and formal status except insofar as it has the authorization of the National Council of Churches. The latter is intended to function genuinely in an experimental fashion, that is, in the hope that persons will take the readings given in the lectionary and use them in a variety of ways and contexts, always from a critical perspective, to see how such a reading and hearing of Scripture is faithful to the intent and message of the Scriptures or not. Are the readings communicative of the word of God and the Gospel that the church always claims to hear in the Scriptures when it takes them up in the context of worship and preaching? No communities are being asked to endorse or claim the use of these readings except those who truly want to do so.

28 - The Inclusive Language Lectionary

In evaluating the inclusive language lectionary one needs to be aware of the distinction between these readings, whose function is in the reading of Scripture to the community gathered for worship, and the translation which is designed to serve any function that the Bible may have in the life of the community of faith. In the context of worship, Scripture is not simply an ancient text whose relevance one will seek to discern for the community. It is and becomes the word of God heard, received, and appropriated. That is why so many pastors, male and female, reading whatever translation is before them, feel pain and hurt in ways inconsistent with either the Gospel or the Christian message and so give their own translation modifications in the reading.

It is also the case that the reading or oral communication of Scripture is lifted up in the use of a lectionary. That is seen, for example, in those changes in the text where names have been used in place of the pronouns present in the Hebrew or Greek. Such changes serve to de-emphasize a heavily masculine tone in some passages, a tone that is heard much more loudly in our day than previously, but they also help the reader distinguish between the various persons speaking or spoken to or about in a story. One does not lose the connection or movement in the narrative in a train of pronouns, a possibility that frequently happens in the hearing of the text when one does not have an opportunity to go back, re-read, and make sure one understands the flow and is clear who is speaking.

The other large matter that rises in regard to reaction to the lectionary is the issue of translation and the various senses and understandings of the translation task that people hold. For many persons, all kinds of things may be legitimate (not necessarily agreed upon) by way of biblical interpretation or theological statement except in the translation of Holy Scripture. There the interpreter is seen as under significant constraints. To go too far is to rewrite the Bible, and it is easy to go too far too quickly.

Fundamentally, such caution and quick reactions warning against bad translation are good and appropriate. Good translation is a cautious, essentially conservative task. But there are some other things that need to be in the picture. One of these is the fact that translation is already a level of interpretation, albeit a low level. It is one that has not moved as far as commentary, or the even further removed exposition. The bridge between text and translation is not as long as that between text and these further enterprises, but the gap and the need to bridge it are there nevertheless. One has to move in some direction-and there may be various directions in which one could move-and be guided by some principles about how the text should be heard, even in order to produce a translation.

Among readers of the Bible, there is a widespread impression, which those of us who translate and interpret tend to perpetuate, that

29 - The Inclusive Language Lectionary

translation is largely a matter of one to one correspondence, and that the production of a good translation is simply a matter of finding those who know enough or know the most to do it. The matter, however, is not nearly that simple.

There are many judgment calls in translation, much room for difference of opinion and even strong disagreement. Anyone who has sat on a translation panel knows how many decisions are made by very narrow margins, with often a sizable minority of competent, learned scholars disagreeing with the decision, which then, however, becomes fixed and carries all the weight and authority that is given to that particular translation.

III

There really are different possibilities for pressing what one finds in the original text. One can choose ways that emphasize certain things while de-emphasizing other things, or one can express a particular nuance in one translation that is not clearly indicated in another. In many respects that is exactly what has gone on at the basic level in the work of the inclusive language lectionary committee. In a translation enterprise where translators have no sense that certain modes of expression function in an excluding way by heavy use of mate terms, there will be no effort to translate phrases and clauses or create syntactical constructions with a minimal use of male pronouns, although the Hebrew or Greek of the original text may be quite susceptible to being expressed in a variety of ways that do not use the pronouns heavily.

A translator who is sensitive to these matters can often express the same thing in a different way, and the heavily male oriented language will not be present. That is seen in the simplest way, for example, in the frequent shift in the lectionary from "he who" to "the one who" or " whoever." It is probably inevitable, although unfortunate, that the widespread improvements in the translation of this sort will be skipped over in the critical response and evaluation as readers and reviewers focus on the matter of divine language. But the Inclusive Language Lectionary really does represent the first serious effort on a broad base to produce a translation that properly and legitimately avoids heavy use of male language especially in the pronouns and thus is inevitably heard in a more inclusive fashion. The church needs to do such translation, whether it is done by the lectionary committee, the RSV committee, or others.

The reader of the Bible needs to recognize also that not only does translation represent a dimension of interpretation, but there are different kinds of translations and different principles that can govern translation. There is a general tendency to react to translations by labeling them good or bad. The bad ones are often those that follow principles one does not like. There are very few translations in wide use today that are genuinely bad in the sense of being filled with mistakes,

30 - The Inclusive Language Lectionary

misunderstandings of the Hebrew or Greek, or infelicities of style. There are a variety of translations which often differ primarily by the principles that govern them and/or they serve different purposes. They tend to fall somewhere on a spectrum that runs from the formal, which in its most extreme form would be a highly literal one-to-one correspondence type of translation but in a more modified form is well exemplified by the present RSV, to the dynamic, which in its most extreme form would be a free paraphrase that seeks to convey the general idea of the original in a contemporary idiom but in a more modified form is well exemplified by Today's English Version.

The latter translation (TEV) is instructive for comparison with the inclusive language lectionary. For one thing, it has made some serious efforts at inclusive language anticipating the lectionary. In Psalm 1, the Hebrew ish or "man" of vs. 1 is interpreted collectively, and the whole Psalm is transformed into plural rather than singular person. The "brothers" of Psalm 133:1 has become "God's people," which not only replaces the masculine term but inserts a reference to God that is not in the Hebrew text. A judgment has been made about the reference of the Hebrew achim or "brothers." Psalm 23:5, which reads literally, "You have made fat my head with oil," and, more familiarly, "Thou anointest my head with oil," TEV translates "You welcome me as an honored guest." From one translation perspective that simply is not what the text says; it is an interpretation of its meaning. From another perspective, it may be exactly what the text seeks to communicate.

Two other examples are very similar to what the lectionary is doing in its effort at inclusive formulation. TEV has adopted the term "Sovereign" as a synonym for Lord in the phrase Adonai Yahweh, that is, "Sovereign LORD." Yet the substitution of the perfectly good synonym "Sovereign" or "the Sovereign One" for "Lord" in the lectionary has precipitated a strong reaction. To respond by indicating one's preference for "Lord" and the absence of any personal sense of the word as a heavily masculine one is both legitimate and understandable. I tend to share that response, as do many women who are sensitive to inclusive language. The term "Lord" for God is familiar and deeply rooted in the tradition. But the term is a masculine one and so heard in a strong way by some members of the community. One may prefer the word "Lord" but to argue that "Sovereign" is either aesthetically or semantically unacceptable is ridiculous. "Sovereign" is an accurate synonym and does not carry as strong a masculine connotation because it can refer to women as well as men.

The TEV translation has also attacked the problem of how to translate hoi Ioudaioi, literally, "the Jews," in its many appearances in John and its obvious capability of communicating in its contexts a very negative attitude toward Jews. TEV has adopted alternates not dissimilar to those being used by the lectionary, for example, "the Jewish authorities," "people," "crowd," "Judeans," or simply plural pronouns. "The Jewish feast" is simply "the feast." It is worth noting the reaction

31 - The Inclusive Language Lectionary

of one New Testament scholar in printing this out: "This concern to avoid reading into the text what is not there by seeking an appropriate equivalent for 'the Jews' is to be applauded ...this concern for equivalence helps modern readers to understand the Gospel." 1

In the inclusive language lectionary, one encounters a kind of hybrid, that is, a form of the text which, as it uses the RSV base, tends very much toward the formal end of the translation spectrum, and as it translates ("recasts" as the lectionary committee describes its work) in a more inclusive way tends to move toward the dynamic end of the spectrum, seeking to express in the best way in the contemporary situation what the original text communicates. As is generally the case in dynamic translations, the results reflect a stronger sense of linguistic change and contemporary sensibilities about language than one finds in more formal translations. That is reflected, for example, in the much discussed use of "Human One" in place of "Son of Man," or "Child" in place of "Son" in reference to Jesus Christ. These are not departures from the intention of the text but efforts to convey the primary intention of the Hebrew and Greek terms and expressions according to present-day usage and in the context of contemporary understanding of language and linguistic change, that is, the breakdown of the generic character of masculine language.

The use of the term "Human One" for "Son of Man" has aroused about as much negative reaction as any decision the committee made. The reasons for such reaction are rarely given or seem flippant. Presumably, part of the opposition at least is due to the move away from the traditional, very familiar expression. Where I have been able to uncover more serious reasons, they seem to have to do with the judgment that "Human One" eliminates the transcendent or divine character that is associated with the "Son of Man" phrase in some contexts and particularly in reference to Jesus. But that understanding of the term or its connotations is not conveyed to an uninformed reader by the terms "son" and "man" put together in a genitival construction but only by background information or context.

The terms "son" and "man" by themselves or in combination carry clear male connotations but not those of transcendence or deity. The

1 John F. Jansen, "The Good News Bible-Today's English Version," Austin Seminary Bulletin, 96 (May, 1981), p. 14. One can also identify in the New English Bible a number of places where the translation is quite free, and words, phrases, and clauses which are clearly not in the original text have been added to clarify and in some sense interpret what is meant, e.g., Rom. 5:14, Gal. 2:2; 3:5. Not all readers or critics approve of such translation decisions, but the translation is not judged irresponsible. In at least six places in the Epistle to the Galatians alone (1: 15, 2:8, 3:5, 5:4, 8, 10) the NEB has used "God" where there is no theos in the text, only a participle or the like, usually rendered into English with "he." This serves to clarify the text and does not mislead the reader as to who is the subject of the verb. But then the same thing is true when the Inclusive Language Lectionary uses "God" in place of a "he" that is in the original text for the sake of semantic and conceptual clarity.

32 - The Inclusive Language Lectionary

interpretation of the expression "Son of Man" is a much-debated matter, but one of the standard understandings of that term in the light of its use in the Old Testament and the general Semitic background of the New Testament usage is that the word "son" in this case refers to the class or group of those defined by the other term in the genitive construction, that is, "man." In this case the term "man" does refer to the human species, not necessarily males, though the contemporary reader may have some difficulty discerning that fact. In other words one who is a "son of man" belongs to the category man or, in the light of contemporary linguistic usage, human being. Not everyone agrees with this analysis of "son of man," but it is a serious, indeed likely option that grows out of an understanding of the original languages and is held by many persons who have a total disinterest, one way or another, in the matter of inclusive or non-inclusive language. In the most recent major study of the Christology of the Gospel of Mark, one of the primary loci for the use of the term "Son of Man" in reference to Jesus, Jack Dean Kingsbury concludes as follows: "In translating this title, one can perhaps capture its force in Mark's story by rendering it as 'this man,' or 'this human being.' " 2

In other words, the recasting by the lectionary committee of the phrase "Son of Man" as "Human One" is virtually identical to the proposal of Kingsbury after detailed and intensive research. Furthermore, it is clear that he understands the term as reflecting divine authority. The phrase "Human One" may not be popular, but it would be a perfectly good equivalent for "Son of Man" in any translation.

As for the replacement of "son" by "child," that is a translation option or recasting that, in my judgment, ought not to incur nearly the surprising reaction or heavy resistance that it seems to do. Although Hebrew has specific terms for a young boy (yeled) or a young girl (yalda) as well as for a small child (tap), it not infrequently uses the word ben, which often means son as distinguished from daughter, as a general term to refer to the category of child, that is, to speak of somebody on the child side of the parent-child relationship. My mother thinks and speaks of me as her son, in distinguishing me from her two daughters. But she thinks and speaks of all three of us as her children-although we are all well into middle age-and that is the primary category. The use of the term "child" neither emphasizes nor de-emphasizes the masculine or feminine character that is obviously present in every human being but lifts up as the primary intention of the expression the relationship, that is, parent and child.

If Jesus is regularly defined and described as the Child, God's Child, Child of God, as is the case in the inclusive language lectionary where

2 Jack D. Kingsbury, The Christology of Mark's Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), p. xii (cf. pp. 168ff.).

33 - The Inclusive Language Lectionary

translations traditionally translate huios as "Son," then it is possible for those terms to bear all the freight that "Son" has carried. What is it in fact that huios, in reference to Jesus, is intended to communicate as well as we can determine? Is it filial relationship? The answer to that is clearly affirmative. That is the essential context of the terminology. Does it also convey recognized status and legal privileges that belonged to sons in the ancient world? Possibly, though that is debated as one can see, for example, in the scholarly discussion about Paul's use of huios ("son") and teknon ("child") to talk about believers in Romans 8. 3 Does huios also intend to convey maleness when it describes Jesus in relation to God? Not really. At least I do not see interpreters arguing that.

But in contemporary usage "son" increasingly connotes filial relationship and maleness but not authority, status, and privileges as over against other children, that is, daughters. So in contemporary English in American culture the "son" language is not working in a way it was intended, and increasingly it is working in a way that was not intended. It focuses attention on maleness to the exclusion of femaleness, or indeed to the subjugation or rejection of femaleness. The use of the "child" language, which can convey the notion of immaturity but does not have to and often does not, and certainly not when the context indicates the referent is an adult, is a choice made on the basis of linguistic change, effective communication, and an understanding of the Gospel and the word it communicates. An educational task to help persons understand what is meant by "Child," "Child of God," and "Human One"-whether in reference to Jesus or other human beings-is as necessary as it has always been with the traditional terms, "Son," "Son of God," and "Son of Man." It is certainly naive to assume the latter terms have always communicated clearly and correctly the meaning of the original or that the former terms cannot.

There are, of course, other issues and other cases of recasting language in the Inclusive Language Lectionary that need to be discussed. I have chosen only a few examples to illustrate some of the translation issues. The committee will benefit from the detailed discussion of its work as it prepares the texts for cycle B and C of the common lectionary. It will continue its efforts on the basis of the legitimate presuppositions that sensitivity to historical meaning and connotation of language need to be balanced by attention to linguistic or semantic change, which is just as real and is not halted by insisting on traditional understanding, and that aesthetic considerations truly matter in the translation task but are always subordinated to the Gospel and its truthful communication.

3 For example, Sanday and Headlam in the International Critical Commentary see a distinction in the two terms; E. K�semann in his commentary argues that they are completely interchangeable.