The Lure-In-the-Feminists Argument

The Lure-In-the-Feminists Argument goes as follows. It is very important for us to encourage everyone in the world to learn about Jesus Christ. The best information available is in the Greek and Hebrew Bible, and any translation will lose some meaning, but a translation is much better than not reading the Bible at all. The basic message comes through clearly even in translation. Using feminist language is only taking the process a step further. It may lose some nuances and change the meaning a little here and there, but it doesn't affect the basic message. A feminist Bible is much better than no Bible, just as the Living Bible, a paraphrase, is better than no Bible.

If we do not have a feminist Bible available, though, the outcome is the same for many people as if we had no Bible. Feminists will open the Bible, and hit ``Let us make man in our image'' in verse 26, and be offended. Wherever they look, they will find ``man'' and ``he''. They will stop reading, and a soul will be lost. So let's accept a little inaccuracy for the sake of encouraging new Christians, since feminists care a lot about language and the rest of us don't care much.

The shortest reply to this argument is,

``I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.'' (Revelation 22: 18-19)

We are not allowed to pretend the Bible says something it does not, even to try to save someone's soul. Remember, it is ultimately God that does the saving, not us. He does not require us to break His law to save souls. If He wants to save those souls, He can do it even with sexist language.

Even without Scripture, though, the argument does not hold water. Let me go over a few of the argument's premises.

• People who are turned off by the current NIV's language will read the Bible if the language is changed. This is wrong for two reasons. First, almost all the people who are offended by the language are in the mainline churches and are not reading the NIV to begin with. They read other translations. Second, anyone who is offended by ``he'' is going to be much more offended by other parts of the Bible, such as the masculinity of God, Jesus, Adam and most of the other characters, the description of the good woman in Proverbs, the verses relating to the role of women in Ephesians and 1 Timothy, and the Torah's laws regarding women. Changing all the ``he''s is not going to help at all; if you really believe this argument, you need to rewrite the entire Bible.
• People who are turned off by the current NIV's language will stop reading the Bible. These people have the New Revised Standard Version available to them. Keeping the NIV as it is now will not block their Bible reading.
• Many people are turned off by the current NIV's language . How many? Nobody even thought this was a potential problem until the last ten years or so.
• Very few people would be bothered by feminist language in the NIV. . There are a lot more conservatives reading the NIV than feminists. To be sure, they would be bothered not by seeing `` they'' instead of ``he'' but by the sacrilege of changing the original ``he'' to please feminists, but they would be bothered nonetheless.
• It is bad that people are offended by the current NIV's language . Their offense may help them. It could reveal to them their pride, their desire for high status, and their resistance to God's word. Changing the Bible to take away the parts that bother some people is not to help those people---quite the reverse.