Valiant or Virtuous?

Gender Bias in Bible Translation

Suzanne McCarthy, Jay Frankel

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781532676635
  9781532676642
• eBook ISBN:
  9781532676659
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This book explores a systematic bias in translating the Bible and in interpreting its teachings, which suggests that men are inherently suited to be leaders in the home, church, and community, while it is God's plan for women to submit to men's leadership. This erroneous understanding of the Bible has been promoted by certain influential evangelical Christian leaders in order to push back the growing influence of feminist attitudes, the expansion of women's leadership roles, and the increase in egalitarian relationships among evangelicals in English-speaking North America.    Written in a down-to-earth, engaging way, this book will appeal to young women searching the Bible for guidance on women's roles in relationships and in the church. It highlights the dynamic roles played by women in the narratives of Old and New Testament and in the work of Bible translation. Built on a solid framework of biblical and linguistic scholarship, this book will also be of interest to Bible scholars and to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of what the Bible actually says in its original languages.

Section 1

Gender Attributes

chapter 1

Strength

A good wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.

(Prov 31:10, RSV)

I attended a wedding with my family in the Pacific Northwest last summer. On the day of the wedding, we drove out of town on a country road to a large house situated in a field of dry grass and surrounded by ponderosa pines. We parked and made our way—some of us in spike heels and others in flip flops—down the gravel driveway to the rough lawn where chairs were set up. Strains of a cello drifted through the trees as we took our seats. A dozen young men in gray cotton slacks and blue shirts, and a dozen bridesmaids in short chiffon dresses in shades of mint, lemon, and sand, flanked the bride and groom. The clouds threatened rain and the wind sifted through the pines and gently lifted the hems of the soft frocks.

The ministry leader spoke warmly of the bride and groom, about their faithful Christian lives, and about their commitment and leadership qualities. He described the groom in biblical language as a “mighty man of valor.” Next, a dozen young men, with one arm raised to the sky, stepped forward in unison and a cheer rang out, three times: “a mighty man of God.”

Then the leader spoke in equally laudatory terms of the bride, using a biblical turn of phrase once again: “a virtuous woman of God.” Before turning to the bridesmaids to signal their turn to cheer, however, he hesitated. He paused, wavered, and then altered the cheer. The bridesmaids stepped forward and with one arm raised, cheered three times for “a noble woman of God.” This beautiful young couple, with both partners suited for leadership, was married to the cadences of rich biblical prose and the sighing of the wind in the pines. It was an exuberant, over-the-top, evangelical Christian wedding.

But what caused the hesitancy and self-correction on the part of the leader when he came to address the bride, after he had spoken of the groom in no uncertain terms as a “mighty man of God?” Why did he feel compelled to redefine the language he used for the bride? It was not that he was unfamiliar with the vocabulary of the Bible; rather, it may have been the fact that the word choice varies greatly from one Bible translation to another, and that this variation is especially marked in passages dealing with women.

A man who is called in Hebrew an ish gibbor chayil, or gibbor chayil, is often called a “mighty man of valor” or a “valiant man” in English Bibles. However, the eshet chayil, the woman of Prov 31, is called a “virtuous woman,” an “excellent wife,” or “a noble woman.”i Although the vocabulary for men and women is similar in Hebrew, it differs in most English Bibles. In the Jewish Publication Society translation, however, eshet chayil is translated as “woman of valor,” a phrase that matches “man of valor.”

In fact, most Bible translations rarely translate a word in Hebrew or Greek into the same particular word in English every time, particularly when it comes to gender. It is common for men and women who are given the same attributes in the Hebrew Bible to be described using different attributes in the English Bible. In the words of Al Wolters, a respected Hebrew scholar who wrote about Prov 311:

The subject of this song is called an eshet chayil, a term which has been translated in many different ways, but which in this context should probably be understood as the female counterpart of the gibbor chayil, the title given to the “mighty men of valour” which are often named in David’s age. The person who is celebrated in this song is a “mighty woman of valour.”

Even though this analysis of the Hebrew language is well known to scholars, the woman in Prov 31 is not called a “woman of valor” in any of the major evangelical Bible translations. Even though the same Hebrew word, chayil, is used to describe the mighty men of David’s army2 and the woman in Prov 31, the same English word is never used in both cases. Rather, chayil is usually translated as “valor” when describing men and as “virtue” or “excellence” when describing women.

This style of translation appears to align with the view of some English translators regarding the appropriate way to describe the two genders in English. In earlier translations, the word chayil used to be translated as “virtuous,” for women; more recently, it may be translated as “noble” or “excellent,” while men are still described as “valorous” or “valiant.” However, even this more recent translation bears no relation to the Hebrew poetic style, which describes both men and women as chayil or “valiant.”

At first glance, one might suspect English Bible translators of obvious gender bias. However, the story behind this style of translation is much longer and more varied than the history of English Bibles. It is worth taking a look at how these translations came about.

The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, called the Septuagint, was completed a couple of centuries before the Christian era. In this translation, the woman of Prov 31 and Ruth3 (the only other woman in the scriptures who is called chayil) were both described using the Greek word andreia, or brave. The word andreia is an adjective derived from the Greek word aner, meaning “man,” “warrior,” or “citizen.” The adjective does not mean “manly” or “masculine,” but rather “brave” or “courageous.” In the same way, the adjective chayil in Hebrew does not refer specifically to a male, although when used as a noun, chayil often refers to the military or to a prominent or leadership role in society. God is described as chayil in the Psalms. It is clear that women can be chayil as well. So, in the Greek translation, the desired wife was valiant, and a match for her husband.

The next stage of Bible translation was into Latin. This translation, called the Vulgate, was made in the late 4th century.ii It was the work of the Christian scholar Jerome and the wealthy Roman widow Paula, who financed his project and worked alongside him in learning Hebrew and drafting the translation. Over the centuries, this translation became the preferred text of the Roman Church. In this translation, the eshet chayil of Prov 31 became mulier fortis: “woman of strength.”

However, in the book of Ruth, Jerome translated the word chayil into virtus, or virtue, so the phrase became a “woman of virtue.” The Latin word virtus had a wide range of meanings that encompassed manliness, excellence, character, worth, and courage. In Roman mythology, Virtus was the deity of bravery and military strength, and the personification of Roman virtue (virtus). In fact, the word virtus was derived from the word vir, meaning “man.” In English, however, “virtue” typically means “chastity” or “discretion”—a far cry from bravery and manliness.

Another Latin translation that influenced the English Bible translators was that of Pagninus, a Dominican scholar who printed his Latin Bible in 1528. He characterized Ruth as a mulier virtuosa, possibly meaning “distinguished” or “excellent”—it is difficult to know in retrospect—or perhaps just “virtuous” as we know it. In any case, the word chayil in regards to Ruth was subsequently translated as “virtuous” in English, giving the impression that virtue in the form of “chastity” and “discretion” is the chief attribute for a worthy woman. Yet the narrative makes it clear that Ruth was recognized as chayil for her bravery in traveling without the protection of a man to a foreign nation, and for providing for her widowed mother-in-law.

Boaz, the wealthy landowner, an ish gibbor chayil, who seeks Ruth as his wife, addresses Ruth: “And now, my daughter, do not be afraid; I will do for you all that you ask, for all the assembly of my people know that you are an eshet chayil.”4

English has a preference for different vocabulary for men and women. However, readers of the Bible need to be aware that when men and women are described in the Bible using different vocabulary, this is a feature of the English language, and in no way reflects the original languages that the Bible was written in. Hebrew contains no adjectives that are used to describe only men and not women, or vice versa. Boaz was a valiant man and wanted a valiant wife—a wife who would be a good match for him.

It may be more accurate to describe this phenomenon of different vocabulary for men and women as a gender bias within the English language. It can be considered as simply an inexact transfer of meaning from the Latin virtu...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• List of Abbreviations for Bible Translations
• Introduction by Jay Frankel
• Section 1: Gender Attributes
• Section 2: Gender Roles
• Section 3: Gender Terms
• Section 4: Gender of the Divine
• Endnotes
• Bibliography