by Red Piller 14 Replies latest watchtower bible
The NWT translation renders Matt 18:2 this way,
"So, calling a young child to him, he set it in their midst "
Calling a child "it" made me curious. I looked up other translations and did not find a similar phrasing. All referred to the child as "the child" or "him".
EX: "And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, ... from the King James Bible Online (KJV Bible)."
Is the NWT rendering demeaning? Am I reading too much into this?
Interesting find.
-Sab
The NIV was wildly criticized by Evangelicals for the attention paid to gender neutrality. Or, put another way: gender fairness.
The NWT is avoiding the issue!
It was a Freudian slip as the GB see children as objects not little people.
The excuse of the NW"T" translators is that the word "paidion" - child - is neuter and any pronouns associated with it are necessarily also neuter. Thus at Matt 18:2 the text says that Jesus stood the "little boy" [KIT] - "paidion" - in their midst and said to "it" [Greek "auto"].
The problem is of course, that the pronoun is not establishing a cultural medium from whence children are addressed, but is simply following grammatical rules that are detirmened by Greek syntax. The English translator is not bound by grammatical restrictions of Greek syntax but must convey what is said into readable English.
The rule is that while children in the womb may still be referred to as an "it", when they are born and are living an independent existence they establish their own gender values. The conventional idiom is that if no gender is mentioned, to use "he", but some prefer to retain the expression "child" to translate the word "auto".
Having said that, however, there is a curious inconsistency when referring to Jesus. At Lu 2:27, the use of "auto" causes the NW"T" translators to refer to Jesus as an "it", but a little farther along, in verse 40, the same word "auto" is ignored and Jesus suddenly has gender! He is dutifully referred to as "him".
This comes from the fact that the Greek word "paidion" ( = little boy/child) is neuter and takes a neuter pronoun. Translating into a language such as English which does not have grammatically gendered nouns (only semantically gendered) with a neuter pronoun is more likely to betray a lack of appreciation for the principle of translating idiomatic Greek into idiomatic English, than a desire to duck the gender exclusiveness issue.
NRSV renders this verse: "He called a child, whom he put among them."
So, ten out of ten to NRSV and seven out of ten to NWT
Here is a link to the Greek text of the verse. If you put your mouse over the word in the morpholgy column you will see that auto is accusative, neuter and singular. It is neuter-singular to agree with paidion (a child) which is its antecedent. Thus, the NWT rendering is a literal rendering.
Rob and Moggy: You guys type alot faster than me!
Quick question while you got your Greek boots on:
At the end of the illustration of the FDS in Luke 12, in verse 48, Jesus concludes with a principle which forms the basis of the parable: "panti de w edothe . . ." ("everyone to whom much was given . . ." [NWT]). What I was wondering, would Jesus' use of panti be a clue to Peter as to the answer to his question in verse 41 which prompted the parable? (pros hemas tnv parabolnv tautnv legeis n kai pros pantas, to us the parable you say or also to all - notice Peter's use of pantas.)
'Child' and 'baby' usually have the pronoun 'it' in English.
Interesting article - http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/09/28/a_girl_called_it/
"It's a girl!" / "It's a boy!"
I for one think the Society is to be commended for not assuming "it" was a boy.
In languages that have no neutral gender the text is rendered in the masculine gender. like french,
How would Mathew remember after decades wether it was a boy or a girl? male was the all covering term. so"
Vivre la difference.
