The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation. Priests for Equality. Sheed & Ward, 2009.
When I was a seminary student in the heady 1980s, my seminary was still trying to come to terms with the fact of female students; the old school (German by dogma or by surname) faculty members were completely unable to embrace a non-gendered or non-male God. The authoritative text was the Revised Standard Version; its update, the New Revised Standard Version, was published shortly after I graduated and came with critical reputation as the translation most faithful to the original languages. I have relied on it ever since.
But there was, has been always, a need to read and hear scripture as something other than an, albeit holy, resource by, for and about men and their male God.
Let’s be honest: scripture in the original languages isn’t nearly as male as the men through the centuries have wanted us to believe. In English, Holy Spirit is often he, for example, but in Hebrew she is she, and in Greek it has no gender at all. (And God is often they, in fact.) There are all kinds of female images of God, as others can enumerate far better than I. Beyond that god-talk, it is often the case in scripture that some attribute, event or invitation is said to speak to men or brothers, while the original language speaks of people or siblings, or intends inclusion when language is limited and limiting. It is a problem that clearly needed addressing.
Back in seminary, some of us women went rogue. We simply changed the text, often changing it on the fly, as we were reading in worship. That off-the-cuff approach turned out not to be a good idea; a non-ancient-language-fluent reader could (and sometimes did) tie herself in linguistic or theological knots. Besides, our sacred texts deserve more thoughtful, responsible consideration. Alas, we lacked resources for more inclusive and still faithful translation.
Later, inclusive language lectionaries began to appear, all helpful to a point. The Inclusive Bible is the first work on my radar to take on the whole of scripture with integrity. My congregation has used it in worship for about three years, I think, and I thought it might be useful to offer a bit of critique.
The translation was done by a group calling themselves Priests for Equality, a project of the Quixote Center, “Working to mobilize lay Catholics to advocate for equality and inclusivity in the Church.” (more on their website: https://www.quixote.org/catholics-speak-out.)
I appreciate the effort. Aside from the responsible rendering of passages that malign LGBTQ folks in other, conservative paraphrases, (always a litmus test for me in stamping any translation with approval), my primary compliments here are that the work removes male language for God and maleness as the default representation of humanity. This is huge, and a good enough reason to consider it for public reading.
Of close secondary concern, it is also easier reading for congregational hearing, speaking some of the awkward mysteries, national events and relationships in plainer language. Our people appreciate it.
The Inclusive Bible (TIB) also rewrites beloved poetry in some cases, which can be edifying or disappointing. Here are samples:
Remember Isaiah 58: You shall be called the repairers of the breach, the restorers of streets to live in? TIB has this: Repairer of Broken Walls, and Restorer of Ruined Neighborhoods.
Either is faithful, and perhaps a fresh reading helps us hear it a new way. Would we be more likely to reconsider “Who is our neighbor?” if we understood we are called to be restorers of broken neighborhoods? It’s worth a try.
Or consider these verses from Job 38:
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
That’s the NRSV.
Now, The Inclusive Bible:
Then YHWH answered Job from the heart of the storm:
who is this obscuring my plans with such ignorant words?
Hitch up your belt like the fighter you are;
now I will ask the questions and you will answer me!
Where were you when I created the earth?
If you know the answer, tell me!
Perhaps in this Job passage, replacing “darkening” with “obscuring” was an intentional step away from language that seems to equate dark with bad and may reinforce our white-supremacist goodness; I haven’t heard that complaint in my mixed race congregation and would want to be sensitive. If we can’t speak of darkening, can we speak of overshadowing? I don’t know. There are clearly conversations from which we will still learn. According to at least one bible scholar (Janzen), “obscuring” God’s plans may not be close enough. Based on his ruminations, I got the feeling something more like subverting or sabotaging, maybe? or denigrating? bastardizing? I’ll be thinking about that a bit more, as I’m preaching on that this weekend.
Regarding the male language in this passage, God was speaking to Job, so I don’t have a problem keeping Job’s gender as presented. Others may have other needs.
Another fairly familiar passage is less neutral, and takes undue liberties with meaning. In Mark 10, Jesus is confronted by a rich man who wants to know how to inherit life. Jesus tells him to sell all his property and give the money to the poor. The man didn’t want to.
So the passage goes on, in the NRSV:
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’
And in the Inclusive Bible:
Jesus looked around and said to the disciples, “How hard it is for rich people to enter the kindom of God!”
The disciples could only marvel at these words. So Jesus repeated what he had said: “My children, how hard it is to enter the realm of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the Needle’s Eye gate than for a rich person to enter the kindom of God!”
I appreciate that this Inclusive Bible consistently uses kindom rather than kingdom. But catch the “eye of the needle” part. The NRSV keeps the faithful translation; the Inclusive Bible takes a giant liberty, buying into the needle’s eye as a small gate that camels could only enter by kneeling. That, says Myers, is a later interpretation that waters down the radical economic agenda of Jesus. Whether you buy into that as well, we ought to at least acknowledge it is a literary and theological choice by editors and preachers, and not a faithful translation.
In that same Mark passage, NRSV says the problem was possessions, and TIB says property. Myers prefers “property,” with implications for who is addressed: “possessions” sounds like extra shoes or electronics; “property” puts the indictment at the feet of the owner/landed class. A win for the TIB!
Finally, The Inclusive Bible persists in using “YHWH” rather than Lord, as the Tetragrammaton is deliberately rendered in most English versions. I believe “God” would have worked in those cases and still preserved the dignity of the divine name, in respect to our Jewish neighbors. But Brueggemann uses YHWH throughout at least one of his books (the one I’m reading currently), so maybe i’m the one out of touch.
This bible is available electronically and in print. It is a very good resource at a reasonably low cost. It can illuminate the reading, it can help a congregation engage; but it cannot be the final word for homiletic study.
references:
Janzen, Gerald. Job: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Westminster John Knox. 1997.
Myers, Ched. Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus. Orbis Books. 2008.