Pat Robertson. Ugh. He needs a big time come-to-Jesus meeting. A bunch of people took him to task personally and in the press during one of his more recent spews. It appears it didn't make a dent.
The thing that pisses me off is that newer Bible translations are often more true to the original language, while being more inclusive. The original texts weren't nearly as patricarchical as the KJV in a lot of cases.Right. I don't know any Hebrew, or Greek, so I don't know how/where this applies specifically to biblical translation, but some languages use the male words as a default, when they mean a mixed group. I know you would translate the English word "parents" into "padres" in Spanish. Padre singular, is the word for father, and parents defaults to the plural of fathers. If I were talking about my mum and dad in Spanish, I would say padres, even though I didn't mean my fathers, and was very much including my mother. Similarly, if I were talking about my siblings in Spanish, I would say hermanos, which is both the plural of hermano (brother), even if I meant a group consisting of my brothers and sisters. A lot of times, a more inclusive translation is also a more accurate translation.
But if you can make either exist just like that (or they could both be existing at the very same time) I don't feel the same sort of loss as the desecration of something that can never be restored to its full glory. Or at least not quickly.
I understand what you mean, and agree, in all the big, important senses. I meant it only in very specific and immediate sense. It certainly doesn't have the long range consequences. I meant to draw a comparison only in the sense of changing an artist's work (and in tainting the experience of the people who are using the art as the artist created it, in their act of worship).