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The Lord Says, “Listen and Pay Attention to My Female Prophets”
Did God commission men and women to prophesy—to speak authoritatively on his behalf? Is there evidence that the Lord says, “Listen and pay attention to my female prophets?” Ancient Near East scholar Christopher Rollston notes, “The fact that certain biblical texts presuppose that there were women prophets, there can be no debate. There were women prophets in ancient Israel and in Early Christianity. And the term that is used in Hebrew and in Greek for women prophets is the same as the term used for men prophets.”
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Gender and Bible Translation
My former student Rick Hale compared how different Bible translations rendered the Greek word “anthropos” (from which we get “anthropology,” the study of humans) in passages that (a) could reasonably have both men and women in view and (b) are translated with gender inclusive language in the NET Bible. The table provides interpretation of ‘anthropos’ in the specified Bible translations for each passage listed. Translation of ‘anthropos’ (Strongs 444) Passages below (a) could reasonably have both men and women in view and (b) are translated with gender inclusive language in the NET Bible. The table provides interpretation of ‘anthropos’ in the specified Bible translations for each passage listed. Passage KJV…
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Who Gets Lost in Bible Translation?
Today I’m happy to host guest blogger Cynthia Hester, DMin. Dr. Hester writes and teaches about women and church leadership. She writes at cynthiahester.com and is a contributing author to the book 40 Questions About Women in Ministry. In 2021, she founded Theology of Women Academy® to teach Christ-followers, including ministry leaders, the spectrum of orthodox views on women and church leadership to equip them to develop their beliefs—their theology of women. Today’s Bible readers mostly read English translations, rather than Greek and Hebrew texts. Though we don’t have the original writings, we do have thousands of ancient biblical manuscripts from which translations have been written. The Bible, in its original form, is the inspired…
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Lost in Translation: Are Women Really Missing?
Jesus Wants Male and Female Disciples Years ago, during Vacation Bible School, I learned a little song based on Jesus’s words to his fisherman-followers. It went like this: I will make you fishers of men, Fishers of men, Fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men If you follow me… Men, men, men, men. Four times. I must have unconsciously internalized that, because I heard this: the male Jesus told his male followers to go find other males and invite them to follow the Lord. These words of Jesus to which I’m referring are recorded by Matthew (4:19). The English Standard Version (ESV),…
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The Bible: Women Are More Present Than We Might Think
Recently, I heard from a woman who said that since about the age of 12 years, she has attended church weekly, sometimes multiple times a week. Yet in all those years, she heard little teaching that features, highlights, or affirms women. She said, “From a very early point in my journey I would consider whether words like ‘he,’ ‘men’ or ‘disciple’ were intended for everyone or just males. In many instances during my studies, I would replace those words with ‘she’ or ‘women’ in my notes, because it made it feel more personal and applicable to me as a woman. Still, I have pretty much always felt like an outsider or like…
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When “He” Also Means “She”
One night I was reading the Bible to my daughter. As I read an applicational verse from an older translation that began, “The men who…,” I noticed she tuned me out. Knowing the author intended to include both males and females, I re-read the verse to her as “The person who…” She sat up straight up in bed and exclaimed, “Finally! Something to me!” I explained to her, as I had done previously, that “he” or “his” can refer to male and female (which is actually sort of confusing gender-wise), and she insisted, “I know….” Yet despite what she knew, she perceived the author as excluding her. Recently, a godly…
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