Metabiblical

It is always possible to get yourself in trouble over gender. Instead of illustrating this with a short quote, I’d like to illustrate it with a really long quote.

I believe it was 2018 when Canada’s then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau experienced this firsthand, when in some sort of open-air meeting the following exchange occurred. I am taking this from a YouTube Video:

Woman: … Also, one thing that I wanted to give you thanks for is also how you have recently filled the seats of your cabinet with female leaders. [Crowd makes appreciative noises.] Yes! Yes! So we believe that you’ve done this because you recognize the ability and power that women actually possess, and the reason why women possess this kind of power is not because they’re authoritive [sic], but it’s actually because they hold something called maternal love, and maternal love, scientifically known as mitochondria or oxytocin, is the necessity that sustains life in our global village, and actually, this kind of love is a love that puts forth–puts others ahead of themselves, like a mother cares for her children. If the economy is filled with women our society will truly develop beautifully and honestly what every country needs. [Crowd makes appreciative noises, but more quietly this time.] Yes! Until this moment in time our world has not actually seen this kind of equality, so I give you thanks for allowing our nation to take part in this movement. It’s very important. Actually, our world today is deteriorating in love. There’s more wars going on, more hatred going on, even churches are also deteriorating, but I would just want to let you know one aspect. We are from, actually, the World Mission Society Church of God and the reason why actually our church is different and is growing is because actually we have the female aspect of God which is God the mother, actually. The whole world only knows God the father, but in the Bible …

[some kind of cross-talk occurs]

Trudeau: Do you have a question?

Woman: I do. I absolutely do. Actually, my question is about volunteering. Okay, so the World Mission Society Church of God is truly growing and changing society through our volunteer work. We have received the Queen’s award in the UK. We have received–I have a question–[cross-talk]. Yes, we have received many awards throughout the whole world. However, unfortunately, in Canada our volunteering as a charitable religious organization is extremely difficult–extremely–that’s why in actuality we cannot do free volunteering to help our neighbors in need as we truly desire. So that’s why we came here today to ask you to also look into the policies that religious charitable organizations have in our legislation so that it can also be changed because maternal love is the love that’s going to change the future of mankind, so we’d like you to look …

Trudeau: We would like to say peoplekind, not necessarily mankind, ’cause it’s more inclusive.

Woman: There we go, exactly! Thank you!

Trudeau: We can all learn from each other!

In the English language, we are in a bit of a weird place with gender. On the one hand, we have a long history of using ‘he’ or some of form of a default masculine subject to stand in for both men and women. On the other hand, there has also been a move toward making grammatical gender more clearly match real-world gender, and so sometimes the use of ‘man’ or ‘he’ when a generic ‘person’ or ‘human’ is intended can come off either as offensive, or as simply confusing.

And so Trudeau, finding himself unexpectedly on the receiving end of a sermon feminist sermon, perks up the moment he hears the speaker use the word ‘mankind’, and delivers his line about how ‘peoplekind’ would be more inclusive. The internet was quickly ablaze with people who did not or would not understand the context of the phrase, and took away from the incident nothing more than Trudeau thinks ‘mankind’ is sexist and wants us to say ‘peoplekind’ instead, because he is a dork.

Why did I put you through this?

To illustrate a simple point: the use of what we might call ‘generic masculine’ language is still deeply enough embedded in the language that it can at times be used clearly even in the middle of a feminist manifesto (peopleifesto?). Were it not for Trudeau’s desire to derail (rerail?) the conversation, probably no one would have noticed.

And with this we come to Deuteronomy 17, and I will quote it in the KJV, because in this passage the KJV sticks very close to what the Hebrew is doing with gender.

Verses 2-5. If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrong in Israel: Then thou shalt bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, until they die.

Notice that the Deuteronomist is perfectly capable of writing in an explicitly neutral way when the urge strikes. Repeatedly, our author speaks of “man or woman”. And when the guilty party is given a pronoun, that pronoun is the singular they, as in “and shalt stone them with stones, until they die”. It’s all very modern. It is unmistakeable that the Deuteronomist is calling for the death of polytheists of either sex.

But now consider verses 6 and 7. Here the gender-neutral language disappears.

At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.

If we take the gender of the Hebrew expressions mechanically into English, we might be under the impression that the principle of innocent until proven guilty by two witnesses applies only to males in Deuteronomy.

The NRSV is having non of this sexism, and makes 6-7 gender-neutral.

On the evidence of two or three witnesses the death sentence shall be executed; a person must not be put to death on the evidence of only one witness. The hands of the witnesses shall be the first raised against the person to execute the death penalty, and afterwards the hands of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

And yet, according to Deuteronomy 22:20-21, the two-witnesses principle does not apply to all women. As the NRSV reads it:

If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Or consider Deuteronomy 19:15-19. Here it is in the KJV:

One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong; Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; And the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you.

In Hebrew, this is a case of a false witness rising up against an ish, a man (v. 16), in what v. 17 describes as a controversy between two men, that is, of one against his brother (v. 18). The penalty is that the false witness is punished the way the accused would have been punished, had a guilty verdict been returned.

So are we to conclude that the biblical principle of equal punishment for perjury applies to both men and women? The NRSV seems to think so. The Hebrew man, man, men, and brother become someone, a person, parties, and a fellow Israelite.

Very well. Some paraphrasing was needed, but now the NRSV is able to successfully communicate to the reader that Deuteronomy protects both men and women with a strong punishment for perjury. Right? Wrong.

In Deuteronomy 22:17b-19, we read what happens when a man falsely accuses a woman of the capital crime of pre-marital sex:

Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, and the elders shall take the man and punish him. They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

We cannot, as moderns, take passages that guarantee various legal protections to men and automatically assume that Deuteronomy extends those legal guarantees to women.

It seems to me that Deuteronomy is well aware of what it takes to write gender-neutral law, and has chosen not to do so. A translation, I would think, should reflect his.