Date
8-6-2025
Department
Rawlings School of Divinity
Degree
Master of Arts in Biblical Languages (MA)
Chair
Steven Hugh Mathews
Keywords
Gender, Gender Accuracy, Bible Translation, Feminism, Androcentrism, Masculine Representative, Gender Inclusivity, Bible, Feminist Hermeneutical Lens
Disciplines
Christianity
Recommended Citation
Gennard, Matthew T., "Gender in Translation: How the Contemporary Bible Is Challenging Androcentric Language in Translation Through Gender-Accurate and Feminist Hermeneutical Lenses" (2025). Masters Theses. 1353.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/masters/1353
Abstract
This Thesis surveys the changing practice of gender-accurate translation from the late nineteenth century to the present, with special consideration for the three key principles of gender-accurate translation: Generic ‘he,’ androcentric lexemes, and pronoun substitution. These focus areas are derived from an analysis of the five translation guidelines produced during the late twentieth-century gender-neutral controversy. The loss of individuality when introducing pronominal interchange or the masculine representative hermeneutical lens has left scholars divided on gender-accurate practices. This study surveys the sociohistorical development of the feminist hermeneutical lens and the changing linguistic trends of contemporary language, which challenge androcentric assumptions in translation.
The Letter to the Romans is used as a case study to examine the presence of gender- accurate translation practices in the Apostle Paul’s citations of the Old Testament. This study focuses on the Greek New Testament and examines how Paul employs the Koine language to address a diverse audience. This Thesis concludes with a set of gender-accurate guidelines that present both the lexical and grammatical case study findings alongside the sociohistorical findings of the translation survey in conjunction with the feminist hermeneutical lens. These findings challenge the emergence of the masculine representative lens: an artificially constructed masculinity in response to second-wave feminist thinking. The proposed guidelines present an inclusive space for both sexes within scripture that reflects the historical interpretations and lexical nuances of key terminology in contemporary language, prohibiting androcentric bias from forming a lens through which humanity engages with Scripture.
