Last year, the Jewish Publication Society released a revised, “Gender-Sensitive Edition” of the Tanakh (RJPS) meant to update or replace its widely used 1985 new edition (NJPS). Martin Lockshin acknowledges that this new approach yields some reasonable or even felicitous results, but points to many that are neither:
RJPS sometimes elegantly accomplishes the goal of making the English less gendered. For example, nothing is lost when NJPS’s reference to God as “The Rock!—His deeds are perfect,” becomes in RJPS “The Rock!—whose deeds are perfect” (Deuteronomy 32:4). At other times, RJPS substitutes clumsy prose for gendered language. . . .
RJPS makes the debatable claim that ancient Israelites, the original readers of the Bible, may have understood God as beyond gender. So RJPS never refers to God as “He.” In RJPS, the moving poetry of Psalm 78 contains 25 awkward uses of “[God]” in square brackets to avoid writing “He.”
Clumsiness aside, RJPS unfortunately distorts the meaning of many biblical texts in its quest to rid the Bible of gendered language. . . . NJPS translates Deuteronomy 28:45: “because you did not heed the LORD your God and keep the commandments and laws that He enjoined upon you.” In order to avoid using “He,” RJPS has: “because you did not heed the ETERNAL your God and keep the commandments and laws enjoined upon you,” removing the clear reference in the Hebrew to God as the one who commanded the laws. An important nuance is thus lost.
More about: Gender, Hebrew Bible, Translation