A useful challenge from Marion Taylor.
In a recent exchange, Old Testament scholar Marion Taylor encouraged us to look beyond the narrow question of whether modern English is “inclusive.” She pointed toward a larger history: women have interpreted these passages for centuries, translators make grammatical choices that can carry theological consequences, and manuscript variation itself can sometimes affect how women appear in the text.
She suggested several concrete places to learn from: Amanda W. Benckhuysen’s work on women reading Genesis 1–3, Katharine C. Bushnell’s challenges to traditional translations, textual questions around Prisca/Priscilla and Aquila, and the English tense choice in Genesis 2:19.
We have turned those suggestions into four public GitHub issues so the questions can be examined independently rather than compressed into a single claim about “bias.”
Genesis 3:8: “the man and the woman” or “his wife”?
The current edition uses “the man and the woman” in Genesis 3:8. That was an intentional English symmetry choice. It keeps both participants visible at the moment they hide from YHWH Elohim.
But the Hebrew can support the more source-near relational wording “the man and his wife.” We do not want readers to mistake our current wording for evidence of a different Hebrew manuscript. The question is whether the visibility gained in English justifies the editorial move, or whether that reasoning belongs in a note rather than the verse itself.
“the man and his wife”
“the man and the woman”
The decision is still open.
We have framed three options publicly: keep the current wording with a transparent note, return to “the man and his wife” and move the visibility question into commentary, or find another rendering that preserves both relationship and participant visibility.
Translation is only one layer.
The point of separating these issues is methodological. A manuscript variant is not the same thing as a translator’s wording choice. A translator’s wording choice is not the same thing as centuries of interpretation. If we call all of them “misogyny,” we lose the ability to tell readers exactly what happened and where.
Work worth reading before we decide.
These sources do not all make the same argument. That is part of the value. They help distinguish history of interpretation, philological critique, and textual criticism.
The Gospel According to Eve
Amanda W. Benckhuysen traces women’s interpretations of Genesis 1–3 and shows that the history of reading these chapters is broader than the dominant interpretations many readers inherited.
InterVarsity Press book page ↗Katharine C. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women
Bushnell worked with biblical languages and challenged traditional renderings affecting women. Public selections provide a starting point for assessing her arguments passage by passage.
Read public selections at CBE International ↗“Is There an ‘Anti-Priscan’ Tendency in the Manuscripts?”
Dominika A. Kurek-Chomycz examines textual problems involving Prisca and Aquila and asks whether name-order variation in the manuscript tradition has implications for interpretation.
JSTOR record and DOI ↗Read our current Acts 18:26 rendering →
Genesis 2:19 and “had formed”
The English pluperfect can make Genesis 2 read more smoothly alongside the creation order in Genesis 1. That makes it a useful case for asking where grammar ends and harmonization begins.
Read the ESV passage ↗Read our current Genesis 2:19 rendering →
Make the disagreement inspectable.
The Bible with Original Names is not intended to replace every other translation. We think it is often most useful beside them. A different wording should make a reader ask why it differs, and the project should make it possible to inspect the answer.
That means distinguishing a source-near translation from an interpretive rendering, recording meaningful uncertainty, and being willing to revise. It also means not turning a legitimate concern about women into a historical claim that the evidence cannot support.
Readers and scholars are welcome to challenge the reasoning in the linked GitHub issues. A strong objection is useful if it helps us make the text or its notes more accurate.