Toward a Better Reading: Reflections on the Permanent Changes to the Text of Genesis 3:16 in the ESV

Hannah Anderson and Wendy Alsup posted Part One of what looks like an engaging three part series on the new, permanent ESV translation of Gen. 3:16 and 4:7. 

 

Here are two standout paragraphs to whet your palette as to why this is important:

 

But more than simply creating confusion, the change to Genesis 3:16 is significant because it touches the pinched nerve that is gendered relationships in the evangelical church. While all of Scripture is necessary to life and godliness, Genesis 3:16 has particular bearing on the gender conversation because it helps to frame our understanding of the difficulties that men and women face after the Fall. And how we understand the brokenness of the world drives the solutions that we try to reach. This is not simply a matter of differing opinions about the proper translation of an isolated passage of Scripture. Set in the middle of the account of the Fall, Genesis 3:16 identifies and thus guides the nature and challenges to women’s spiritual formation in a post-Fall world. Translating this passage accurately has both academic and pastoral implications.

 

 

We can only reach and sustain a conservative reading of gender through a conservative approach to translation. If the Scripture is not carefully guarded from sociological constructs (both conservative and liberal), we risk losing the very authority on which we base our understanding of gender.  How can we call the Church and the world to reflect the Scriptural teaching on gender if we lose the Scripture itself? Without the Scripture, liberalism devolves into androgyny and conservatism into misogyny.

 

 

They also open with a great illustration for why laywomen would be able to engage in such an undertaking as Bible translation.

 

Take a look at the whole article here.