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CPAS enables churches to help every person hear and discover the good news of Jesus

Men only?

Missed opportunity?

What a pity the well-meaning sponsors of this advertisement in the London Underground didn't choose a different translation.

For example, Today's New International Version:

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

Spot the difference?

Any comments on the use of 'inclusive language' Bible translations.

Comments

When Rosie - yes, that Rosie! - was curate in Downend she taught us (her fellow clergy) the difference between the Greek words for man (male) and man (human being), and persuaded us to stock the church with the NIV inclusive version. It was a good move, although it cost a good deal more than the standard version. What I find much more of a problem is the rewriting of hymns. Our older members know many, many hymns by heart, and the changes made in Hymns Old and New are upsetting. I have 19 years' experience of teaching in girls' only school, where we all had to mind our inclusive language, so I know that the future is inclusive. But hymns that come from a time when everyone understood the inclusive meaning of 'man', many of them written by women, should perhaps be left as they were written.