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The Contemporary Torah: A Gender-sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation

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The Contemporary Torah is an adaptation with respect to social gender of the NJPS (New Jewish Publication Society) translation (1962, 1985, 1999) of the Torah (first five books of the Bible). Therefore, this translation (as the subtitle states) is gender-sensitive, not gender-neutral. This is a significant distinction. A gender-sensitive rendition means approaching the text on its own terms with the aim of rendering an accurate and clear translation without passing judgment.

David Stein, the revising editor, and his consulting editors have done an admirable job of achieving their goal. Stein formed a mental model of the original audience and its view of society and adapted the translation. He kept the following important issues in mind:

1. The prevailing social roles and expectations, that is, what ancient Israelite society noticed and valued.

Social gender involves more than physical characteristics.

In addition, lives are determined by more than gender alone.

2. The inclusivity or exclusivity of the language and how the audience understood the text.

If the meaning of the text dictates the inclusion of both men and women, then the translation must reflect that meaning.

If the meaning of the text signals a specific gender, then the translation should indicate the gender.

3. The divine is beyond gender.

The four-letter personal (but unpronounced) name of God is rendered by four Hebrew letters, a gender-neutral rendition that reflects the monotheistic view of God. However, this perspective does not forbid translations that reflect male characteristics when required for poetic license (for example, God as a warrior).

Angels are rendered according to their function, for example, emissary, agent, envoy, and so forth.

The editors analyzed the original audience thoroughly, consulting modern biblical research as well as traditional sources and the role of literary genre (for example, legal texts). Then, Stein identified where social gender was an issue and translated into idiomatic English. He kept in mind not only the audience of the ancient world but also the audience of today and how it would construe a translated word.

For example, where the NJPS version translated a Hebrew word as herdsmen, the editors of The Contemporary Torah translated it as herders. This was not for the sake of gender neutrality but because those occupied in this type of work in the ancient Near East included both men and women (as evidenced by Rachel and Zipporah), and a contemporary audience might assume from herdsmen that only men practiced that occupation.

I liked this translation because it combines the best of what I expect from a translation of an ancient Hebrew text. It is faithful to the original text and audience yet acknowledges the sensitivity of a contemporary audience to language. It speaks to the readers of today without making judgments or ignoring ancient realities.

This is a "gender-sensitive" version of the standard Jewish Publication Society (JPS) Tanakh. Normally I tune out whenever someone rewrites segments of the Torah or Siddur to be "gender sensitive" or "gender neutral". When I have seen such approaches in liberal Jewish writings, I've often found rewriting of the Bible itself in order to serve current modern-day political correctness (which is short sighted, since the politically correct positions of today may not resonate with readers in the next few generations!)

However, once I read the introduction of this new work, I was heartened to find a responsible, academic approach to the issue. Instead of retranslating the Bible for promoting current social and political purposes, the emphasis here is on the peshat, translating the text as it was meant to be understood by the original audience. This is done in a way that the translator hopes will remove unconscious or misleading gender errors. In the introduction to this volume David Stein notes that the current JPS Torah and Tanakh (New JPS, or NJPS) already engaged, to some extent, in gender-accuracy and sensitivity. Stein writes:

"Where the Torah's language suggested a neutral sense, NJPS avoided misleadingly ascribing gender, not only by rendering inclusively some "male" nouns, but also by rendering masculine inflections and pronouns idiomatically rather than literally. Thus, for example, what kjv had rendered as "thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause" appears in NJPS as "you shall not subvert the rights of your needy in their disputes" (Exod. 23:6). In short, NJPS inadvertently led the way among contemporary translations in "gender-sensitive" rendering. Limitations of NJPS Despite its overall strengths, the gender ascriptions in NJPS can still be called into question on a number of counts...."