Pursuing Gender-Accurate Bible Translations

For centuries, Christians have relied on flawed English Bible translations that reinforce patriarchy, devalue girls and women, and fuel abuse. These distortions are used to portray females as easily deceived; temptresses; spiritually, morally, and intellectually inferior, and requiring male guidance or even discipline.

Many Christian leaders, churches, and seminaries leverage these mistranslations to oppose women’s equality and leadership not only in the church but also in the home. These influential gatekeepers uphold male-female power imbalances in their communities, subverting God’s original plan for mutuality.

Thus, CBE launched an initiative to examine the biblical passages most often distorted to demean women. We recruited an international team of women and men to work on translating 300+ Bible verses (60+ different passages), creating exegetically-sound, gender-accurate, and accessible English translations from the original languages.

This team is on step two of a rigorous six-step translation process of these verses. When this six-step process is finished, we will publish these translations together in a book that will serve as a gender-accurate supplement to the reader’s Bible translation of choice. After the book is published, we plan to bring together a team of scholars to translate the entire Bible as the next step toward a producing a more gender-accurate full Bible translation.

Meet CBE’s Bible team:

1. Dr. Diphus Chemorion: Faculty at Saint Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya
2. Dr. Havilah Dharamraj: Faculty & academic dean at SAIACS in Bangalore, India
3. Dr. Rajkumar Boaz Johnson: Professor of biblical & theological studies at North Park University
4. Dr. Eunny P. Lee: Associate professor of Old Testament at Azusa Pacific University
5. Dr. Jeff Miller: Professor of biblical studies at Milligan College
6. Dr. Phil Payne: Founder of Lingus software and adjunct at Fuller Theological Seminary
7. Dr. Caryn Reeder: Associate professor of New Testament at Westmont College
8. Dr. Cynthia Westfall: Associate professor of New Testament, McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
9. Alice Yafeh-Deigh: Professor of New Testament at Azusa Pacific University

Members of CBE’s Bible translation team shared about their progress and insights at CBE’s 2022 International Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. CLICK HERE to view their panel from “Exploring the Fullness of Galatians 3:28.”

Providing exegetically-sound and gender-accurate translations will show that women, like men, are created in God’s image for shared governance and ministry—the core of CBE’s mission.