Also I can now reveal why I blogged about this issue in August, and why I consider it important. As I noted in my comment on Henry’s blog, Psalm 128 was the reading at my wedding last month, and my bride and I wanted a version which didn’t imply that we would welcome only sons, not daughters, as a blessing from God.

“I realise that this raises issues about how this passage is to be understood as inspired by God and authoritative for believers today, but I don’t want to go into these issues now.”

I understand. But Psalms, including whether 127 & 128 teach the valuation of gender, have to be understood in the context of the Pentateuch as background, wouldn’t you agree? And it’s not only Leviticus 27, but also Leviticus 12, where a woman’s holy impurity after childbirth depends on the sex of the child. Having a male child yields 7 & 33 days impurity, whereas having a female child yields 14 & 66 days impurity. This would have a huge social impact of understanding Psalms because these requirements, especially regarding childbirth, would be visible to the entire society. I think you would agree (since you already understand the source as having been in a patriarchical society).

But the question then becomes, Should the Psalms be translated based on 21st century culture in light of the New Testament? Or should they be translated based on the cultural understanding which they were written in?

It’s a thorny problem, and it raises its ugly head because of the cultural clash between societies thousands of years apart.

Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how the NIV2011 comes out.

Peace,

-Rusty

I’m not quite sure what to make of the Leviticus 27 passage. I suspect that the values given are based on the prices of slaves at that time, which would have been greater for a boy than for a girl. They are thus conditioned by a particular culture, a patriarchal one, which is not ours and not that of the New Testament. I realise that this raises issues about how this passage is to be understood as inspired by God and authoritative for believers today, but I don’t want to go into these issues now.

John, I consider it psychologically and spiritually extremely damaging to girls to be given to understand that they are of less value in God’s sight than boys, when the Bible nowhere clearly teaches that.

How can you say that when, according to Leviticus 27, Yhwh explicitly tells Moses that females are worth about half of what males are?

Lev 27.1+:
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons [shall be] for the LORD by thy estimation.
And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary.
And if it [be] a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.
And if [it be] from five years old even unto twenty years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels.
And if [it be] from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation [shall be] three shekels of silver.
And if [it be] from sixty years old and above; if [it be] a male, then thy estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels.

This, in conjunction with the NT where a husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the husband?

-Rusty (found this thread through the Better Bibles Blog, and that comment just stands out in stark contrast to Leviticus)

The African Church got into a major dispute with Jerome over the rendering of… of all things, the identification of a type of tree. Every time Biblica tries to revise the NIV, they start a confrontation on a far grander scale, because the audience of the NIV is in large part conservative. The other crowd already left 3 or 4 times over for the LB, NLT, TNIV, CEV and various things. Why Biblica would see hay in reopening the battle I can’t imagine.

I agree that Psalm 128 is addressed to men, not least because of geber in verse 4. But that does not imply that all the participants in the psalm are male – not least because one, the wife, is explicitly female.

I accept that Psalm 127 is more debatable. I would still hold that to refer clearly to sons only the psalmist would have had to use an explicitly masculine word. But let’s agree to disagree on that.