Saturday, December 17, 2011

Brothers and Sisters - CEB

Galatians 5:13 reads in the Common English Bible: “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only don't let this freedom be an opportunity to indulge your selfish impulses, but serve each other through love.”

The English Standard Version reads: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only ...”
The New American Standard Bible: “For you were called to freedom, brethren ...”
The New International Version: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called ...”
The New Living Translation: “For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But...”

The key word in the Greek is adelphos. It means “brother.” (Philadelphia, city of “brotherly” love.) Some recent translations have taken the liberty of frequently including women when translating this term. So adelphos becomes “brothers and sisters.”
In general, translators are very careful to include women only when mankind in general is indicated by the context. When the context indicates reference only to males, the translators will keep that indication in the translation.

In Galatians 5:13, I would hope no one would think that Paul was speaking only to men, that only men have been called to freedom. As a woman, I am happy to see sisters included along with the brothers in the call to freedom.

I am taking part in a blog tour of the Common English Bible. I'll be blogging more about this Bible as the days go by.
You can see the blogs of others taking part of this tour here: http://CommonEnglishBible.com/CEB/blogtour

I received a complimentary copy of the CEB from its publisher for the purpose of this blog tour.

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