THE GRAMMAR OF SOCIAL GENDER IN BIBLICAL HEBREW

• Published in: Hebrew studies Vol. 49; no. 1; pp. 7 - 26
• Main Author: Stein, David E. S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Madison National Association of Professors of Hebrew in Institutions of Higher Learning 01.01.2008; National Association of Professors of Hebrew; National Association of Professors of Hebrew, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Subjects: Analysis; Bible; Biblical hermeneutics; Gender; Gender differences; Gender neutral language; Grammar, Comparative and general; Grammatical gender; Hebrew language; Language translation; Language usage; Literary translation; Logic; Males; Men; Nouns; Old Testament; Person; Philology; Referents; Social construction of gender; Torah; Words; United States
• ISSN: 0146-4094; 2158-1681; 2158-1681
• DOI: 10.1353/hbr.2008.0014

"When does the Hebrew Bible's masculine or "male" wording allow for women to be in view?" This paper addresses that question via a philological (inductive) approach, taking the biblical corpus as a whole and distilling the rules of its linguistic system according to a plain-sense reading of the text. The investigation focuses on what the biblical text seems to expect of its readers with regard to construing the social-gender import of three linguistic usages: second-person masculine singular address; third-person masculine singular references; and "male" nouns (i.e., those with specifically female counterparts), including אָח, אָב, אִישׁ and בֵּ. It finds that women may be in view given any of these types of language. For all of the usages discussed, this paper supplements or supersedes the standard grammars; it also touches on several implications for translation and exegesis.