Popular ‘Conservative’ Egalitarian Says We Need More Bibles That ‘Aren’t Translated Primarily by White People
Beth Allison Barr, is Professor of European Women, Medieval & Early Modern England, and Church History Baylor University and author of the best-selling book The Making of Biblical Womanhood, which seeks to refute the complementarian position and challenge the notion of ‘biblical womanhood’ is in fact biblical.
We wrote about her on occasion after she refused to to affirm biblical inerrancy, claimed that the line breaks in Ephesians 5 change the whole narrative of the bible, and argued that all complementarians are racists.
Speaking to the A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar show, she shares:
Question: What do you foresee in the future of biblical translations? Is there, will there be pretty much a universal gender-inclusivity when it comes to putting committees together? Will there be a difference in the way these things are brought about? Will there be a difference in the language? Will there be things that are considered unacceptable now that will be in biblical translations in 50, 100 200 years from now?
Barr: My hope is that we actually are much more attentive to diversity. We need to have Bibles that aren’t translated primarily by white people.You know, I would love to see a modern english bible translation that stems from black theologians, and see that become much, you know- I would love to see much more diversity on translation committees. But at the same, I would also like more texts, more translations that we can use to compare.
And so I really would like to be at a place where we can see that, where when somebody asks a question, ‘what’s the most diverse translation committee?’ we can actually tell, we can really use some answers.
