In the bizarre world of transgender debates, pronouns are taking a central role. This debate over pronouns was introduced into the realm of Biblical study by Mark Silk, a Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College last week. In an article in Religion News Silk suggested that the plural “they” should be used to describe God. 

Silk began by citing a New York Times article written by linguistics professor John McWhorter who advocated using the plural pronoun as an “all-purpose third-person-singular pronoun.” McWhorter’s suggestion was intended for use as a solution in settings in which neutering pronouns was required by politically correct social pressure. Silk suggested that applying this rule to references to God was preferable for the same social reason.

“In contrast to human beings, it has long been accepted that God is not gendered, at least within the main Abrahamic theological tradition,” Silk wrote. “A phrase such as “God the Father” should be treated as a metaphor — and for those concerned about the embedded misogyny of the tradition, to say nothing of post-binary folks — a deeply problematic one.

“As a result, we have been faced liturgically as well as theologically with the imperative of gender-neutral language, which means being obliged to repeat the word “God” where a gendered pronoun would normally be used and to have recourse to the unattractive neologism “Godself” lest, God forbid, we find ourselves saying Himself.”  

Silk acknowledges that using exclusively plural pronouns for God would imply a plurality of gods and would be problematic for monotheistic religions. The professor deflects this criticism by referring to Hebrew.

“Monotheistic Abrahamic theology has had to deal with an embedded grammatical pluralism ever since it came into being,” Silk wrote. “That’s because the word for god in ancient Hebrew, elohim, is a plural form, used with reference to both the Hebrew god and any other god or gods — as distinct from the singular form of the Hebrew god’s actual name, JHWH (customarily translated into English as “Lord”).”

Silk even gave an example, transforming Exodus 15:2 into a gender-neutral version:

The Lord (JHWH) is my strength and my song;

    they have become my salvation.

they are my God, and I will praise them,

    my father’s God, and I will exalt them.

 

Silk wrote a follow-up article after the site was flooded with negative reactions. He noted that most of the criticisms ignored the Hebraic basis of his argument which was based on the original text using the word “elohim” which appears in the plural form. 

 It should be noted that despite the name “elohim” having a plural suffix when referring to the God of Israel, it is almost always accompanied by a verb or adjective in the singular third-person form. 

Silk admits that in Hebrew, “elohim” is modified by the masculine form of the second person singular (אתה ata, you). He suggests that changing God’s pronoun has a precedent. 

“Between the 14th and 17th centuries, however, the plural forms “you” and “your” replaced “thou and thy” (along the lines of the French vous), bringing with them the plural verb form ‘are’ in place of the singular ‘art. That’s to say, “you are” — the plural form — replaced the singular ‘thou art’,” Silk wrote. “Eventually the English-speaking world became comfortable with addressing God with the once exclusively plural ‘you.’”

“I’m prepared to bet that God is no more bummed about this latest change than they were about the switch from ‘thou’ to ‘you.’” Silk stated. 

He then delineated a theological gender dilemma inherent to branches of Christianity in which two-thirds of the trinity (i.e. the Father and the Son) are gender identified.

“But it’s standard Christian theology that God is not a gendered being,” Silk said, noting that despite their male orientation, these aspects of divinity are understood as non-gendered metaphors. 

Silk concludes by saying that his third person plural pronoun offers a solution to this difficulty.

“This theological position is expressed in the desire of many Jews and Christians to steer clear of calling God ‘he.’ The evolution of the English third-person singular to ‘they’ helps them do that,” Silk wrote. “But it does not prevent any English speaker attached to singular male metaphors like father, husband and king from continuing to use them — no more than the evolution to ‘you’ did centuries ago.”

Rabbi Avraham Itzkowitz, an educator and sofer stam (scribe of holy texts), pointed out an error in Silk’s explanation.

“The name ‘elohim’ appears at the beginning of creation, before the creation of Man,” Rabbi Itzkowitz said. “There was no ‘they’ yet. The term ‘elohim’ is plural because it was the aspect of God that contained the sum total of all of Creation in one being.”

“Every word in Hebrew is assigned a grammatical gender. According to the Zohar, every aspect of reality is divided into male and female which is much more than gender. It refers to mashpia (something that affects) and mushpa (something that is affected). For example, regardless of their grammatic gender, all of the body parts are feminine except for the heart (לב, lev) which is masculine because it gives life to the rest of the body. The shamayim (heavens) is male and aretz (earth) is female, despite not having a grammatically female ending. sustenance.That is because the heavens influence, sending down sustenance, and the earth receives. God’s many names are all male except for shechina (heavenly presence) which is female because it is the aspect of God that receives our prayers, the only thing we can give God that is not originally from Him.”

“God, of course, has no gender. It could be that the transgender movement is an attempt, albeit misguided, to attach to this aspect of God. People want to stop working and create as God did just by speaking. Since the Redemption is so close, that is what is in the air; to be more perfected. Ideally, a person should want to transcend this world in order to serve God without boundaries.

“Translating the Bible is always descending. You can’t translate laashon hakodesh (the holy tongue). After the 72 rabbis translated the Torah into Greek, what is known as the Septuagint, all of Israel fasted for three days because translating the Torah brought a great darkness into the world.”