Question from JM, Sweden

I’ve been living in Sweden for two months now and have come across a puzzling difference between the translations of the Bible that we commonly use in the UK and their Swedish equivalent…

And again in the Swedish bibles it reads almost word for word, but with the word women taken out and replaced with “them”. Is there some kind of conspiracy going on?

This is particularly of interest to some of my friends who are female, Swedish and have leadership gifts, but have been taught by the Swedish state church that women are not allowed to lead.

The problem here lies in the particular texts used by the translators. A variant reading of Colossians chapter 4, verse 15 does read ‘his house’, rather than ‘her house’. It was this reading that was used in the English King James Version, drawing on the ‘Received text’ that was prepared by the scholar Erasmus during the Reformation and was also used by Martin Luther in his German translation of the New Testament. As the Scandinavian state churches are Lutheran, it is highly likely their traditional translations are also based on the ‘Received text’.

It’s worth noting that the ‘Received text’ is so called because it was the complete Greek text that Luther and others received from Erasmus. Despite the subsequent claims of supporters of the King James Version, the title ‘Received text’ does not imply any greater authority. In fact it was an edited Greek text drawing on the best-preserved manuscripts of the time, prepared in virtually the same way as modern textual scholars collate Greek texts to produce the most accurate version possible.

In the past 500 years or so, a number of earlier, and therefore arguably more reliable, texts have been discovered. In these earlier manuscripts ‘Nymphas and the church in her house’ (oikon autes: literally ‘house, belonging to her’) is the more common reading. In more recent collated Greek textual versions of the New Testament (e.g. Nestle-Aland fourth revised edition, published by the United Bible Societies in 1993), this textual form is given, with a footnote recording the textual variant oikon autou (‘house, of him’). It is therefore at the discretion of the translator whether Nymphas is considered to be a man or a woman.

The strong likelihood is that Nymphas is a woman’s name and the earliest texts bear this out. It could be presumed that with the growth of an exclusively male priesthood, it was naturally assumed that Nymphas would be a man, because of the implication that Nymphas led the church that met in his/her house.

In Philippians chapter 4, verse 2-3, the correct translation is actually the Swedish one. The passage reads ‘help them’ (sulambanou autais) and the word ‘women’ does not appear. But this translation, while accurate, is slightly disingenuous because there is no other way for us to tell in translation that Euodia and Synteche are women, as their names suggest. Paul refers to them as ‘fellow contenders for the truth’ and as ‘co-workers’, indicating some level of equality in service. Translating ‘autais’ as merely ‘them’ does not indicate the gender of the two women (who were undoubtedly women), leaving the modern reader uncertain as to their gender, and perhaps assuming that such named and important individuals would be male.

So, in short, there is probably something of a conspiracy, but it has its roots way back in the early history of Christianity as women were marginalised from positions of leadership. Most contemporary scholars and translators would seek to redress the balance by highlighting the gender of these leaders who worked alongside the apostle Paul (e.g. by inserting the word ‘women’ into the translation for clarity). The fact that the institutional church in Sweden has not incorporated these findings into current practice or translation probably indicates a continuing bias against women in leadership roles that has more to do with historical prejudice than accurate Biblical scholarship.

Thanks for your question, JM.

Question from CM, United Kingdom

Dear Jon the Freelance Theologian. I heard somewhere that the witness of Christian Leaders should be judged on how their children turn out. If their children grow up to be Christians then it proves that the leader was an example in his own household and it wasn’t just a front. Can leaders still be held responsible in the present? Surely, children now have more choices and have more sources of influence than used to be the case in biblical times.

This question calls for a certain amount of common sense. Any Christian parent has undertaken a tremendous responsibility, namely to model the love of their Father in heaven to their children and also to raise their children in a relationship with their heavenly Father. However, children are no different to adults in that, at any given point, they can choose to accept or reject the gift of salvation offered to them.

Beyond a certain age children are undoubtedly responsible for their own actions. In Deuteronomy chapter 24 verse 16 the people of Israel are given the following instruction: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers. Each is to die for his own sin.” Unfortunately the character assassination of church leaders that sometimes accompanies the rebellious behaviour of their children flies in the face of this very clear indication that no sinful human being can take responsibility for another person’s sin.

However, there is a flipside to this. Proverbs chapter 22, verse 6 is often quoted: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” If there is trouble at home, that will be acted out in bad behaviour. Some church leaders are guilty of detached parenting, due to the demands of the job. Others sometimes present a different face to the outside world than they do to the family and that can have horrendous repercussions. The irony with this proverb is that Solomon, the king associated with the book of Proverbs, did in fact turn from the ‘proper ways’ and sacrificed to ‘other Gods’, including Ashtoreth, Molech and Chemosh (1 Kings ch11 vv5-8), in his old age.

While children do have more choices (and leisure time) than children in Biblical times, that is not necessarily a major factor in children rejecting their upbringing. If anything the stories in the Bible are indicators that children have always been ‘rebellious’. The fact that ‘honour your father and mother’ is included in the Ten Commandments proves that! Perhaps it is the way of things that at some point children will begin to question the norms of society and their upbringing. The parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke ch15 vv11-32) asks no questions of the father who raised such an ingrate son (or his bitter older brother). If we identify God as the father in the parable waiting for his lost son to come home, then would we say God was a bad father, considering how many of his children seem to be ‘far off in a foreign country’?

For any parent, the only hope for their children is that they enter a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ. ‘Respectability’ should be a secondary concern. However, at the risk of sounding controversial, the problem may lie in the prevailing philosophy of churches – to sideline young people in their own ‘youth’ stream and then expect them to make the leap into ‘adult’ church life.

Every child lost to the church is the responsibility of the church, not just the parents. Perhaps if we, as adults, were encouraging our young people to treat the church as theirs, to take on responsibilities, were willing to mentor them and listen to their viewpoint, in fact to treat them as brothers and sisters of equal status in the Kingdom of God, then the heartache of parents waiting for their children to ‘come home’ could be prevented in future.

Thanks for the question, CM. I hope you found this answer useful.