"Jesus, Son of Humankind?" by Fr. Paul Mankowski

[PeterTheAleut]

A friend gave me a hard copy of this article, which I found a very enlightening read.  Please read this and feel free to discuss what you think about it.

Jesus, Son of Humankind?
The necessary failure of inclusive-language translations
Fr. Paul Mankowski

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles7/MankowskiLanguage.php

[scamandrius]

Thanks for posting the article PTA.  Very informative.  I found it quite interesting that he really didn't seem to take a stand against inclusion language, if only because it was intellectually dishonest which he illustrated quite well.  However, this part of his conclusion struck me:

In the short term, it may seem prudent and advantageous to employ words like "humankind" and other such devices as interim solutions to a vexed pastoral problem. But in the long term such compromises must change the language in which God has revealed himself. Where the Bible and the liturgy speak to us in the elemental, universal terms of existence, we cannot replace them with legal, philosophical, or political contrivances without changing the nature of the documents themselves.

For someone who is part of the very liberal SOJ, the humility shown here to God as the revealer of things divine was really unexpected.  Normally, I expect Jesuits to be dissecting text with scalpels and squaring circles.  Nice to see that not all Jesuits are off the deep end.

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