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The Singular “They”; and, “Anthropos” in Matt. 13:44.

The Singular “They”; and, “Anthropos” in Matt. 13:44.

Last updated on: August 1, 2018 at 6:09 pm by Scott Eric Alt

The Singular “They”; and, “Anthropos” in Matt. 13:44. 2018-08-01T18:09:45-04:00 Scott Eric Alt

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“Parable of the Hidden Treasure” (Rembrandt)

A weird discussion broke out on Facebook today, as they have a way of doing. It was in a friends-only post; so I won’t reveal names, or too many details. It involved a priest’s change to the reading of Matt. 13:44. The NAB translation reads:

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

The priest seems to have changed “sells all that he has” to “sells all that they have.” That was it, but that was enough for some to complain about “progressives” and “liberal feminism” conspiring against our pronouns. Nothing’s safe anymore, I tell you.

Another said: “It’s the work of a homosexual with an agenda to change how we see ourselves and God.” (And we know the priest’s sexual orientation and intentions … how?)

Still one more decried the “rottenness”; the Greek anthropos, this person said, should not be translated “person.” Anthropos means ‘man in the general sense.” (Actually, I think “person” does mean “man in the general sense,” but never mind.)

Now, let’s set aside the question of whether a priest ought to change the wording of the Gospel reading. If the discussion on Facebook had started and ended there, it would have been well enough. I’m more interested in the meltdown over the singular “they” and the translation of anthropos as “person.”

To begin with, the singular “they” predates the culture wars by a few hundred years. It has nothing—repeat with me, dear reader: nothing—to do with “liberal feminism” or some “homosexualist” agenda to confuse people about gender identity. The singular “they” dates back to—mark this, now—the fourteenth century. That’s right: the 1300s. Well before the culture went to war. Check out the examples in this article.

It’s in Wycliffe’s Bible (1382): “Eche on in þer craft ys wijs.” (Each one is wise in their craft.)
John Ruskin uses it in 1857: “When perspective was first discovered, every body amused themselves with it.”
The King James Bible (1611) uses it in many places, including 2 Kings 14:12: “And Judah was put to the worse before Israel, and they fled every man to their tents.”
Jane Austen (1814) uses it in Mansfield Park: “Had the Doctor been contented to take my dining tables as any body in their senses would have done.”
Shakespeare uses it: “There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me / As if I were their well-acquainted friend.”

Was Shakespeare trying to promote a homosexualist agenda? Well, there’s a lot of cross-dressing in his plays, so maybe. Shakespeare is icky and dangerous.

But the singular “they” was known centuries ago; and that explains why, as early as the eighteenth century, grammarians began to argue against it. Think what you will about the singular “they,” but do not attribute the usage to the baneful influence of feminism or gender politics. The long, long literary record of its use is against you.

***

The notion that the Greek anthropos means “man” specifically, and nothing else, is even odder, if it be possible. “The translation [as person] is driven by an agenda!” one person cried. It’s a “deliberte distortion.”

Really? Then Strong’s has an agenda and deliberately distorts the truth, which some random person on Facebook has a better grasp of. According to that valuable source—I mean Strong’s, not the Facebook person—anthropos means

man, also the generic term for “mankind”; the human race; people, including women and men.

Strong’s quotes Wuest: “There are two words in Greek which mean ‘man,’ anēr, which refers to a male individual of the human race, and anthrōpos, which is the racial, generic term, and which has the general idea of ‘mankind.'”

And Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, from the nineteenth century, has this to say of anthropos: “universally, with reference to the genus or nature, without distinction of sex, a human being, whether male or female.”

Just an agenda? I doubt it.

A little Google will cure us of a lot of our weird conspiracy theories. If you’re going to complain about liberal feminism or the “homosexualist” agenda, at least try to get some basic facts right first. If you’re going to complain about priests changing the words of the Gospel reading, don’t veer off into something else that’s just plain weird.

***

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