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“The Grammar of Social Gender in Biblical Hebrew.”

Posted Wednesday, December 10, 2008 by Charlie Trimm
Categories: Hebrew  

Stein, David E. S. “The Grammar of Social Gender in Biblical Hebrew.” Hebrew Studies 69 (2008): 7-26.

 

Stein studies whether constructs which look to be purely masculine can also refer to females. Second person singulars do refer to females, as shown by Deuteronomy 28:3, which leads eventually into masculine and feminine plurals in verse 68. His rule: when speaking to a class of people in the second person singular, the audience cannot be determined to be exclusively male. While this is probably the case, his evidence is slim. The third person masculine singular is seen to be the same, drawing on a similar pattern in Exodus 35:5 and 22. Finally, he thinks that even male nouns (father, brother, son, man) can sometimes even include females. This is shown by the freeing of both male and female slaves in Jeremiah 34:8-16, which is then summarized using only the male word "brother". That is, it emphasizes the kinship part of the word while downplaying the gender part. These words can be gender inclusive, but never purely feminine, since there is a specific word for sister, etc. Another example comes from Jephthah, who makes his vow with a masculine participle. His conclusion is that these words are more "male" in English than in Hebrew.

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