Mitigating Gender-Sensitivity in English and Alterity in Biblical Hebrew: The Revised JPS Edition

What is it about?

THE JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition (RJPS or Revised JPS edition), published in October 2023, is a revision of the New Jewish Publication Society Bible Translation (NJPS or 1985 New JPS edition) with the purpose to reflect advances in scholarship and language changes in English while reflecting the Biblical Hebrew text. As part of the Jewish tradition of Bible translation, the Revised JPS edition forms part of a broader trend in the twenty-first century of continuous revision and retranslation of English Bible translations within various traditions, despite the remarkable number of existing Bible translations in contemporary, accessible English. The focus of this essay is to describe the Revised JPS edition within the social reality of the traditions from which it has emerged in order to typify its specific trajectory and unique features within the Jewish tradition of Bible translation.

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Why is it important?

The next generation of revisions will bring Bible translations into conformity with acceptable language use to accommodate other contemporary sensibilities, for example, the terms describing enslavement, identification of persons in terms of disability, sensitivity to religious traditions, and sensitivity to translate animals ecologically as subjects rather than as objects or commodities. This implies the removal of offensive terms and their replacement with acceptable terms.