The Lord knows not only what was written, but why. Was recently prompted by the Holy spirit to take a look at the Greek word “aner”, to see how it was used in the Bible. I went online to biblehub.com and Strong’s concordance listed 216 occurrences. So, I started going thru the list. Some interesting patterns were noticed. The table shows a summary of what I noticed.

There was no use of the word “aner” in the general context of ‘adult males as a group’ in any of Paul’s letters (nor in Peter’s). It appears that in the language communities to which Paul was writing, the Greek word aner was primarily used in pairing with gune to specify the context of the word gune as wife, and not woman in the general sense.  And unlike the use in James, the Gospels and Book of Acts where the term is used in a general reference to people, Paul only uses it in this manner twice, both in the Book of Romans.  And both usages are as quotes from the Old Testament.  Instead, Paul and Sosthenes in 1 Corinthians use the term “Anthropos”, when the reference is to men in the context of adult males as a group. This in seen in 1 Corinthians 7:2 when it says it is good for an Anthropos(man) not to touch a gune (woman). Using this term clarifies that it refers to men as a group, but not as husbands. The context key pairing aner with gune specifies a husband-wife context. And it is translated into English as such in the New Testament, EXCEPT in the passages used by some to restrict women’s participation in the church assembly. But the original recipients of the letters did not read a translation. They read it in the context of their normal language usage. In this usage, based upon all other times it occurs in the New Testament letters, aner and gune paired to specify husband and wife. Aner was never paired with gune to specify men and women, generically in any of Paul’s letters, (nor James or Peter).

Comment: The scholars translating these words into men and women, instead of husband and wives, may not have noticed this context pattern. But it looks suspicious as a deliberate choice for reasons other than clarity of the text. From what I have read, there were times in history when translation of the Bible into English was not allowed. But God uncovers stuff, and apostles and prophets work in revelation. Something that was known got covered up, but the Holy Spirit prompted. And I smiled and followed the prompt.

Audio notes on this post.

April 2022