In response to the article by Dr. Fraser, Wayne Grudem sent this reply concerning linguistics and Bible translation in a gender-sensitive society.
While we have already changed the Colorado Springs translation guidelines to account for the problem with 'brothers' that Dr. Fraser mentions, I don't entirely agree with his arguments on generic 'he'. Perhaps it is true that people are more likely to think of a man in a sentence such as: 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me . . .'
Yet I suspect that ancient Greek readers would have had the same response if polled by the same type of linguistic researcher. Surely this is not because the church addressed in Revelations 3.20 was made up only or primarily of men! Rather, it may be simply that when one thinks of a representative individual out of a group of men and women, one is more likely to think of a man.
