Pronouns

[jack]

"When John was a woman, [he/she/they] said '...' " Which pronoun do you prefer? (That is, "he" is appropriate for John now, "she" would be appropriate for what John was then, and "they" would specify the ambiguity.)

"The things God or Jesus [was/were] recorded as saying are ..." Which pronoun do you prefer? (That is, do you treat them as two separate people (were)? Or one person (was)? :))

Obviously both are arbitrary, and I think both sufficiently specialised that most people wouldn't mind which you used, I just wondered if anyone had a strong opinion :)

Comments

[midnightmelody.livejournal.com]

If we're specifically in Trinity-thinking, I would say 'Jesus and the Father' or 'Son and Father' anyway, because God the Father doesn't have exclusive rights on the name 'God'. (Similarly, if you have three cats, you probably wouldn't call one of them 'the cat' and the others by their names.)

In terms of singular or plural, I'd take my cue from the Gospels - "The Father and I are one."

[robhu.livejournal.com]

It'd be interesting to see what insights (if any) the Greek gives. Presumably the translators had a similar conversation to the one going on on this post.