English does not have a universally accepted third-person singular pronoun that refers to both males and females, so the NASB 2020 maintains the practice of using “he” or “him” when referring to a singular, non-gender specific antecedent such as “person”. The alternative would be to use plural pronouns (often called “the singular they“) that would change the subject of the sentence from a singular to a plural. Maintaining the singular pronoun form most accurately represents the original language, which is important to maintaining textual accuracy. We realize this may create a dissonance for some readers who are used to a more modern style of writing. Current writers have the advantage of creating all new material. However, we do not feel that modern strategies, such as using “they” or alternating between “he” and “she”, are available to us as faithful translators. For example, changing the subject of a sentence from “he” to “they” requires an additional change to correct the grammar by making the previously singular verb plural as well. This not only changes the structure of the sentence, but a change from singular to plural also has a dramatic impact on how the verse is read and understood by the reader.
Making these grammatical changes thousands of times across the entire Bible is in direct conflict with the second principle of our longstanding Fourfold Aim and, therefore, is a red line to us. We could have added “or she” in italics as we did with “and sisters”, but while “brothers” may appear several times in one book, masculine pronouns can appear several times in one sentence, for sentence after sentence after sentence. We decided that these repetitive changes would create a bigger distraction, so keeping the text as it is remained the best course.
