All things were made by her ...

Jane reminded me to look at John 1 in French. I did that and found that the "Word" was, of course, feminine. Here is the Louis Segond translation,

Toutes choses ont été faites par elle,

All things were made by her/it

The feminine pronoun is used up until and including verse 14,

Et la parole a été faite chair, et elle a habité parmi nous, pleine de grâce et de vérité; et nous avons contemplé sa gloire, une gloire comme la gloire du Fils unique venu du Père.

And the word was made flesh and she dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and we contemplated her glory, a glory like the glory of the only Son come from the Father.

In Luther's translation it is hard for me to tell when the pronouns are masculine or neuter, but verse 10 has a clear neuter pronoun,

Es war in der Welt, und die Welt ist durch dasselbe gemacht; und die Welt kannte es nicht.

It was in the world and the world was made through it, and the world did not know it.

The implications of this are far reaching. English readers are cut off from the diverse ways that this passage could be read at the time it was written. We are cut off from how this passage is read in other modern European languages. The English translations are also committed to an interpretation which is foreign to a Jewish understanding of the text.

This one example demonstrates the enormous fallacy and extremely limited scope of any discussion of pronoun gender in translation. I shudder to think of how many Bible translators have used the English Bible as a base, and translated "he" and "him" from English into who knows how many other languages, all in good faith, believing that "he" was integral to the inspired word of God.

I fear discovering that I have worshipped the masculine singular pronoun all my life instead of a living God.