Jesus Did Not Call a Woman a Dog

The record of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15.21‑28 (parallel to the account with the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7.24‑30) illustrates many of the challenges facing the translator of an ancient text into contemporary English.

The question of how to translate the one word kynarioi – or rather the metaphor of which that word is a part – takes us right back to the fundamental principles of translation.

Starting with a text in biblical Hebrew or New Testament Greek, translating scripture into contemporary English involves removing from the text, one by one, the words of the original language, and introducing into the text, in their place, words of contemporary English.

With each word removed, we lose not only the simplest plain meaning of the word, but also its poetry, its grammar, its history and etymology, its cultural nuances and associations, and its breadth of meaning, and possible alternative meanings. All of this is ‘lost in translation’. This is why preachers and commentaries on the text tell us about context, cross‑references, alternative meanings and uses, and culture and background.

Potentially more problematic, especially with scripture, is that each contemporary English word introduced into the text brings with it not only the simplest plain meaning of the word, but also its own history and etymology, its own breadth of meaning and possible alternative meanings, and its own cultural nuances and associations – none of which are likely to correspond with those of the word it is replacing.

It is widely acknowledged that much is inevitably lost in the process of translation; it is less widely acknowledged that in every translation, however cautious, conservative, and well‑intentioned, much is inevitably and unavoidably added also, by the very nature of the act of translation from one language to another.

Our specific focus here is on the word kynarioi, as it appears in Matthew 15.26‑27, on the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A (Sunday 16 August 2026).

An amplified translation might like to note, in square brackets, that this is a diminutive form – perhaps ‘puppy’ or ‘lapdog’ or ‘housedog’ – in contrast to the non‑diminutive forms used elsewhere. A commentary might note that the Hebrew people sometimes referred to non‑Hebrews (like the woman in this passage) using forms of this word, and not in the diminutive, making the use of the diminutive in this passage softer, gentler, even strangely affectionate.

A standard translation, however, cannot be a complete tutorial, and will want to create a sentence or paragraph that brings out the meaning of the full sentence, within the passage as a whole, reaching first for a single‑word contemporary English equivalent for kynarioi.

Our problem, however, is not the nuance of the Greek word being removed, but the toxicity of the English word being introduced.

There is no actual canine in this scene. The dialogue is between Jesus and an unnamed woman. The use of kynarioi is entirely metaphorical. And the use of a canine metaphor, in contemporary English, in relation to a woman, has become utterly unacceptable. It has moved into a category of linguistic toxicity that functions – in terms of its power to dehumanize and degrade – much like a racial slur.

The consequence is that there is no contemporary English word available, in the entire family of canine nouns, to translate the New Testament Greek word kynarioi, not because of what is lost from the Greek, but because of what is added by the English. To use any English‑language canine noun in this passage, in the twenty‑first century, is not to translate Jesus’ words, it is to place on Jesus’ lips a contemporary misogynistic slur he never spoke and never would have spoken.

The solution is to translate the whole sentence – the complete metaphor – rather than working mechanically one word at a time. In verse 26, the small mammal in the metaphor wants feeding. In verse 27, it crawls under the table to eat crumbs. The metaphor is actually powerful enough to translate accurately, retaining its full meaning and clarity, without the toxicity introduced, in translation, by the inclusion of the mammal; having to eat waste, and having to crawl under the table to collect it, are humiliation enough.

The rest is nuance and commentary, and indeed speculation; and that is for the pulpit, and not necessarily for every time the text is read. As it says in the main notes here, “a preacher may wish to refer to a more literal study translation (or indeed the original Hebrew or Greek) when making a word‑by‑word or line‑by‑line analysis of the text”.

Michael Hampson
April 2026