Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the domain of Heaven." (114 Thomas)

What is male? What is female?

We tend to think in physical terms. This is the result of our positivist and empiricist heritage.

Prior to the last three-hundred years the question, especially in a religious context, would have been more broadly cast.

I wonder what words for male and female Peter and Jesus used?

They were probably speaking Aramaic to each other, but the meaning of their Aramaic would have been influenced by their religious understanding.

In Hebrew scripture the two most common words for male are 'iysh and zakar.

In Genesis we read, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24). Man, father, and one are all 'iysh.

The Hebrew 'iysh is derived from 'anash meaning sick, desparate, woeful, incurable.

Also in Genesis we read, "He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created." (Genesis 5:2) Both male and Man are translations of zakar.

The noun zakar is - except for context - the same as the verb zakar. The verb means to remember, to think, to be mindful.

I suppose that Peter could have meant 'iysh. What if Jesus replied with zakar?