This is a quote from Touchstone Magazine. It touches on some of the discussions regarding translating that we’ve been having in our Proverbs class. I think it is really helpful in showing the complexities and decisions made when we (attempt to) translate.

Word to the Wise by ANTHONY ESOLEN (excerpt)

Dante is often obscure: He coins odd words; he uses forms from outside Tuscany; sometimes he is deliberately archaic; sometimes he wants his syntax tangled. When I translated The Divine Comedy, I assumed that my job was not to sand smooth what the Great One had left rough. It astonishes me to see translators do to the Word of God what I have struggled so hard, even within the severe constraints of meter and rhyme, not to do to Dante. I would not have presumed to do it.

One of my guiding principles in translation has been to retain what is strange in the original language, especially when it is embedded in an old metaphor. So if that cranky materialist Lucretius uses the word suffulcit to mean that a certain premise “supports” a conclusion, I uncover the odd metaphor hidden in the literal meaning of the word: “props up”.

People who do not write poetry (and maybe some people nowadays who do, but who are too busy expressing their feelings to learn anything about it) always assume that poets are more abstract than prose writers, but precisely the opposite is true, with only rare and partial exceptions among the second-rank poets (Thomas Gray). That is a reason their language is sometimes strange—even to their original readers.

So the biblical language is sometimes strange. Let it be. So people do not always understand. The better then to suggest to them that in fact they do not understand it, and that there are mysteries whose surfaces they have only begun to peer into.

If the Bible, at once immediately accessible by children and yet embracing unfathomable truths, does not sometimes suggest the depth of an infinite sea, the translators ought to be sent packing. Let ’em translate signs in train stations, where dynamic equivalence serves some immediate practical purpose.

Source:
Esolen, Anthony
2006 “Word to the Wise”, Touchstone 19.10, 4-5.

HT: Fred Putnam

These posts in the Blog area of Codex are not to be missed:

Abbott & Costello Learn Hebrew

Dr. Seuss Learns Greek

HT: Ros

Here’s a great way to keep your Hebrew alive and well! Each day a short passage is accompanied by vocabulary helps (for vocab occurring fewer than 50x) and grammar annotations. Check it out here (every day!).

HT: Sam Boyd (this is from one of his fellow University of Chicago classmates).

OK, I admit it. I love to organize things. And I’m a very visual learner. So, for any of my language courses I usually design a notebook for the translation work and get it bound (at www.lulu.com an online on-demand print company). I also decided that the best way for me to remember the Hebrew weak verb rules was to take all those pages of notes and create a two page “at-a-glance” sheet.

I’m making the PDFs for the Hebrew Weak Verb charts available here to anyone who wants to use them. I’m also making available the PDFs for my translation workbooks for OTHT2 and NT223 (Acts & Paul). These are the translation sections assigned for Spring 2006. Nothing fancy, just the text with space to write your parsings/translations in. If you want to get them printed and bound, I’ll post links to the www.lulu.com site where you can order them. I don’t get any money, you just pay them to do the printing and they ship it to you. That’s how I do it for myself (and for Mark). I like the convenience of having all the pages in one place. If you decide to order from lulu.com, just remember that it takes about a week (sometimes longer) for them to print it and for you to receive it.

OK, copyright disclaimer: I created the Weak Verb charts, so I own the copyright. The other workbooks are simply for the people in class who I know already own the BHS or Bible software and who could photocopy or print out their own copy anyway, this is just one person helping other students get it in the format that is more useful. I don’t get any financial benefit from this. If you use the lulu.com site, you are paying for them to print it like you would pay the photocopier to copy your book. Don’t abuse this! If I am totally wrong about this, I will pull the workbooks off and just leave the weak verb charts.

I would have posted these earlier, but I didn’t think anyone would be interested! In class some people have seen my workbook and have asked about it, so I decided to just put the documents here (rather than try to remember who to email them to).

To download the PDF of just the text (no cover) click on the thumbnail. To get the book printed and bound or to download a PDF copy for free click here.

To download the PDF of just the text (no cover) click on the thumbnail. To get the book printed and bound or to download a PDF copy for free click here.

I appreciate any comments if any of this is helpful (especially for the weak verb chart because I have other study helps I am working on for Hebrew and Greek also).

Why bother to learn Ugaritic? Why take the time to learn Phoenician script and pour over inscription dictionaries? Why look into Canaanite gods and read Ancient Near East texts? Is there any point to studying something so obscure? Can it possibly have any purpose other than generating more journal articles? Is this going to help my understanding of how to live my life in a godly manner? Why is all this so important?

Why, indeed. In a word, Shrek.

The movies Shrek and Shrek2 are journeys into fractured fairy tales. But reviewing the movies for entertainment value is not my point here. Even if you haven’t seen the movies you have probably heard that they are chock full of cultural references. And therein lies my point. Say in 1000 years some future generation uncovers a treasure trove of DVDs from some landfill. They sit down to see what kind of movies were captivating to this “ancient” civilisation. They pop the movie “Shrek” into the video retrieval system and watch. They probably figure out that this is a story about a princess who falls in love with someone who is not acceptable to her parents and the journey all the characters take toward a change in that opinion. It is about character mattering more than appearance. It is about family pressure. It is about making sacrifices for what is important.

But did they really “get” it? Well, they got the main point. But they hardly grasped the rich context that the movie employs for humor. Without those cultural references to music, movies, fairy tales, books, celebrities, and even institutions like Starbucks you just don’t really appreciate what the moviemakers were trying to communicate. (Gee, even most of the people who have watched the movies in the here and now have hardly caught them all… look here for a list four pages long to see how well you did.) You have to study the culture to fully understand the movie.

So, go back through history in the other direction. You have a book that is thousands of years old. It’s even written in an ancient language (but fortunately, you have a knack for languages and are able to overcome that barrier). You can (somewhat) easily grasp the narrative stories, the histories, the ritual songs and prophecies. But did you really “get” it? Well, yes and no. Of course, I am talking about the Old Testament. And yes, if you read it without any information at all you will learn of the wonderful way that God has revealed himself and interacted with people throughout history. But, you will miss some of the texture, some of the polemic, some of the beauty, and some of the details if you don’t understand the culture and surrounding societies of the people who wrote the book(s).

Case in point: Psalm 29. Great psalm. Speaks to me of the thunderous glory of God. But without knowing about the types of hymns that were written to the god of thunder Baal and the imagery used, I won’t fully appreciate all that is being done. I’m not saying to equate the praises of Yahweh with the hymns to Baal. But, I am asking to consider why (and to what purpose) the psalmist utilized the cultic culture around him.

We can learn much from Ancient Near East (ANE) texts and findings. Studying imagery in artwork, cultic observations, and even treaties helps to reveal richness and layers of understanding when applied to scripture. What can we learn from creation and flood stories of the surrounding cultures? It helps us to see that the way God chose to reveal himself and record that revelation was very carefully crafted to take advantage of the cultural context.

In addition to understanding our own scriptures better, we should learn that rather than scorn contextualization, we might recognize that God has used this to his purposes from the very beginning. This is not some new emerging method. It’s as old as… well, Genesis. We could learn a lot about how to present the One True God in the midst of a pantheon of contemporary gods by looking at how the covenant-keeping Elohim is presented against the backdrop of ANE gods.

So, there is definitely a purpose in studying all those squiggly lines and old texts. And if I can learn enough of that rich, cultural context then maybe I’ll be able to help people understand the Old Testament narratives in the way that my husband (who is much more 20th/21st century savvy than me) “gets” movies like Shrek.

Westminster places a high value on knowing the original languages of the Bible. There are 19 hours of Greek and Hebrew courses to be completed prior to beginning some of the biblical theology courses. Typically, incoming students spend the summer before their initial fall semester in an intensive Greek or Hebrew course. Basically, one month of language boot camp. The idea is to get a semester’s worth of vocabulary and grammar under your belt in one language before you begin the rest of your courses (and your second language!) The Greek course begins August 2nd–a week after we move. Mark will be ready to go, probably sitting in the first row. I, however, will be in Maine. Yes, due to the arrival of grandchild #4, I will not be able to attend that first Greek course. I will be helping out with Hannah’s homebirth experience and being Amm� to �va and the new little one (we don’t know if it is a girl or boy yet). There are priorities you know.

But I am not one to fall behind… so I have been studying Greek on my own and should finish the first semester material by the end of August. Just in time to take the placement test. The goal is to do well enough on the exam so that I “place” out of that first semester and can slide right into the next course alongside Mark. My life is currently filled with lots of little flash cards on a large keyring that travel everywhere with me. If I am stuck in traffic, out comes a card and I am looking at paradigms I haven’t memorized yet. When I drive to North Carolina to visit Sarah Joy (my oldest daughter) and her family, I have 3 hours of vocabulary on CD that I can listen to and repeat. This only works when I drive separately from Mark. He can’t quite get into the vocab repetitions yet. I’ve also found some great study guides and a listserv: B-Greek- The Biblcal Greek Mailing List.

It sounds like work, but really it’s just a big, fun puzzle. I love languages. I love writing systems. I love that I will have time to learn more. To see how languages work is beautiful. To understand the order (and chaos) is like appreciating a symphony. If Eric Liddell could say “When I run I feel [God’s] pleasure” then I say “When I study languages I am worshiping.” I am embracing the creative process of a God who communicates with us. Sure, I get some grief for wanting to learn Ugaritic. No one thinks it is practical. “What will you use it for?” I think it is a great misfortune when we believe that only that which is pragmatic is worth studying. Sure, I want to learn Greek and Hebrew to better understand the Bible, to read the OT and NT in their original languages and appreciate the fullness of what is being communicated. But I also want to just savor the language for itself. The language itself, not only what it communicates, reveals to me more of the character of God. And that’s worth all the flashcards and study time I can muster.