The Translatability of Scripture

1. Prevalence of antithesis in the gospels.  

    -  Matthew 5:43-44: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you . . ."  Jesus asks us to do things which are opposed to our natural sinful nature.  The verb "love" is notoriously difficult to translate in some cultures.  Where there is no clear equivalent, phrases have been utilized such as "be concerned for their welfare," "care for," "treat/think of with affection," or "have sweet (or hot or cool, etc) stomach (or liver, heart, etc.) for." (Newman, 152)  It may be argued that these options all fall short of the highly defined concept of love in Greek.  (Here from αγαπάω, which is differentiated from φιλία, στοργή,  πρᾶγμα, or ξενία)  What is interesting, however, is how functional these renderings would be in the Christian life, despite their difference from the original and their differences from each other.  No matter which of these options you choose, the saying is still a confrontation of the normal state of things.  We naturally hate our enemies and love those who are nice to us.  We give to those who will give us something in return.  We lend out things only when we expect to get them back.  Jesus however, is saying that God is not like us.  He gives good things to evil men.  He sends rain on those who will never thank him for it, and so anyone who would seek to be like him must do the same.  This goes against our natural sinful state, making it transferable and translatable into any culture.

Newman, Barclay Moon, and Philip C. Stine. A Translator's Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. New York: United Bible Societies, 1992.

Translating Genesis 1:1-5 in the spirit of Aquila (draft)

1בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

2וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֨הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְהֹ֑ום וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃

3וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י אֹ֑ור וַֽיְהִי־אֹֽור׃

4וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָאֹ֖ור כִּי־טֹ֑וב וַיַּבְדֵּ֣ל אֱלֹהִ֔ים בֵּ֥ין הָאֹ֖ור וּבֵ֥ין הַחֹֽשֶׁךְ׃

5וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים׀ לָאֹור֙ יֹ֔ום וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר יֹ֥ום אֶחָֽד׃ פ

Aquila's translation strategy:

1. "customarily summed up in one epithet: extremely literal."

2. consistent Hebrew-Greek equivalents

3. Jerome in Epist. LVII ad Pammachium:  "qui non solum verba, sed etymologias quoque verborum transferre conatus est . . . et syllabas interpretatur et literas . . . dicitque 'συν τον ουρανον και συν την γην,' quod Graeca et Latina lingua omnino non recipit"

     - - Neologisms - 

רָגַם  - to stone  χερμάς - large pebble --> makes into a verb --> χερμαδίζειν

4. transliterating in a manner against convention 5. tried to imitate the sound of the Hebrew with the Greek word, eg.אֵלוֹן (oak, other strong tree) in Deut 11:30 is rendered with αὐλών (LSJ: "hollow between hills or banks, defile, glen"), instead of the more natural, η δρῦς (Woodhouse's EN-GR)

My translation (imitating Aquila): 

In the head-start of God's creating : the heavens and : the earth,

and the earth was tofu and boohoo,
and darkness was upon the face of the deep,
and the wind of God was hovering upon the face of the waters,

and said God, "Light, be!" and light was.

And saw God : the light as good

and divided God between the light 

and between the darkness.
And called God to the light, "day" and to the darkness he called "night."
And t'was evening and t'was morning: day one.

Comments:

Verse 1:

a)  "Head-start" is used in verse 1 against the common idiom of "getting a head start" or "having a head start," and so its abnormal use is signaled by the abnormal hyphen between the two words.   בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית of course is closely connected to the word רֹאשׁ.  A similar metaphor exists within Latin's "in capite."  Greek's most natural choice would be "εν αρχη," but Aquila chooses "εν κεφαλαίω," most likely in an attempt to keep the etymological tie between the start of something and the head. (Ambrose argues this is an inadequate rendering, cf Hex. Orig, 112)  Jerome claims that Aquila often preserved etymologies of the Hebrew words through slight abuses to the Greek language, and that is what I have tried to do here.

b)  Either, "in the beginning God created..." or "at the beginning of God's creating..." (Rashi) cf. Hos. 1:2 - "t.hilat diber adonai..." (Vul: principium loquendi Domino)  Since I was constrained to render the start of v. 2 as "and," thereby losing the sense of the temporal copula of /haitah/, I went with the second option.  Rashi's reading could be used to great advantage in story-telling cultures.  This would suspend the first indicative verb till verse 3 when God speaks.  While perhaps backgrounding the implication of creation from nothing, this would foreground the idea of creation by the Word of God.  Creatio ex nihilo could be ascertained from other passages such as Heb. 11:3, "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." Or, Rev. 4:11, "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."  Or, Jn 1:3 "without him was not anything made that has been made."  One could make an argument to leave the fruit of Greek thought to come out in the Greek New Testament, and allow the fruit of Hebrew thought to shine in the Old.

c)  The colon has been chosen to represent the direct object marker אֶת.  This borders on "violence to the English language," but no more so than Aquila's decision to render it with the Greek "σύν."  If it were to be rendered as "with" accordingly, it could easily be misunderstood in English as saying "God created via the heavens and the earth."  I'm no professional theologian, but that sounds like something those "ex nihilo" guys would hate to see here.  At least in this instance, it seems to me that Aquila is operating off a desire to make his translation as transparent as possible (even to the point of being non-sensical in the Greek language) so that the Greek reader could look through it and see the Hebrew text which lies behind.  I imagine his literalness is operating within the bounds of communicating truth.  Moreover, a similar phrase occurs in Genesis 2:4 without the direct object markers, which he may suspect is meaningful enough to let his readers know about it.

d) Italics were utilized for any word or morpheme not present in the form over parentheses or brackets so as not to impede the process of reading.  It is significant to note that readers of Bibles which take advantage of italics for words not present in the original often misunderstand these italics.  The mistake is usually to over-emphasize these words, rather to de-emphasize them!

Verse 2:

"Tofu" is pretty amorphous; "boohoo" captures the judgment connotations found in other uses of this word (Isa 34:11: land reverted to vanity and wilderness because of the Lord's "day of vengeance" and "year of recompense" Jer 4:23: "laid in ruins before his fierce anger" Jeremiah's lament over the land's desolation; David Tsumura argues they mean "unproductive and uninhabited." Other verses where tohu appears it is translated as "emptiness" or "vanity," Isa 40:17, 23).  The combination of the two allows for the transfer of the audible qualities of the original text to the TT reader.  Although this rendering communicates the sound and as much as we know of the meaning of these words, I have no reason to believe our venerable Aquila would have allowed himself to retain such a comedic effect in sacred scripture.  I have chosen this option here merely to point out that transference of the sound of the original language was included within his conception of a literal rendering. 

"Upon" both instances for עַל . We know Aquila appreciates consistent Hebrew-Greek equivalents.

רָחַף - This is traditionally rendered with a form of "hover" (NKJV, ESV, NIV) or "move" (KJV, NASB).  The NRSV adopts "swept."  Arabic cognate  "be soft" suggests a gentle quality to the motion.  Hebrew has different verbs for a wind blowing (x) or a bird flying (x).  This word only occurs one other time in the In Deut 32, this word is used...

Verse 3:

The jussive is used to express a range of nuances of will, from harsh commands to gentle invitations.  The shortness of the expression is important I think.  I considered "let light be!" but that sounds too much like the phrase "let something be" as in "leave it alone."  I allowed for a grammatical change (vocative, imperative) to preserve the crispness of the original.  Jouon-Muraoka interprets this as an jussive form functioning as an optative.

"As good" doesn't reduce the "anticipation" (cf. J-M 177i) of the verb of perception. (Gen 1.31 = "God saw all that he had made and behold, it was very good")

Conclusions: Aquila is seen sometimes to preserve the ST form not only in the syntax, not only in establishing direct Hebrew-Greek equivalents, but even seeking to preserve the form the words take in the mouth.  This is striking.  It reveals that even a translator who is often summed up as being "extremely literal" is having to make choices about which form to "carry across."  Not only are there multiple levels of meaning within any given text, but there are also multiple layers of form.  For any translator who is thinking that literalness is any easy way out of making these hard choices, Aquila shows us that there is a multiplicity of "forms" to choose from, and the translator can never reproduce them all in his final product.  The translator is always deciding the value of different aspects of the form, whether alliteration, rhythm, whether it is important that the original word is super short or super long, repetition of words or word order, the fact that the bible begins with God's name or a prepositional phrase. Reynold's quote about the impossibility of transferring the original completely to the target audience, in fact, not even being able to completely transfer any single aspect of the original.  This would include the form.  Rather, our goal is approximation.  How can we we best approximate the original form, while also approximating the original meaning.  It is a balancing game. This is sometimes referred to as the "closest natural equivalent."  What would a perfectly literal text look like?  Transfer the sound of every word and the shape that the mouth takes when they are said, the rhythm of gutterals and labials, the identical length of phrases often resembling a kind of isocolon.  Do all this, and you have a text before you that is not English at all, but rather a full transliteration of the Hebrew.  If you are of the persuasion that very shapes of those "lickable Hebrew letters" are also part of the form, then you can only hand the reader a copy of the original text and wish them luck!  (lucky for us the Hebrew Bible seems to be a text meant to be heard, not read) Perhaps this seems absurd, but it is just to illustrate that the translator is always sacrificing the form to some extent in order to mediate the meaning.  The question is how far is he willing to go, and what he sees fit to sacrifice.   It is a maxim that "the medium IS the message."  Stated semiotically, the signifier is not wholly unrelated to the signified, but in fact contributes to it.  (who said this? 3rd term...)

In fact, there is some comfort that a text can never be translated literally.  Many often herald the danger of overliteralness.  For the translator that feels a great burden of fidelity to the form, recognizing that they can never preserve the letter completely, but are forced to pick and choose aspects of it to keep while throwing out the other competing aspects, can liberate them to jettison the whole of the form when it is deemed impossible to preserve.

(story from article)
(story from Neil Anderson's book)

We believe God inspired the words of Scripture, not just the meaning behind those words.  Further study is merited in the ranking of "salient elements" of a text, in order to help a translator decide what is essential to carry over, what should be preserved if possible, and what is inessential.  These dials will change from text to text, from genre to genre!  When talking about the Word of God, how do you decide what is unimportant?!  It's not a comfortable question, and yet this is the decision all translators make, and few talk about.  Every rendering comes at a cost, and we need a way of making that cost-benefit analysis.  Otherwise, you may end up with translations that talk about God creating the world out of tofu and boohoo!

Cahill, Michael and Keith Benn. "Overliteralness and Mother-Tongue Translators." Journal of Translation. vol. 7, no. 1, 2011, 49-61.

Collins, C. John. Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary. Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Pub, 2006.

Reider, Joseph. Prolegomena to a Greek-Hebrew & Hebrew-Greek Index to Aquila. Philadelphia: Oxford University Press, 1916.

25, Married, and Still the Same

I rediscovered this old blog today.  It's amazing how much of me hasn't changed, especially in regards to my inability to assert myself and speak up in a group setting, even among friends.  This is a source of great despair for me, and always will be, perhaps.  Here's my quick analysis of the problem, and a shot at a solution.

I see two parts to the problem.  The first -- I am a coward.  The fear of man plagues me, and makes me unwilling to publicly put my name on anything, lest I receive the criticism that invariably results.  I am scared of failure and disrepute, and therefore say nothing.  But in the Psalms, silence is a place:

If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.  Psalm 94:17

The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence.  Psalm 115:17

If I am virtually living among the dead, crippled by fear and frustration, then I deny, by my actions, Christ's resurrection.  Have we not been raised with him unto newness of life?  Let us speak, therefore, and while we're at it, sing!

Beyond fear, the second cause of my silence is sloth.  I hold my opinions all too lightly.  This comes from simply not having done the homework to bring myself to hold any strong convictions about anything.  I think, "Surely others have read more, from better sources, for a longer period of time, and can express it better, etc. No one needs my opinion."  This is true of course in certain contexts, and humility is a good reason to be slow of tongue.  HOWEVER, it is lazy to gain a reputation for wisdom merely by never revealing yourself a fool.

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.  Proverbs 17:28

Often my humility in this area serves as a guise for laziness.  If no one ever expects or depends on my opinion, it's hard to be rigorous about coming to a fully-formed conclusion and stay ready to defend it.  But eventually the occasion always comes.  Someone expects counsel from you about a certain situation.  Another asks you what you think about a particular doctrine, scriptural passage, or current event.  While we can never be prepared for everything and being knowledgeable about one thing does not make one an expert on everything, mushy answers help no one.  Saying "I don't know" is sometimes a sign of humility and scholarly integrity, but for me it has been more of a negligence to come to my own conclusions.  The scholar at some point must move beyond mastering the various opinions out there, and come to espouse his own.  This is dangerous.  It invites critique.  But it really is the only way to help people. 

Discretion, however, is a skill that needs to be practiced and attained.  What better way to practice than a blog that no one reads?  That is my solution for now.  May the Lord develop my mind and organize my ideas to mirror those of his eternal Wisdom, that I might be a more faithful ambassador of Christ here on earth.

Final Reflection

 

Wobble.

To lose balance.

To be unsteady.

To falter or stagger.



In this course, there have been many moments of "wobble" for me to work through.  I mentioned my literacy narrative in the last post, and the first and perhaps most prominent struggle has been to reconsider my identity as percieved from the outside in this new college atmosphere.  Because of band and AP, almost all of my classes during my last year of high school were year-long courses, in which I really got to know my teachers and fellow students.  In this situation, I could without issue be my quiet self and over the time, people around me gradually got to know me, and I them.  Here at UNC Charlotte it is much different.  In a class that only meets 33 times, one must be much more outgoing to create friendships.  Because I live at home and commute to Charlotte on school days instead of living in a dorm and having the traditional meal plan, I miss the main opportunity to connect with other students. 

In a traditional lecture course, this conflict is circumvented.  Walking into a class like that, the purpose of the student is clearly set forth: come to class, listen, and leave.  In contrast, this course demanded much more interaction and I became known by my name instead of a face in the crowd.  That, in itself, wasn't the rub; it actually made it feel more like high school.  The issue arouse when we began discussing our personal thoughts and life stories with those we just met.  This was very uncomfortable for me, (and still is! haha ) and many times I would talk more about what I thought my partner easily nod along with, than actually sharing my true opinion or experiences.  I would listen around me as to clues on what others were talking about and find something similiar to say; my true response often felt too sincere for 9:30 in the morning.  I think we all do this to some degree, monitoring our speech depending on who we are speaking with and the external situation, but the struggle for me was to decide how much.  God is the most influencial and important person in my life, and the experiences of every day are put into the context of his presence.  The way He has changed me means the world to me, and His plans for my future do too, though I don't yet know what those might be.  This sort of thing is difficult to mold into a casual, minute discussion with a stranger, especially when its so close to my heart.  Deciding how much I would "hide" was my greatest wobble of this course.

Literacy Narrative Reflection

My literacy narrative.  Sigh.  There is so much that could be said about this assignment. 

Let's start from the beginning.  Or before the beginning.  When I first heard about this project, I seriously debated not doing it.  (and this is coming from the girl who thought she had to make perfect grades in high school!)  As it was described to us, I felt like there were only two ways to write this paper: either as a metaphor, or as a paper centered on me and my writing progression.  The former seemed impossible to me.  When I read the Living Like Weasels and Carpet is Mungers, neither one made any sense to me, and weasel analogy kind of grossed me out.  Because I felt that I wasn't creative (or crazy) enough to write a good metaphorical literacy narrative, I was stuck with option number two.  Writing about the development of my literacy seemed very self-centered, like when you write a resume or scholarship application and only talk about all the great things you've done.  I hate doing those, so I thought a 3-5 page paper would be absolutely horrid.  This is what I wrote for my writing into the day...

I hate papers about myself.  Who am I?  Who cares? ...but my greatest opposition is this: I am dead.  "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live! Christ lives in me!  ...It would be like the ocean boasting about its water, when the real majesty lies in what lives within.   In the grand scheme, I'm not important!  It almost seems wrong...to focus three pages completely on myself and my desires/accomplishments...Perhaps that's why I haven't started!!  "Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool because I would be speaking the truth.  But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say."  Should I, like Paul, also refrain??

However, I realized the centrality of this project to the course and its eventual impact on my grade and decided that since my parents were paying this semester of college for me, that I should honor them and do my best to make good grades.  Plus, from the outside, not doing a homework assignment just looks lazy.  After deciding to do it, I then waited until the last minute to actually start writing because I didn't really know what to say.  It started out as a general narrative on how I learned to read, but about halfway through the first page, I realized how I could change up this assignment so that it didn't feel so self-absorbed.  I look back now and it seems obvious... I wonder how I didn't see this sooner!  I decided to write the first draft not focusing on how I have improved my literacy, but how God has impacted my life, including but not limited to, my literacy.  Just changed the focus. :)

My second draft was hard for me to write too.  I remember being rather annoyed that I had to completely rework an essay that I had already put alot of myself into.  Often times when I write an essay, I will outline and revise its form, structure, and thought progression in my head, wait until the night before its due, and then dump it all out on paper all at once.  The idea that I had to go back and dig up all these old ideas that felt complete to me and readdress them felt kind of frustrating.  Eventually this second draft served as a giant experiment of sorts.  From the October 4th assignment, I thought it would be cool if I combined the idea of focusing on one specific event, describing it in overblown detail and the idea of converting it to a poem.  The poem idea also flowed nicely into the mentor text that our writing group had found in the library, Owl Moon.  I decided that it would be neat to reminisce about the night I was saved through the mood of Jane Yolen's children's story...I have rerun it many times in my head, but have never taken the time to write it poetically.  In the end, I actually really enjoyed doing this draft, but when I finished, I found it difficult to throw the context back on my literacy and still stay within the same lyrical mood, so it kind of fell to the wayside.

For the final draft, at first I was really excited about the rolling due date, but the longer I thought about what to write, the more I couldn't decide!  There are so many possible things to talk about, so many different perspectives to take that I felt like the extra time just made me more indecisive.  Several times I thought about trying the idea my teacher suggested, which was to start at my 40th birthday and work backwards, which was a really cool idea, but what if I didn't meet my goal?  It felt presumptuous to me.  A lot of things can happen in 22 plus years.  I also considered completely rewriting it, viewing the third draft more as a progression of ideas than as a replacement for the first two.  I would use it to relate the literacy narrative to what's been going on recently, focusing on apologetics.  In the end I chose to dismantle the end of the first draft and add these other new thoughts to the end.  I still ended up liking the first draft better, perhaps because of its focus, but I wasn't about to erase my work. :)

Overall, this assignment was an all-around struggle for me, but it was certainly successful in driving home the fact that literacy is dynamic and hopelessly intertwined in each of our lives. 

Ethnography Project Reflection

Here are some of my thoughts from throughout the process of creating our group's ethnography project.

As previously mentioned on this website, at first I wanted to do this project as a study of the literacy in the natural world, such as different types of patterns, animal communication, and even that of our own DNA.  However as we were split up into groups, that was not a feasible option.  I instead decided to join the group searching for literacy in everyday objects; I had some thoughts on this that came up in one of our past assignments and I thought they would be interesting to flesh out in totality. 

As our group met together and began talking, it was clear that we each had different directions we wanted to take this project, based on how we understood our individual definitions of literacy.  This was especially troubling for me, because I'm not an assertive person, and yet I always have an opinion.  Eventually we came to a consensus to focus on objects like symbols, places, and buildings more than anything else.  Getting to that position wasn't clear cut though.  On our first day out of class, we simply wandered the campus discussing what could be considered literacy, taking pictures of viable options.

This Google Doc shows our development of thought on both these pictures and what to do with this project as a whole.  It serves as a good little representation of our revision process and all that it entailed.  Although the end product is clean and ordered, the road to get there was actually rather messy.  Ideas of kinetic text videos built on PowerPoint and sped-up videos of cartoon drawings flowed freely and eventually we scratched them both, along with the pictures and interviews, and made a video.  This concept, however, did in a sense build on top of what we had done while getting the pictures.  It was a sped up version of our journey with music in the background and text in the forefront.  I give all the props to Michael and Caity on the great video they made because I wasn't there when the finished product was birthed.  Kudos to them. 

Concerning the media form, this was, admittedly, more on the uncomfortable side for me.  I don't own a camera or know how to edit video, so I was at the mercy of Michael's video expertise when we decided that's what we were going to do.  It was also hard because we weren't sure what was expected, or even desired.  I would much rather write a ten page research paper with strict guidelines than do any kind of vague multi-media project.  It's just out of my comfort zone.  Overall, I loved the change of pace compared to any other project I've done, and it gave me a chance to learn more about our campus... and I got to go through the tunnel!

Many Meanings :)

"Something's meaning is subjective."
                                             
...If so, then wouldn't that statement also be subjective?  ...And if the statement is absolutely true, then wouldn't it defeat itself?  These were some of the things that were running through my head during class last week, aching to be voiced but with no opportunity.  Sometimes I feel that truth is being bullied and shoved into a dark closet, with no one willing to question or stand up for her.  I am no philosopher, but I am a thinking human being, a title with which I believe holds responsibility to critically examine the world around us.

Accompanying the literacy "digs" we have been performing, it is necessary to discuss the nature of the meanings that we pull from our subjects.  In class, the professor put forth the opinion that any meaning drawn is solely subject to the perciever's perception of it.  She founded this in an activity dealing with Gertrude Steiner's poetry, telling us to find the meaning and compare with a neighbor.  While explaining the activity, we were told to not worry what we wrote, because it was her personal goal as a writer to make it impossible to discern any underlying meaning. These are a couple of Steiner's direct quotes I found:

"Why should a sequence of words be anything but a pleasure?”

“A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.”

From my basic reading up on her, Steiner appears to be very interested in writing in a "stream of conciousness" and from a more artistic perspective.  Given her struggles and background, it looks like she was trying to say something through the lack of conformity in her writing, more than any of the actual writing itself.

So we sat, creatively attempting to discover the meaning to a poem to which no meaning had been given.  We compared our different stories, all different of course.  But even if this text did have an ascribed meaning, would our different interpretations of that text prove that meaning is subjective?  I would say no.  Let's step back for a second.  Imagine that your mom told you to go the grocery store tomorrow.  You wake up the next morning and find a slip of paper on the counter with the carefully scribed words, "chocolate ice cream" on it.  Now you remember that your mom is on a diet and always buys a certain type in a certain size.  So you go to the store, buy the one she wants, bring it back and all is well.  In this example, we see that the "creator" (your mom) of the "literate" object in question (the grocery list) means something absolute, and any other interpretation would hold negative consequences.  There is a right and a wrong, according to the creator's ascribed meaning.  Imagine if you came home with any other kind of ice cream.  If it was my mom, I know she'd be upset and say, "Come on, you know what I meant!"

This same principle can, and should, be applied to our literacy digs as well.  When we look at a piece of art, we must remember that the author is the one who creates the meaning, and based on that, our perception must be compared.  When we pass a speed limit sign, its meaning cannot be defined individually by the driver, but by the government.  When we see a ring on someone's finger, its meaning cannot be defined by us, but by its wearer.  The meaning is created by the observed, not the observer.

These meanings, however amorphous or mutable, are absolute. 
Our interpretations of these meanings are what is subjective.