The Alter Bible
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The Alter Bible
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Re: The Alter Bible
#2Fascinating that this made it on to the front-page of HN. I feel sorry for this fellow in as much as his surname must cause some terrific confusion.
The King James version has remained popular as a result of its wonderful prose - to see someone approach the Hebrew Bible from a modern angle with the same intent is very interesting - I'll be having a read.
Re: The Alter Bible
#3>Then there is Alter’s preference for “between his legs” rather than “between his feet,” which is used in all three of the earlier versions quoted above. A staff between Judah’s feet sounds like it is planted firmly on the ground, but a mace between his legs has a distinctly more phallic implication, as Alter acknowledges in his note: “the image of the mace between the legs surely suggests virile power in political leadership.” This is a vivid image of patriarchy, entirely appropriate for a speech in which a father is passing sovereignty down to his sons.
It sounds like the ancient culture wasn't living up to the modern reader's expectations for how ancient literature was supposed to be read, so they burried some nuts so that the other modern readers could find them as they expected to.
Re: The Alter Bible
#4> Then there is Alter’s preference for “between his legs” rather than “between his feet,” which is used in all three of the earlier versions quoted above. A staff between Judah’s feet sounds like it is planted firmly on the ground, but a mace between his legs has a distinctly more phallic implication, as Alter acknowledges in his note: “the image of the mace between the legs surely suggests virile power in political…
Well it even gets better.
1 Kings 12:10 The young men who had grown up with him replied, "These people have said to you, 'Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.' Now tell them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist.
Little finger means his penis.
Re: The Alter Bible
#5I've always been fascinated by the difficulties of translation.
There is the issue of expressing the original thought. Already I've edited this post several times.
Then there is the issue of the surrounding context which will be different for different people. Even for people in the same culture at the same time in the same place.
Then the issue of the attitude of the reader. It's not uncommon to get different meanings from the same text on different days.
Now with the Biblical text we have copies of text from a different time, culture, and language. I like how this article shows how hard it is to handle even one sentence.
Re: The Alter Bible
#6Fascinating that this made it on to the front-page of HN. I feel sorry for this fellow in as much as his surname must cause some terrific confusion. The King James version has remained popular as a result of its wonderful prose - to see someone approach the Hebrew Bible from a modern angle with the same intent is very interesting - I'll be having a read.
Trivia: the discussions that led to the suggestion to King James VI to create a new bible were held in a church a couple of miles from where I am currently sitting:
Re: The Alter Bible
#7I've always been fascinated by the difficulties of translation. There is the issue of expressing the original thought. Already I've edited this post several times. Then there is the issue of the surrounding context which will be different for different people. Even for people in the same culture at the same time in the same place. Then the issue of the attitude of the reader. It's not uncommon to get different meanin…
And that's just meaning. I found that preserving the style can be an equally hard thing to do from a language to another.
Re: The Alter Bible
#8I've always been fascinated by the difficulties of translation. There is the issue of expressing the original thought. Already I've edited this post several times. Then there is the issue of the surrounding context which will be different for different people. Even for people in the same culture at the same time in the same place. Then the issue of the attitude of the reader. It's not uncommon to get different meanin…
And that's just meaning. I found that preserving the style can be an equally hard thing to do from a language to another.
As well as sarcasm, emphasis, irony, puns....
I really like this sentence from Douglas Hofstadter: "Every word in this sentence is a gross misspelling of the word 'tomato'."
There are so many ways a translator could go with that.
Re: The Alter Bible
#9I've always been fascinated by the difficulties of translation. There is the issue of expressing the original thought. Already I've edited this post several times. Then there is the issue of the surrounding context which will be different for different people. Even for people in the same culture at the same time in the same place. Then the issue of the attitude of the reader. It's not uncommon to get different meanin…
I'd prefer a translator that just gave me the words and sentences. As a receiver of that information I can learn to do my own interpretation. Imperfectly and only after some thought and experience, but at least the translator won't be 'in the way' changing the message.
Re: The Alter Bible
#10Fascinating that this made it on to the front-page of HN. I feel sorry for this fellow in as much as his surname must cause some terrific confusion. The King James version has remained popular as a result of its wonderful prose - to see someone approach the Hebrew Bible from a modern angle with the same intent is very interesting - I'll be having a read.
Trivia: the discussions that led to the suggestion to King James VI to create a new bible were held in a church a couple of miles from where I am currently sitting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burntisland_Parish_Church
> Kink James VI
Quality Freudian slip here.