Ancient Hebrew Poetry

In search of prosodic domains in Lamentations 1-5

Here is the paper and the raw data for Lam 1-3 on the basis of which I will make a presentation at the International Meeting of SBL in Rome. The detail, I admit, is overwhelming.

Proverbs 1-9 by the Numbers

I’m off to the International Meeting of SBL in Rome! Here is a pdf of raw data and notes for my presentation there on the prosody of Proverbs 1-9.  Warning: except for the "exegetical notes," this is technical stuff.

Roger Cohen: A Liberal Mugged by Reality

Emanuele Ottolenghi deftly narrates a transformation here. I post this in praise of Cohen, not as a means to discredit him. His story is of a piece with that of many others.  

The Coming of Age of Biblical Blogging

David Stark has some insights. He is hopeful about the future of biblical blogging. So am I. The wind is in the sails of those who blog about the Bible at the intersection of the academy and existential concerns.

Ken Brown’s “Five Books on the Bible” Challenge

In case you missed the most successful meme ever launched among biblical bloggers, go here for a long list of participants; go here for a great summary post. If you have participated, but are not on the list, let Ken know. If you have neglected to participate so far, now would be a good time to get your “five books” in. Here are examples of biblical bloggers I was hoping to hear from:

Scottish Hebrew

The Hebrew vocabulary videos by Dr. David P. Murray available online are a hoot. Like all Scots, Murray mispronounces every word he lays his tongue on. For an American, that is, who grew up on Walter Cronkite’s English and on Hebrew spoken with Israeli tonalities. To an American ear, Murray’s English and Hebrew come across as the linguistic equivalent of Mr. Bean's comic gestuality. 

Murray makes use of tried and true memory hook methods. “My son is the bane of my life.” Get it?  Oh yeah. If you already know Hebrew, you will laugh and laugh at his vocabulary and grammar lessons. In my opinion, a better approach to learning Hebrew is that of Randall Buth and colleagues. Murray himself might concur. In any case, I can’t thank Murray enough for the great laughs his audio/videos engender.

ESV vs. NRSV: Why the appropriate niche of the NRSV is the secular university

Both ESV and NRSV are revisions of RSV, a key link in the chain of the Tyndale-Geneva-KJV translation tradition. The chief difference: ESV is more conservative of the KJV-RSV tradition than is NRSV. ESV’s commitment to traditional diction and interpretive options makes it a better choice as a church Bible, if the intent is to preserve continuity with the Tyndale-Geneva-KJV construct of the Bible and its message. The Tyndale-Geneva-KJV construal of the biblical message is of course specifically Christian, indeed, specifically Protestant. NRSV’s greater commitment to the sense the biblical texts presumably had apart from the meaning they acquired once contextualized in Judaism and Christianity makes it a better choice as a Bible for profane use, as the base text, for example, in an introduction to biblical literature course at a state university.

ESV vs. NRSV: Round Two

Both ESV and NRSV are excellent translations. They often differ only here and there. That’s because each is a revision of RSV, a link in the chain of the Tyndale-Geneva-KJV translation tradition.

Examples of passages in which ESV is to be preferred to NRSV

The English translations of the Hebrew Bible I consult most often are the following, in alphabetical order: Alter (where available), ESV, KJV, NAB, NIV, NJB, NJPSV, NLT, NRSV, REB, and TNIV. I am a supporter of each and every one of these translations. Each has strengths and weaknesses. In my estimation, every one of these translations is to be accepted with gratitude. If you want to pick an argument with me, tell me why NRSV, ESV, TNIV, NLT – pick your poison – is poorly conceived, dangerous, or otherwise too flawed to recommend to others. I will respond that I have issues with each of NRSV, ESV, TNIV, and NLT, but recommend them all.

CD-Host in a comment asks a question: “Let me throw out my regular question for ESV supporters to you. Is there even one verse that the ESV translates more accurately than the NRSV?”

Here is my reply:

Oh Iran, oh bejeweled land!

Do you know the opposition’s song in Iran? The song expresses the innermost thoughts of every Iranian friend I have ever had. I sing it with the opposition today. I trust you will as well.

The government has refused to issue a permit for Saturday’s Sea of Green rally. It may happen anyway. Even if it doesn’t, a pall of death shrouds the ruling regime from this day forward, even if it were to continue imposing itself on a people who reject it for another generation.

Excellent background analysis by David Ignatius here. Perceptive thoughts, as usual, by David Brooks, here. Here is the song:

Happy Birthday, Giovanni!

It is fitting to embarrass my oldest with a post. He turns 18 tomorrow. He was the one, after all, who badgered me into blogging. He and his sister Elisabetta also badgered their parents into having a third child, the glorious Anna, who just turned 6. The chain of cause-and-effect is a little bit uncertain on that last one. It shouldn’t be, I realize. I didn’t skip that lesson in sex education. Still, Anna came as a surprise answer to one of Giovanni’s most heartfelt prayers, the desire to have a baby brother or sister. Below, some pictures of Giovanni with his sister Anna.

Five authors who will change the way you read the Bible

Of all the responses to Ken Brown’s challenge so far, I’ve found that of Jared Calaway the most interesting. A great first step in learning how to read the Bible involves learning how to read it, not merely as an aesthetic experience, but for the thing itself, the subject matter it deals with. The reading of other examples of literature in which form and function are perfectly fused are excellent training grounds for reading the Bible.

Truth is a dangerous thing: the problem with pseudonymous individuals

I noticed a few moons ago that Doug Chaplin has a policy: no comments allowed by those who do not plainly identify themselves. BTW, this is Doug’s great new location, and I hereby tag him for Ken Brown’s five books’ challenge, to which there have been a glorious number of responses. What is the problem with pseudonymous individuals?

Five Books on the Hebrew Bible that changed my life

I find the lists of other bloggers fascinating. Here is a first cumulative list of books and authors that have turned people on to reading the Hebrew Bible with fresh eyes. It makes me proud to be a part of the community of biblical bloggers. We are a community of readers, benefitting from many of same resources, reading the text with the same deep curiosity and openness to new discoveries.

Introducing John Anderson

Brandon Wason interviews John Anderson. What a pleasant read. While perusing it, I couldn’t help thinking: the name of John’s blog fits him to a tee.

Thank you, Jared Cohen

Jared Cohen made my day. More 27 year olds in high places, please. More people who understand that things like Twitter and Facebook have become essential instruments of communication for millions of people. This article in the NYT has the scoop. No government in the world tramples on the humanity of its own people with greater single-mindedness than the Islamic government which detains power in Iran. No regime in modern history has been more successful in giving Islam a bad name.

Psalm 26: why Christians cannot pray it

Psalm 26 is a stumbling-block to pious Christians. But it is the self-righteous piety of Christians that is judged by this psalm, not the psalm by the piety of Christians. I am a Christian. The foolish spectacle of Christian piety is well-known to me. If the school of hard knocks has taught me anything, it is this: Christian piety as currently conceived is a filthy rag. The hard-edged piety of the Psalms sparkles like a diamond in comparison. Give me that old-time religion.

A new biblical blogger: James M. Kennedy

Kennedy is an Associate Professor of Religion at Baylor University. He loves Hebrew and Hebrew poetry, as his inaugural post shows. Find out more about this blogger here. James, welcome to the online community of biblical scholars.  

NLT1 and NLT2 Psalm 26:1-3: A Review

For comparison’s sake, Psalm 26:1-3 in Hebrew:

שָׁפְטֵנִי יְהוָה

כִּי־אֲנִי בְּתֻמִּי הָלַכְתִּי׃

וּבַיהוָה בָּטַחְתִּי

לֹא אֶמְעָד׃

 

בְּחָנֵנִי יְהוָה וְנַסֵּנִי

צְרוֹפָה כִלְיוֹתַי וְלִבִּי׃

כִּי־חַסְדְּךָ לְנֶגֶד עֵינָי

וְהִתְהַלַּכְתִּי בַּאֲמִתֶּךָ׃

Here is NLT1:

Declare me innocent, O Lord,
      for I have led a blameless life,
     I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.

Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me;
      test my motives and affections.

For I am constantly aware of your unfailing love,
       and I have lived according to your truth.

Here is NLT2, with revisions in yellow:

Declare me innocent, O Lord,
      for I have led a blameless life,
      I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.

Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me;
      test my motives and my heart.

For I am always aware of your unfailing love,
       and I have lived according to your truth.

In terms of translation strategy, NLT picks up where NIV and TNIV left off. It has the freshness of NIV and TNIV, only more so. It sparkles like NIV and TNIV, only more so. In a locus like this one, it amounts to a revision of NIV and TNIV.

The translation choices of KJV and ESV often have a long tradition behind them. Those of NIV, TNIV, and especially NLT1, often do not. NLT1 is the most predisposed of all to engage in paraphrase. Paraphrase, it should be pointed out, is not the same as “inaccurate.” On the contrary, there are “accurate” and “inaccurate” paraphrases.

NLT aims for clarity in translation, and does not hesitate to distance itself from the diction of the source text to achieve it. By and large NLT1 is a smoother read than NLT2, precisely because NLT1 was less inhibited in its translation choices.

In what follows, I will not repeat points made in my reviews of NIV and TNIV that apply no less to NLT1 and NLT2. I will make a number of comparative observations on NLT translation technique as exemplified in this locus.

A synoptic comparison of NIV, TNIV, NLT1, and NLT2 is illuminating. Here is TNIV vs. NLT1, except that NIV “without wavering” is retained because NLT1 and 2, correctly in my view, retain it:

Vindicate me, Lord,
      for I have led a blameless life,
I have trusted in the Lord
       without wavering.

Test me, Lord, and try me;
      examine my heart and my mind.
For I have always been mindful of your unfailing love,
       and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.

NLT1, with differences in blue:

Declare me innocent, O Lord,
      for I have led a blameless life,
      I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.

Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me;
      test my motives and affections.

For I am constantly aware of your unfailing love,
       and I have lived according to your truth.

The agreements between the NIV and NLT traditions outweigh the disagreements. Both are notable for a tendency to take metaphorical language and reword it in straightforward propositional language. “I have led a blameless life” rather than “I have walked with integrity.” “I have lived” instead of “I shall walk” (both translations also limit the time horizon of this part of the psalm to past and present, a simplification, it seems to me, of the situation in the source text). “Motives,” “affections,” and “I” instead of “kidneys,” “heart,” and “eyes.”

The terseness of the original is set aside for the sake of clarity, more so with each revision. “Declare me innocent” is a wordier but clearer expression of the same sense (T)NIV “Vindicate me” sought to convey. NIV “love” becomes “unfailing love,” already in TNIV. NIV replaced “eyes” with a simple “I” and added “ever,” in 26:3 “your love is ever before me.” In TNIV, the adverb “ever” is modernized but retained in the massive restructuring of the diction of the Hebrew it effects:“I have always been mindful of your unfailing love.” In NLT1, this becomes “I am constantly aware of your unfailing love.”

NLT1 26:2 “Put me on trial, LORD, and cross-examine me; / test my motives and affections” is a forceful paraphrase of the source text. It ties up all the loose ends of 26:1-3. Thanks as well to the translation of אמת with “truth” in 26:3, something I argued against in previous posts, we are left with a single forensic image from start to finish, a courtroom scene in which the psalmist’s innocence is at stake, cross-examination will take place, and the psalmist’s commitment to God’s truth will be confirmed.

But is it an accurate paraphrase? In my view, it is unduly limiting. For the psalmist, the forensic image, “be my judge,” is one among many he deploys. The psalmist’s invitation that God probe him and test him has wider horizons in view than a courtroom. The image of one’s heart and core being refined with fire, a crucial source text image, is not especially close to the image of being cross-examined and having one’s motives and affections tested.

I am dead set against the tendency in some quarters to downplay the importance of forensic metaphors, and the role of propositional truth, within the witness of scripture and in terms of felt needs of today. However, it is important to see how those metaphors and a commitment to truth relate to other, equally significant means by which we seek to capture the gist of the experience of salvation. Psalm 26:1-3 allows us to do that, but if and only if the range and richness of its references are retained in translation.

The following translation seeks to reproduce the range and richness.

Be my judge, יהוה!
      For I have walked with integrity,
      and in יהוה I have unwaveringly trusted.

Probe me, יהוה, test me;
      with fire refine my heart and core!
For my eyes are on your love.
      I will walk in reliance on your faithfulness.

NIV and TNIV Psalm 26:1-3: A Review

For comparison’s sake, Psalm 26:1-3 in Hebrew:

ESV Psalm 26:1-3: A Review

For comparison's sake, Psalm 26:1-3 in Hebrew:

The Dynamics of Parallelism in Psalm 26:1-3

One aspect of ancient Hebrew poetry that is not taught very well is the extent to which the phenomenon of parallelism does not necessarily work itself out across a pair of contiguous clauses, but at a higher level, across complexes of clauses, and on several different levels simultaneously. In ancient Hebrew poetry, syntactic-semantic unities at a distance from one another echo and correspond to each other no less than contiguous syntactic-semantic unities.

KJV, ESV, (T)NIV, NLT: which should you prefer? (Part 1)

None of the above is the correct answer. Each of them pales in comparison to the original. I can prove it.

Henry Goodman reads Psalm 22 in Robert Alter’s version

HT: Ros Clarke. As Phil Sumpter points out, Henry Goodman’s reading of Psalm 22 in Robert Alter’s version is magnificent. The readings of Psalms 23 (KJV and Alter), 150 (Alter), 1 (Alter), 19 (KJV), 104 (Alter), 13 (KLV and Alter), 65 (Alter) and 137 (KJV and Alter), by Goodman and Kenneth Cranham, are also excellent. As Ros points out, the concluding readings of Psalm 137 are especially moving.

The Crown of Jerusalem: A Review of an Edition of Codex Aleppo

The Jewish Publication Society, I’m delighted to report, is distributing a magnificent edition of the Hebrew Bible known as כתר ירושלים “The Crown of Jerusalem” (HT: David E. S. Stein). The “crown” edition of the Hebrew Bible is based on Codex Aleppo, insofar as it has been preserved, and insofar as it can be reconstructed on the basis of methods developed by Mordechai Breuer.