Keeping your own ideas and thoughts to the forefront when reading the Bible is a little like being that person who hears without listening during a conversation. You are just waiting for someone to finish so you can have your say. (Yes, I have been guilty of this, too.) There is no room for God’s voice to speak to your mind and heart when your own personal static is getting in the way.
Dr. Robert Alter ~ By courtesy of the author
Recently I became aware of just how translation affects the way I hear Scripture each day. Thanks to the generous gift of a friend my prayer life is now enriched by a new Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament. Robert Alter’s wonderful translation in three volumes lets me see and hear familiar passages with fresh ears. It makes present the ancient Hebrews who saw their world very differently than we do in the twenty-first century. Yet for all that long span of time and culture, their fears and sorrows, joys and triumphs make us kin with them.
For the first time, though, I begin to appreciate the talent and intention of those long-ago writers and poets. Reading for me is often an escape from reality, which means I want to lose myself in what I read, not admire its beauty and literary quality (or deplore its lack thereof). In study I am focused on learning and discovery. In prayer I want to set aside worldly desires and be alone with God. It didn’t occur to me that being more aware of how and why the creators of Scripture wrote as they did could both amplify God’s voice and sharpen my ability to listen.
Dr. Alter’s introduction to his translation gives some insight into why this might be so. He notes, “In the case of the modern versions, the problem is a shaky sense of English and in the case of the King James Version, a shaky sense of Hebrew.”
For a variety of reasons, I have a half dozen translations of the Bible, some for reference and others for regular use. Among other things, the Alter translation has made me much more aware of how modern translations in particular
- weaken the metaphorical power of biblical writing,
- focus on explanation and instruction at the expense of meaning,
- diminish creative and literary aspects of the Bible with unnecessary changes, and
- change our ability to understand how the biblical writers saw their world.
I do not love every last one of Dr. Alter’s choices in this translation, but that is a personal quibble. For the most part it is a very fine work, and one well worth making a staple resource for your quest. There are times when its words literally take my breath away, and in the sudden, ensuing sense of shock I hear God’s voice as those ancient writers did long, long ago.
For further reading:
Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. Trans. Robert Alter. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019.
(I like the description on the W. W. Norton & Company website in the United Kingdom better than the one on the American site.)
Going to university opened my eyes to the infinite riches of scholarly writing from ancient times to the present. Yes, it takes more effort to read these works than popular books written for a general audience. It definitely takes time to build up your reading ability and mental stamina before you tackle the contents of a university library. It is, however, absolutely worth it if you want to expand your understanding of any subject. Many works are surprisingly readable, and as a bonus, your brain will thank you.
An often overlooked resource for the independent researcher can be found at the end of academic biographies on university websites. This is the list of a professor’s publications, sometimes on the same page or via a link on the page. For example, I found several articles about Gershom Scholem on Dr. Alter’s list. In my own research, I have found Dr. Scholem’s work of considerable interest as I tried to unravel some of the mysteries and misconceptions about Jewish, Christian and Islamic mysticism.
Reading notes:
University introduced me to the idea of reading notes. Until then I would write down interesting quotes or ideas from books on scraps of paper. There weren’t that many, because much of what I read seemed obvious. What changed was that in university I had a purpose and easy access to the primary works of the great thinkers of history. I wanted to unlock the mysteries underlying mystical experience in the hope of better understanding my life and how and why it unfolded as it did. Otherwise, any book I wrote was going to be of limited value.
You can find a distillation of my reading notes below from Robert Alter’s translation of the Books of Job and Psalms, and his introductions to those books and the translation as a whole. Job was one of the readings for June and early July this year in the Table of Lessons from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and every month the Psalter is read in its entirety. The delay in publishing these notes was caused by beginning the Psalter in the middle of the month when I received the new translation, and also by the fact that my notes are so extensive, running to fifteen typewritten pages. Needless to say, I have found this translation to be a rich resource. Just in these two books I have
- learned more about biblical translation than from all my previous reading,
- found new reasons to take the Bible seriously, not literally,
- been jolted out of a too-often-complacent reading of Scripture, and
- found a new appreciation for the painstaking work of biblical translators.
Of course, as noted in the above post, I have quibbles. This is what I mean by complacent reading. I have a fondness for the word “behold” and the terms “give thanks” and “of old.” In their place, Dr. Alter uses “look,” “acclaim” and “of yore.” However, it’s the very comfort level with the familiar that tends to bring complacency to the reading of Scripture. I found on the second reading of the Psalms, I was more appreciative of the choices made in the new translation.
Notes from the introduction to the translation:
Because so many Bibles come without introduction or commentary, it is easy to take most translations at face value. After reading Dr. Alter’s introduction, I will never make that mistake again. Here are some brief statements from it that explain why:
“. . . biblical narrative is misrepresented when translators tamper with the purposeful and insistent physicality of its language… substitutions offer explanations or interpretations instead of translations and thus betray the original.” (p. xix)
He laments the tendency in other translations to “push translation to the verge of paraphrase—recasting and interpreting the original instead of representing it,” and says:
“. . . we must keep constantly in mind that these narratives were composed to be heard, not merely to be decoded by a reader’s eye.” (p. xxiii) Later in this introduction he writes about the “beautiful rhythms” to be found in the original Hebrew of the psalms (p. xxxvi), which leaves me with a strong desire to learn Hebrew so I can read them as they were first written.
I especially appreciated the insight gained from his distinction between the “primary vocabulary” of biblical prose and “the more elaborate vocabulary of poetry.“ (pp. xxvii-xxviii)
He is upfront about the limitations of any translation, including his own, which “cannot be free to translate a word here one way and there another, for the sake of variety or for the sake of context. It must be admitted, however, that some compromises are inevitable because modern English clearly does not coincide semantically with ancient Hebrew in many respects.” (p. xxx)
All in all, I feel this translation gives more life to the Bible, and both the introductions and the commentary are not without occasional nuggets of humour, an unexpected delight.
Notes from the introduction to The Writings:
Here I noted mainly the insight that Psalms and Proverbs were both anthologies that included “both early and late texts,” and learned that Aramaic was replacing Hebrew as the spoken language of ordinary people by the time the most recent parts of the Hebrew Bible were written. (p. xliii)
More to follow . . .