religion

Factual Questions
121

It’s a conflict of interest to be explicitly committed to X and to also attempt to dispassionately attempt find out if X is true. You can’t do both. You can’t believe a book is absolute truth and also attempt a dispassionate translation of it. This is because if the real meaning of the text is untrue (because the author was wrong) you are likely to interpret it inaccurately, to find an interpretation that is true. This then becomes the “precise” translation.

Now if the original Hebrew text is so crystal-clear in meaning, why did the various translators of the old testament get it so wrong? Did they not know what they were doing?

Your belief that it is so precise in meaning should by now have led to a clear English translation that is pretty much agreed to by Old Testament scholars in all religions. Yet I haven’t heard of one. What I have heard of is nearly all Judeo-Christian religions claiming that it’s precise (as you have) but that their particular interpretation is the “precise” one.

Also, you say talmudic scholars are literalists; OK, then what I mean is, do most scholars of the Hebrew Old Testament find it to be literally true? I could be wrong, but I don’t believe most Jews today are literalists, at least in America. This suggests that their Rabbis aren’t literalists either. Why not?

Also, when you say the word “Tihyeh” is third-person female active, is that because the conjugation is the same as in other third-person female active verbs or because it’s in this passage (which has been interpreted to have this meaning), which would be circular reasoning! Just checking :slight_smile:

122

Who’s talking about translating it? The Talmudic scholars worked from the original Hebrew. They were attempting to understand the meaning of it because they (and Orthodox Jews today, such as myself, so I should really say “we” here) believe it to be G-d’s word and therefore feel that the best way to achieve Heaven is to follow it as precisely as possible. Therefore, when there is ambiguity in the meaning of something, they strove dispassionately to find out which is the true explanation, because they felt that only by following the true explanation (whichever it might end up being) would they be obeying the words of G-d.

Because there is no way to translate anything without losing some portion of the meaning. And modern English translations in use by Christians are generally derived not from the original Hebrew, but from a Greek translation of the original Hebrew, or possibly even one or two more steps further removed (e.g., Greek to Latin, Latin to English). If you compare an English Christian Bible to a Jewish translated Bible (look specifically for one that contains both the Hebrew and English text side-by-side), you will notice many subtle (and some not-so-subtle differences).

Not even a Christian will deny that the Jewish Hebrew text is the original. However, Christian commentaries over the centuries (most of whom worked from translations) work from a Christological point of view, which is at great variance with the Judaic one.

Orthodox Rabbis and Jews, in America and elsewhere, do believe so. Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, etc. Rabbis and Jews (none of which existed until approximately two centuries ago) do not believe the Torah is the literal word of G-d and reject its word when it conflicts with their modern liberal sensibilities. And with their rejection of the Torah comes a rejection of the Talmud as well.

Just the well-known rules of Hebrew grammar. I found a pretty decent web site describing Hebrew verb constructions at http://ezra.mts.jhu.edu/~rabbiars/jewish-education/ , but it only has them for past and present tense, whereas “Tihyeh” is future tense.

Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@schicktech.com

“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective

123

But if the true meaning of the text is, in fact, not inspired (if it’s really just another artifact of human religious culture) then there will be motivation to “interpret-out” obviously untrue or destructive statements.

Here’s an example: If it says “1+1=3” in the text, consider two interpreting scholars, one literalist, one reformed:

Possible literalist interpretations:

> It’s a reference to the family.

> 1+1 (plus another 1 not mentioned, of course) does in fact = 3

> In those days ones were bigger.

> The Lord made 1+1=3! It’s a miracle!

Reformed interpretation:

> 1+1=3. (an error)

If the book is not inspired, then interpreters who believe it is must make errors to maintain their belief. The precision you speak of is only possible if the book is in fact inspired, which you believe through faith.

But clearly I don’t believe it is inspired, so to inform me that the literalist interpretation is in some objective way precise is misleading. It’s only a precise interpretation if it is the inspired Word.

(our server is going down; I’ll write more later!)

124

If we are going to dicuss “literal” translations, then I believe that it is very important to explain what we mean by “literal”.

Try this verse, for example. Just for demonstration purposes, I’ll give the King James translation. Genesis 4:21: “And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.”

I don’t know of any great theological implications of this verse, although linguists can argue about whether “harp” and “organ” accurately connote the musical instruments mentioned in the original Hebrew. But those are not the words I want to focus on.

Rather I want to focus on the word “father” as it appears here, which is a translation of the Hebrew word “av”. Just about anyone with the even most rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew will confirm that the the Hebrew word “av” does have pretty much exactly the exact same meaning as the English word “father”.

But then how can we understand the “literal” meaning of this verse? Jubal was not the father of today’s musicians, nor even their ancestors: Jubal’s descendants all died in the Flood.

I was taught, and I think it makes a great deal of sense, that Jubal was either the inventor of these instruments, or had acheived such progress in them that he is considered the inventor, in a manner similar to calling Aristotle (or perhaps some other Greek?) the “father” of mathematics. Does this go against the idea of reading the Bible literally? I think not. To say that Jubal invented the harp is not an interpretation of the word “av”. It is a quite literal understanding. It’s just a bit poetic, that’s all.

I was taught to consider the Torah like a song or poetry. In poetry, the literal meaning is often found not in the words, but between the lines. I will repeat: In poetry, the literal intended meaning of the author will often be misunderstood if the words are read as prose, but can be properly understood only if sung as poetry.

I do realize that the “between the lines” meaning can be disagreed upon, and that is why some people like to be able to point to the plain black-and-white obvious meaning of the words. My point is that it can be an error to say that the simple meaning is the true meaning. And I think my example of “father” here is a great example of this. “Father” here might mean “inventor”, and it might mean “greatest genius”, or perhaps something else, but it most definitely does NOT mean “genetic ancestor, one generation back”.

125

Regarding AxelWheeler’s example of “1+1=3”.

In many cases you are right. There is a difficulty with the text, and the literalists come up with an explanation which seems reasonable to them, but which others consider to be ridiculously far-fetched. Personally, I am not bothered by that reality, because as long as there is an explanation somehow, which does seem reasonable to me, then the entire system is internally consistent, and I am satisfied. This is part of God’s plan to give people the option to believe, rather than forcing it on people.

But there are other cases, where I feel the shoe is on the other foot. There are many critics who find apparent inconsistencies, contradictions, and/or outright falsehoods, and then they exclaim, “Aha! Look what I found! This is absurd! How can such a thing be written by God?”

(One such example many point to is the very different versions of Creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, vs. the second chapter. Another example is your “1+1=3”.)

Let me ask those people: Why do you merely doubt that it was written by God? You should also doubt that it was written by man!!!

These books have been around for thousands of years. What kind of idiots do you think were reading them? Where does anyone get the gall to think that they were the first to notice such things? I say that in many cases, the literalist interpretation was easily understood by the readership, and the

can be the preferred way of understanding the text.

126

Axel Wheeler:

Sure, I’ll admit that the Talmudic scholars were coming from the point of view that the Bible is divinely inspired. And yes, if they found what appeared to be contradictions or incorrect statements, they looked for a way to explain it so that the text was right.

In one of Cecil’s columns, there’s a letter which is not too far off of your “1+1=3” example. It points out that in Kings, it describes a circular object (a vat or tub of some sort), 10 cubits in diameter and says it had a 30-cubit circumference, which would lead to a calculation of pi being 3, which was even then known to be incorrect. A Talmudic scholar named Nehemia wrote down the accepted interpretation of that verse: the 10-foot diameter is from outer edge to outer edge, and the 30-foot circumference is around the inner edge of the tub.

A plausible explanation, and undoubtedly inspired by an unwillingness to accept that the text is patently wrong.

But that’s not the sort of thing we were talking about. What we were talking about was a law that G-d said - “She (a rape victim) will be to him (the rapist) for a wife.” Now they’re coming from the perspective of true believers who wish to perform Biblical law exactly as G-d said it so as to please Him (thus ensuring a pleasant afterlife, or whatever). Whichever way it is to be interpreted (woman has option of refusal or doesn’t), it is still G-d’s word and must be obeyed; their only interest is in the true meaning, which will be followed by them whichever way it turns out to be.

Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@schicktech.com

“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective

127

Gentle Readers - This wunnerful thread was started before the inception of the Great Debates forum. As part of my “tidying up” process, I would ask that any further posts on this topic be directed into the clutches of David B (much as I loathe to send him the business;-)

I would direct you to one seemly thread, “The Great God Debate”

http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000042.html

Lotsa interesting hoopla in that one - but don’t forget, you heard it here first!

Nickrz
For The Straight Dope