# So many translations, so little time...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 23, 1999, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507 "1999-09-23T13:59:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Temujin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temujin)
#### Post date: [September 24, 1999, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/21 "1999-09-24T11:53:00Z")
Sorry. Ignore that. It should be spelled “LaVey.”
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [September 24, 1999, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/22 "1999-09-24T12:53:00Z")
Read the Cliff’s Notes version.
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### Author:  [@Pickman\_s\_Model](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pickman_s_Model)
#### Post date: [September 24, 1999, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/23 "1999-09-24T13:41:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Ack! Asimov’s guide to the Bible is like Stalin’s guide to the Constitution.
> You want a commentary, not a rebuttal.
Absolutely correct. _Asimov’s Guide to the Bible???_ Good grief, you might as well read _The Passover Plot._ If you need a brain surgeon, you certainly don’t go to an automobile mechanic for a consultation. Stick with reputable Biblical scholars, and leave Asimov to his rocket ships and little green men. No offense to Isaac Asimov or his devotees, but he is most certainly not the one that I would recomend to write a commentary on the Bible. Science fiction, maybe, but not the Bible.
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### Author:  [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)
#### Post date: [September 24, 1999, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/24 "1999-09-24T14:19:00Z")
Another option that I didn’t see mentioned is the _NIV Study Bible_. The top half of the page is the Bible text, the bottom half is study notes. The study notes expound on the text and offer sociological, historical, and theological context to what you just read.
* * *
The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [September 24, 1999, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/25 "1999-09-24T14:27:00Z")
**moriah**? **Pickman**? Have you read Asimov’s guides? I have found some factual errors in them (mostly having to do with opinions that were more current when he wrote the guides and are less current now), but I haven’t found his stuff to be “like Stalin’s guide to the Constitution.”
I would criticize them more for the fact that they are a bit shallow and pretty sparse on the texts selected for commentary.
The most frustrating thing I have found is that when I want to go look at an outsider’s opinion of a disputed passage, Asimov has rarely provided one. His descriptions of the histories and politics (and pagan beliefs) that surrounded most Biblical books tend to be informative and are largely error-free.
It is not my first choice for a commentary, due mostly to its hit-or-miss selection of passages, but it is not a bad general reference to have nearby.
* * *
Tom~
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### Author:  [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)
#### Post date: [September 25, 1999, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/26 "1999-09-25T04:59:00Z")
slythe posted:
> [@](#):
>
> You want commentary on a book by someone who isn’t a “true believer”. Thus you avoid such twistings as turning the Song of Solomon into an alligory about the people’s love of Jesus!
In that case you don’t want a commentary by a _fundamentalist_. You want a commentary by a believer who accepts to work from historical-critical methods (the scientific method of reading old texts). Any mainline Christian (RCC, Episc., Lutheran, etc…) scholar will avoid the pitfalls of fundamentalism.
None of the commentaries I posted treat creation as really happening in six days. Or that the Song of Solomon is a Christian text.
Here’s what Boadt has to say about it:
> [@](#):
>
> **The Songs of Songs (The Canticle of Canticles)**
>
> The third book attributed to Solomon is the Song of Songs, mainly because his name is mentioned in chapters 3 and 8. In both cases he seems more of a model to follow than an author, and we can safely say that the famous king did not write these songs. Like so many other wisdom books, the Song of Songs shows signs of being worked and reworded through many centuries. At the oldest level are love poems, perhaps wedding songs, many of which could go back to the time of Solomon. At the latest level are Persian and Greek phrases that indicate additions made after the exile. There semm to be hints of dialogue between a young lover and his beloved (bride?), and perhaps even a chorus of the daughters of Jerusalem. At least the tradition of identifying different speakers goes back to the Greeek translations before the time of Christ. But there is not enough unity among the different songs to say more than that it is a collection extolling the undying power of love between to people.
>
> The close parallels between the language of The Song of Songs and Arab wedding songs from Syria were discovered in the nineteenth century…
Oh, has Asimov read the extra-biblical ancient Aramaic love poems, too, in order to provide a proper context for the genre?
Anyway, after giving the text a proper scientific historical background, Boadt then goes on to say _why_ it is a book of the Bible for Jews and Christians:
> [@](#):
>
> But the lusty nature of the songs gave scandal to many of the Jewish rabbis, and as late as the second century A.D. they still had not fully agreed that the book should be in the sacred canon. Once of the deciding factors was the belief that it described allegorically the love of Yahweh for Israel as a beloved bride. The Christian Church accepted it quickly for the same reasons – it could easily describe in allegory the love of Christ for the Church, or for the soul of the believer…
So, Boadt points out that the original text is a collection of love poems, written and reworked over a long time and that it was accepted as scripture because it could be (and was) read allegorically.
Seems like the right balance a commentary should take.
Peace.
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [September 27, 1999, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/27 "1999-09-27T16:08:00Z")
moriah:
From your quote:
> [@](#):
>
> The third book attributed to Solomon is the Song of Songs, mainly because his name is mentioned in chapters 3 and 8.
Ummm…maybe the non-Jewish versions are significantly different, but doesn’t it (at least in the Hebrew bible) start off by saying “The Song of Songs that are to Solomon”?
Unless there are some seriously significant differences there, it makes no sense to go to chapters 3 and 8 to attribute Song of Songs to Solomon. It’s right there at the beginning.
Chaim Mattis Keller
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [September 28, 1999, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/28 "1999-09-28T05:08:00Z")
Moriah said:
> [@](#):
>
> I agree that the KJV it is poetic and it does sound like special religious language. However, it is just the plain language of several hundred years ago.
Well, almost. It was not, of course, deliberately archaic in Elizabethan times. It was, and made itself clear as (see one with a dedication), the best translation of the times. It attempted to give the sort of formal, periodic language that would be most effective in Scripture readings in church, but in language clear to the people of the time. Something like what the New English Bible translators tried to do. The fact that it has survived nearly 400 years while nearly all its competitors of the time are defunct should say something.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [September 28, 1999, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/29 "1999-09-28T05:10:00Z")
CMK: The trditional first verse for that book in English-language Christian Bibles is “The Song of Songs, Which Is Solomon’s”
Granted that is obfuscatory, but it’s the King James scholars’ fault, not ours.
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### Author:  [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)
#### Post date: [September 28, 1999, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/30 "1999-09-28T03:22:00Z")
cmkeller said:
> [@](#):
>
> Ummm…maybe the non-Jewish versions are significantly different, but doesn’t it (at least in the Hebrew bible) start off by saying “The Song of Songs that are to Solomon”?
>
> Unless there are some seriously significant differences there, it makes no sense to go to chapters 3 and 8 to attribute Song of Songs to Solomon. It’s right there at the beginning.
Ahhh, Grasshopper. The first thing you learn as a scientific commentator is to be skeptical of everything. Just because the text says it comes from Solomon doesn’t mean that it comes from Solomon. That first line was probably a later addition, trying to give the text more authority by attributing it to Solomon, who appears in the third and eigth chapters. If Solomon did write it, it would be rather weird of him to refer to himself in the third person like that.
As _Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm_ says in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary,
> [@](#):
>
> **Title and Date.**
>
> The title in 1:1 (“Song of Songs”; Vg, “Canticle of Canticles”) is the Hebr idiom for the superlative, “the greatest song.” It imposes a unity on a collection of songs or poems. The unity is further indicated by the ascription to Solomon as author, perhaps because of the appearance of his name in 3:7ff. and 8:11ff.
Of course, the unity is artificial. There are several obviously different poems/songs happening here. The scholars can tell you by words and language used, that they come from different time periods – thus, definitely excluding Solomon as their author.
Peace.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [September 28, 1999, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-many-translations-so-little-time/3507/31 "1999-09-28T04:20:00Z")
Pickman: Asimov wrote much more than Science Fiction.
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