Don’t laugh too hard reading this post. I review
my own translation of Psalm 1:1-2 (referred to as JHV for convenience), and find it terribly wanting. The problem,
as Stephen Barkley notes,
is that reading the Bible in English is like sipping a fine wine through a tea
bag.
The goofiest thing about my translation is
that it does not make sense without a set of footnotes. It is usable for
personal study and, at least in theory, in the context of worship, but would go
right over people’s heads without explanation.
JHV reads as follows:
Happy
the one
who has not walked
in advice of the wicked,
and
has not stood
in the way of villains,
and
has not sat
in the seat of scoffers,
rather,
his pleasure is in יהוה’s instruction,
and he recites that instruction
day and
night.
A set of notes to JHV Psalm 1:1-2 might go like this:
1:1. Shorn of metaphors but with the rhetorical crescendo
highlighted: “Happy the one who has not followed advice of those of criminal
intent, or - worse still - permanently chosen the way of villainy, or - worst
of all - taught others to do likewise, as scoffers do, from an endowed chair in
the department of philosophy at Princeton University.” [Okay, I’ve jazzed up the
paraphrase too much, but I bet it got you thinking.] Happy: according to
Rashi: worthy of praise. Happy/ blessed (is), more literally, O
the happinesses of, is the way a macarism typically begins in ancient
Hebrew. Psalm 1 is an extended macarism. For a list of macarisms in the Psalms
and beyond, see the Glossary. The wicked: used here as the opposite of
the term that appears in 1:5-6, traditionally rendered righteous. The
reference in the first instance is to those who willfully violate the moral
order established by God; in the second instance, to those who are innocent of
such wrongdoing, and faithful to God-given principles of morality. Villains:
traditionally, but misleadingly, sinners. The sense of the term is clear
from the context of passages like Numbers 32:14 and Isaiah 1:4. Hardened
transgressors of injunctions understood to be passed on with divine
authorization are in view. Stood in the way is a metaphor for sticking
to a particular pattern of behavior. In ancient times, one sat in a seat
(cathedra, as in ex cathedra) to judge or teach. Scoffers:
someone who is insubordinate to the moral order established by God and who mocks
those who conform themselves thereto.
1:2. Pleasure, or possibly, without an emotional
overtone: preoccupation. Instruction: teaching (Heb. torah),
traditionally: law. Moral instruction is inseparable from exemplifying
narrative in torah as handed down, for example, in the book of
Deuteronomy. Furthermore, said narrative is filled with accounts of God’s
benevolence and explication of God's promises. In this sense, law is a misleading translation. Recite:
repeat out loud, specifically, portions thereof. The Hebrew, more exactly, has recite
from. Compare Josh 1:8.
My deepest gripes with JHV are the following. They are
not minor details.
(1)
As SE [Stylistic
Equivalence] translations are wont to do, JHV maps onto English a number of
features the impact of which, on ears attuned to English and not Hebrew, is not
equivalent to the impact said features would have had on the text’s original
Hebrew-speaking audience. The statement holds true for translation in general,
of course, but it helps not at all to pretend that a SE solves a problem which
in fact cannot be solved. An SE translation will be useful to someone who wants
to get a sense of the nitty-gritty of the text, but will be subject to
misunderstanding without a thorough prior grounding in biblical literature from
a cultural, anthropological, and theological point of view.
(2)
As SE
translations tend to be, JHV is not an easy read. Put another way, I find it
easy to read and understand – because I know the underlying Hebrew backwards
and forwards. Is the ideal reader of an SE someone who is thoroughly conversant
with the parent text? The answer is yes. To be sure, I think the same holds
true for DE and FE translations. In other words, dear reader, learn Hebrew if
you want to understand the Hebrew Bible. Learn it from an excellent teacher,
preferably, someone who is versed in the entire Jewish tradition. It’s that
simple.
Dear JHV translator, no it's not that simple - but your post is intriguing. I have my usual two complaints: 1 - about the translation: you don't need to change the Hebrew word order in verse 1. I am reasonably happy with most if not all your word choices. And 2 about the notes: God's instruction is not a moral issue - at least it is not first a moral issue. It is first a 'following' issue - come let us reason together...
I think that to make it a moral issue first is to run the risk of equating instruction with law, the very thing you have avoided. (I realize we could argue that a little fear might incite following - but wow! thank-you is also a good start.)
It is lovely to see Psalm 1 repeatedly so I might try a BMV annotation... (being careful not to mistype as BVM)
Posted by: Bob MacDonald | August 21, 2008 at 05:14 PM
B ob,
I do not reproduce Hebrew chiasms in English very often, because they strike me very differently in English dress than in Hebrew. That's because English is more rigid about word order, so that, when you mess with it, the effect is more than just aesthetic; it is understood as (re-)topicalization.
Posted by: JohnFH | August 21, 2008 at 05:43 PM
John - I read you as eschewing chiasm for the most part. Fair enough. I will chew on it. I have been wondering if indeed the Psalms should be characterized as poetry. If so then English poetry could apply to the translation leaving some room to copy techniques since English word order in poetry is more variable.
I think that the structures are important because of the forming of the thought in 'whole' pieces. In some ways I think it important (as you know from our interactions) to reform the target language at times. I admit it is often impossible or extremely awkward.
But is it poetry? A psalm is more like prayer dialogue than poem. The characteristic parallelism and recurrences are greatly varied. Parallels are sometimes intensifying, but sometimes just redundancy in order to establish or encompass meaning. Recurrence often encircles a key focus. Raised on 'and' and 'or' gates in formal logic and models of computers built from tinker toys, I sometimes think of all lexical meaning as encoded structure.
Posted by: Bob MacDonald | August 21, 2008 at 06:13 PM
I think you hit on something important, Bob. The psalms are poetry, but not in the sense of art for art's sake. The poetry is in the service of communication, of dialogue, of a hoped-for breakthrough. The sound orchestration, the power of its parallelisms, the symmetry of its chiasms, the repeated structures of 2s and 3s - all of this is humble enough not to draw attention to itself, but to serve a purpose beyond itself.
Posted by: JohnFH | August 21, 2008 at 08:32 PM