Ancient Hebrew Poetry

The Revised Standard Version Online

For reasons as yet unexplained, the University of Virginia was asked by the copyright holder to remove the RSV from its server. (Hat Tip: Jim Davila)

The University of Michigan continues to offer the RSV online. Go here.

The RSV is a classic Bible translation. Like the KJV, it is a historical document of great interest.

NRSV has a number of things going for it, but many of us continue to find the RSV a useful and very quotable Bible translation.

I Liked the Old Lingamish Better

Now he says it:

1. Studying languages is rewarding in itself.
2. Every serious student of the Bible should endeavor to study the original languages.
3. The medium for proclaiming the Gospel has always been translation.
4. Any Bible translation is able to give the knowledge leading to salvation and be useful for personal study and public proclamation.
5. Most Biblical language acquisition methodologies force students to learn a bunch of useless stuff.

The part about translation is a strong point in Lingamish's presentation. Communication always involves translation. Even understanding texts in the original languages involves translation, or more precisely, interpretation, which is a kind of translation, and translation into the 'machine language' or universal grammar with which we are hard-wired even before we acquire a specific language.

Reading the Bible, Dante, or Luther in English involves letting someone else do the heavy lifting. It is the path of least resistance. But the day I discovered I knew enough Hebrew for the Psalms to speak to me in Hebrew – that day was one of the happiest of my life.

Still, I must say: it was more fun to read about Greek professors obsessed with forcing students to memorize forms that do not occur. You can't make this stuff up.

News from Ljubljana and Vienna: A Special Report by Beat Weber

Roughly 400 to 500 specialists in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament came together for the 29^th Congress of the “International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament” (IOSOT) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The meeting ran from the 15^th to the 20^th of July.

A distinguishing feature of the Congress, prepared with great care and realized by Prof. Jože Krašovec and his team, was the special hospitality that greeted the academic research community during its sojourn in the capital of the young land of Slovenia. The attention to detail in terms of accommodations, food, and special evening programs was remarkable. The Congress was a major event for Slovenia, as was clear from several details. On the opening evening, not only were we treated to an impressive rendition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony out of doors, but also to brief welcome speeches by the Prime Minister of Slovenia, the Bishop of the local diocese, and the Rector of the University.

Congress participants were invited to lectures by premier scholars on particular themes in the mornings. In the afternoons, all participants were given the opportunity to present pre-arranged “short papers.” In the evenings, we were invited to participate in excursions in the city or the surrounding countryside. It was a chance to learn more about the host country. A highpoint was the banquet that took place on the last evening. Besides the culinary aspect, it was possible to make new and deepen old contacts.

Praying the Psalms with Augustine

The Confessions of Augustine is classed among the great masterpieces of world literature. To confess is exquisitely human. One doesn’t have to watch Oprah or Dr. Phil to realize that. To confess to God, however, who is the highest good, is the apex of human expression.

And if God is no more than an abstraction that we posit because such a one should exist, but doesn’t? Many have noted, including David Curzon, whose essay on translating the Psalms is available on this site, that confession to God “works” even if God is a pure abstraction.

But what if God exists? It is an extraordinary question. Pascal, no dummy he, was right to pose it more than once.

Augustine confesses himself by confessing to God. Therefore he begins his Confessions with prayer. Since he knew the Psalms by heart, the language and categories of his prayer are drawn largely, though not exclusively, from them.

I provide the Latin first, and format it as if it were poetry, which it nearly is. A translation follows. I draw on the translations of Pusey, Outler, and Italian and German translations I have around, but go my own way.

I then provide the Latin again, and English translation. I go on to quote, in Hebrew, Latin, and English, sources of Augustine’s thought identified as such by Augustine scholars. The Latin Psalter I cite is Jerome’s revision, Psalmi iuxta LXX, of the Psalter Augustine knew. It is clear, for example, that Augustine’s Psalter had valde where Jerome’s revision reads nimis. A critical edition of the Vetus Latina Psalter has yet to appear.

If you know English, but your Latin and Hebrew are rusty, the text provided will allow you to improve your competence in the latter. If you know Latin fairly well, but not Hebrew, you can lean on the former to help you through the latter. If you know Hebrew fairly well, but not Latin, the same principle applies.

In a few instances, the sources I identify have not been previously mentioned in the literature.

Papa Ratzinger speaks out on Creationism and Evolutionism

The theory of evolution may be right, wrong, or half and half, but one thing is clear. The creation accounts in Genesis and this theory do not contradict one another. Let me explain.

A Pentecostal with a Canonical Approach to Scripture and a Love of Tradition

His name is Simon Chan. Christianity Today has featured him not one, not two, but three times. A very impressive theologian, Chan teaches theology at a mainline seminary in Singapore.

HAT TIP: Ekaputra Tupamahu, whose blog has some of the most awesome wedding pictures I’ve ever seen, not to mention insightful theological reflection. In a comment, Ekaputru calls Chan the world’s most liturgically-minded Pentecostal.

What Does Parallelism Mean? A Book Review

Parallelismus membrorum. Edited by Andreas Wagner. OBO 224. Fribourg: Academic Press; Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2007. Order from Eisenbrauns.

 This volume of essays is sweet testimony to the fact that Old Europe remains a vibrant center of interdisciplinary research on the Old Testament, the Ancient Near East, and beyond.

The title of the volume is in Latin, parallelismus membrorum. The expression was coined by a pioneer in the study of ancient Hebrew poetry, Robert Lowth. The expression relates to the chief hallmark of ancient Hebrew verse: prosodic, semantic, syntactic, morphological, and sonic parallelisms recurrent across versets, lines, and strophes; prosodic parallelisms alone are obligatory. For a brief introduction to the topic, go here.

The essays of the volume are in German, which means they will be read by relatively few. Schade! Until recently German was referred to as the original Semitic language because almost everything worth reading in Semitics was written in it.

This side of the pond, German tends to be avoided at all costs by students and professors alike. Jim West and Stephen Cook are exceptions to the rule.

For those who stopped reading “die semitische Ursprache” after passing their German exam in grad school, or never learned it in the first place, that’s fine and dandy. But Rummy’s rule applies, doesn’t it? You approach the Bible and the study of theology with the languages you have, not the ones you wished you had. If the Bible or theology interest you, German, like Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, belongs in the category of the languages you have, or wished you had.

Lingamish wants us to believe it’s possible for the richly textured poetry and prose of the Bible to be transparent to us without an intimate knowledge of the language in which that texture finds expression. Maybe so, but when I want to know more about the fine grain of a literature written in a language I know poorly or not at all, I seek out an essay or a book by someone who knows the language well. And if I have a working knowledge of a language, and I want to understand literature written in it, I look for further light from others who know the language as well or better than I.

Lingamish, of course, teaches us about language every time he opens that mouth of his. But he’s sneaky about it, so as not to frighten away the masses. The volume under review is not sneaky at all, but I recommend it to those who are interested in the subject matter it seeks to illuminate.

The volume’s essays are written by people who know languages and language (i.e., how languages work) well. Walter Groß and Martin Mark, both excellent Hebraists, ask what parallelism means, Groß from the point of view of syntax, Mark in terms of theological expression. Another superb Hebraist, Klaus Seybold, discusses some of the finer points of parallelism and outlines a research program going into the future.

Mark and Seybold speak boldly not only about parallelism, but about meter and rhythm. Their doing so is refreshing. Meter and rhythm are almost verboten topics in English-language scholarship after remarks by Kugel and O’Connor to the effect that ancient Hebrew verse is not characterized by meter. I discuss the important contributions of Terence Collins, James Kugel, and Michael Patrick O’Connor to the study of ancient Hebrew poetry elsewhere.

Parallelism membrorum also contains essays on the phenomenon in the Old Greek translation of the Psalter; in Ugaritic literature; as an object of research in Egyptology; in Old Babylonian hymns; in ancient Near Eastern art; and in Chinese literature. An introductory essay by Andreas Wagner opens the volume, and a comprehensive bibliography concludes it.

For the Table of Contents, look below the fold. I will review a few of the essays one by one in subsequent posts.

Victoria Beckham’s Hebrew Tattoo Patiently Explained

The net overflows with pictures of Victoria’s tattooed neck and back. But no one has explained the Hebrew words, how one pronounces them, what the imagery means. Those who tried got it wrong (see below)!  A picture of Victoria’s tattoo is reproduced below.

Tisha b’Av: The Importance of Remembering the Past

There are many ways to remember. Iyov offers advice for this day, the Ninth of Av. If you get to this post and the day is done, fear not! It is always a good time to remember.

One way to remember is to recount the events associated with Tisha b’Av according to details preserved in the Hebrew Bible. I do so below. Translations from the Hebrew are mine.

The sequence of events recounted in 2 Kings and Jeremiah unfolds like this (2 Kgs 25:1-26; Jer 38:28b, 39:3, 14; 52:1-27).

In the ninth year of King Zidqiyahu, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. The siege lasted 18 months. The suffering grew ever more terrible. In the eleventh year of King Zidkiyahu, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the hunger became unbearable, and the city was breached (Jer 52:6; 2 Kgs 24:20-25:4).

The famine and slaughter are graphically described in the book of the title Qinot (so-called in antiquity according to Jerome; referred to as Eichah, from its first word, today). Zion, matron of her people, reproves with unmatched bitterness the Author of the day. The following passage will make you weep, unless you are a wretched soul:

Christians Playing Nice to Each Other: Introducing a Little-Known Theoblog

The name of the blog is Connected Christianity. Not as hard as it looks, says the blog’s administration. The blog’s purpose is sweet:

Connected Christianity is a place to explore what it might be like if Christians finally got the head, heart, and hands of their faith re-connected. We are here to celebrate trends in the contemporary church that give us hope that healing and reconciliation are indeed possible: those who are trying to mend fences and build bridges.

Anyone familiar with the blog you are now reading, Ancient Hebrew Poetry, will know I’m in sympathy with Connected Christianity’s goals. In fact, I would go one step further, and say that Christianity desperately needs to reconnect with Judaism - and not just that of Jesus and Paul, but that of Jews today – if it is ever going to recover its best self.

One might start by following some of Iyov’s advice in this season of Tisha b’Av. Iyov’s post brought back memories of a conversation I heard retold by my first Greek teacher, John Linton. It went something like this.

Jews and Christians are conversing over lunch during a break at an interfaith meeting. A Jew poses a question to the Christians, “Why is this dialogue important to you?” A Christian answers, “Because after the Holocaust, it only seems right not to believe in God. But because you still do, I find the strength to believe as well. After the Holocaust, my faith depends on yours.”

Christians among themselves, Christians with Jews, maybe even Jews with Christians: there is a need for reconciliation, and there are more connections than meets the polemical eye.

For us curious types, it would be nice to know a little bit more about those behind Connected Christianity. I encourage its authors to introduce themselves. But go, have a peek.