Ancient Hebrew Poetry

A Protestant atheist praises the King James

    Atheists come in all flavors. My favorite Protestant atheist - living, not yet in Dante’s First Circle - is Christopher Hitchens. The greatest Protestant atheist of all time is Nietzsche; people will be reading him long after Hitch is forgotten. To be sure, the best and brightest atheists are, as a rule, Jewish.  It comes, I suppose, with being part of the Chosen People. I’m thinking of Freud, Marx, and an almost endless parade of lesser luminaries, from Ayn Rand to Steven Pinker. Catholic atheists are also excellent: Kolakowski and Eagleton come to mind. Do Eastern Orthodox make good atheists? Not that I know of.  Stalin of course does not qualify.

    Hitch has written a delightful piece in praise of the King James Version of the Bible for Vanity Fair (HT: Justin Knapp). A few remarks.

Psalm 35:11-16: where KJV and Robert Alter miss the mark

Below the fold, I offer Psalm 35:   11-16 in Hebrew and in English translation. The versions of KJV and Robert Alter, though excellent in many ways - are reviewed and found wanting. It is often assumed that KJV hews to the diction and style of the Hebrew, but that is not always true, as this series demonstrates. Robert Alter’s translation is more successful than others in mapping the compactness of the Hebrew into English, but the decision to engage in syntactic transliteration in cases in which the effect is far from identical to that which obtains in Hebrew is a weakness of his translation technique. Finally, Alter’s practice of concordant translation occasionally results in the coinage of unnecessarily obscure and unnatural expressions. The translation technique I adopt shares a number of affinities with that of Alter, but owes more to that of David Curzon.  

Psalm 35:7-10: Where KJV and Robert Alter miss the mark

Below the fold, I offer Psalm 35:7-10 in Hebrew and in English translation. Two translations - KJV and that of Robert Alter - are reviewed and found wanting. Hebraists rarely take the time to critique existing translations. A Hebraist is not necessarily self-aware about the translation technique she uses, or cognizant of the field of translation theory. A place to start: Anthony Pym.

Psalm 35:4-6: Where KJV and Robert Alter miss the mark

David Ker is sick of the word “ouch!” He would like to “poke someone with a stick” -that “someone” being me. I recommend David pray Psalm 35:1-3 – in my translation – with me as his persecutor. He might prepare a YouTube video with the Lord coming after me with an axe. That would be a faithful translation. I don’t like “ouch!” either. I like “shriek.” The psalms shriek. All great literature shrieks -- bringing to life the primal word from its carcass.

Below the fold, I offer Psalm 35:4-6 in Hebrew and in English translation. Two translations, while excellent in many ways - KJV and that of Robert Alter - are reviewed and found wanting. I pick on KJV and Alter because they are among the better English Psalters we have. 

Psalm 35:1-3: Where KJV and Robert Alter miss the mark

Below the fold, I offer Psalm 35:1-3 in Hebrew and in English translation. Two translations, while excellent in many ways - KJV and that of Robert Alter - are reviewed and found wanting.