Fat Is The Old Thin: More On Subjective Imagery
Last week I suggested that imagery can be subjective, varying from culture to culture.
Here’s another example.
In antiquity, for a person to be “fat” was a good thing, the word essentially representing the opposite of “scrawny.”
Every day, modern America produces something like twice the calories that its population needs to thrive, so many Americans face an unprecedented struggle: they take in too many calories for their own good. In ancient Israel, however, people struggled to get enough calories, and only the fortunate succeeded.
This creates a translation dilemma, because calling someone “fat” nowadays is an insult, not a complement as it used to be.
Here are some examples of how “fat” and its how it’s handled in translation:
In Job 36:16, the table “full of fatness” (KJV, ESV, NRSV), is what the NIV calls “choice food.”
The point of Psalm 22:30 is that the healthy and the ill alike should praise God. But the KJV, “All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship…” juxtaposed with “all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him” hardly does the trick. (I assume that “they that go down to the dust” are “sick people.”) The NAB assumes that the Hebrew dishnei (“fat of”) should be yishnei (“sleepers of”), so the first part is “All who sleep in the earth…”; the NAB then adds the note, “Hebrew unclear.” I think the Hebrew is clear once we recognize that “fat” was a sign of health.
The very well known Psalm 23 uses the verbal form of “fat” (dishanta — “you fattened [my head with oil]“) for what is commonly translated “anointed.” The Hebrew thus forms a connection between “anointed” and “cup overflows” that is lacking in English.
Psalm 36:9 describes the benefits of the Temple as “fatness of your house” (KJV), but even the ESV (with the NRSV) turns this into “abundance.”
Psalm 63:6 mentions “fat and rich food” (ESV), which is better than the KJV’s “marrow and fatness.” The NIV offers, “richest of foods.” (The NAB’s poetic, “rich banquet of praise” is nice, but I don’t understand where it comes from.)
The image in Psalm 65:12 of the earth’s bounty is of paths (or perhaps carts) that “drop fatness” (KJV), or — as emended by the ESV, NIV, and NRSV — “overflow with abundance.”
Proverbs 11:25 describes a reward for people who offer (or who are) a blessing. They will be “made fat” (KJV), or “enriched” (NIV, ESV, NRSV).
Proverbs 13:4 is even clearer. While the lazy person “gets nothing,” the diligent one is “made fat” (KJV), or “richly supplied” (ESV), “amply satisfied” (NAB), “fully satisfied” (NIV) or “richly satisfied” (NRSV).
Only the KJV translates “fat” consistently, but in so doing it makes the passages all but impossible to understand. The other translations do a better job of giving the modern reader a sense of what the text meant, but at the expense of the unifying image.
More Thoughts About Gender
Last week, I presented some theory about gender (first here and then here). Recent posts (from Damian Caruana on the lack of feminine language for Jesus, for example) show the issue is still on people’s minds.
To complement my theory-oriented introduction last week, here are three examples to think about:
- Lord. Most modern English speakers think of “lord,” and, therefore, “Lord” (and “LORD”) as masculine. The term comes from British society, and though most lords were and are men, the word is actually gender neutral. So when Dame Mary Donaldson became mayor of London, her title was “The Right Honourable Lord Mayor.” Similarly, a woman who owned a manor was the “lord of the manor.” (The English word “Lord” was used to translate the Greek kurios, that Greek word being the most common representation in the LXX of the Hebrew tetragrammaton [yud-heh-vav-heh].)
Which is more important: the common (masculine) understanding of the word or the (gender-neutral) technical definition?
- President. There is no inherent gender in the English word “president,” and, as the word relates to positions in companies, both men and women are called “president.” Yet in the United States, we have yet to have a woman serve as president, so the term “President of the United States” has so far applied only to men.
Which is more important: the de facto (masculine) use of the word, or the potential (gender netural) use?
- Almighty. This is a fascinating one. The Hebrew, El Shaddai is one of those phrases that no one can agree on. The first word clearly means “God.” The second one is anyone’s guess. (The LXX tends not to translate it at all.) Curiously, the word sounds like it could be connected to “breasts.” (It also sounds like it could come from “plunder” or “demon.”)
What are we to make of this vague connection?
The Subjective Nature of Imagery
In response to my recent post about idioms, and, in particular, the translation “lifted up his eyes,” Bob MacDonald suggests that “Eyes lifted up or eyes downcast are both indicative of the mood of the subject. They seem to me to be inherently material and literal in a good way.”
Whether or not that makes “lifted up his eyes” a good translation, his comment highlights another important issue for translation: Imagery is subjective.
For me, “downcast eyes” are a sign of sorrow. In parts of South America, “downcast eyes” are a sign of respect.
I’m pretty sure it would be a mistake to impose our modern cultural notions on the Bible, so we shouldn’t assume that its authors used imagery exactly the same way we do. But what is a translator to do when the most natural translation of the imagery gives the wrong impression?
How (Not To) Talk About Translation
A recent post by Nick Norelli cites Cicero, who translated not “word for word, but [by preserving] the character and energy of the language throughout.”
A response by John C. Poirier suggests that the NIV’s “dynamic translation” (his scare quotes) of 1 Cor 12:28 misses the point when it translates dunamis as “those who do miracles.”
The debate should sound familiar: Is word-for-word translation good?
My point here is to suggest that debates about theories should be about the the theories themselves, not particular applications of the theory. Maybe the NIV is right. Maybe not. But that really has no bearing on Cicero, or on Nick’s point in citing him.*
There are translation mistakes in the ESV. But that shouldn’t be how we judge the merit of “essentially literal” translation. There are mistakes in the NIV, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that their philosophy is wrong.
I think the better approach is to decide on our criteria for translation. Then we can see which translations best meet those criteria.
(*)For the record, I’m citing Nick citing The New Testament in Antiquity citing Cicero, in translation, of course.
Recognizing and Translating Idioms
In French, they say “to burn a red light” (bruler un feu rouge), which is “to run a red light” in English. Both phrases are idioms.
One way to look at idioms is as a multi-word words. Unlike imagery, idioms don’t get their meanings from their parts. Other examples in English include, “play it by ear” (which has nothing to do with ears) and “kick the bucket” (there are no buckets involved).
Everyone agrees that idioms should not be translated word for word. (I think everyone agrees, even the word-for-word translators.) If I’m translating a French novel, I don’t want to write that “the mobster burned a red light and fled off.” And if I’m translating Modern Hebrew into English, “the company took off its foot” is just a mistake; that Hebrew idiom means “went bankrupt.”
Identifying idioms is a crucial aspect of translation. So I ask: How many Hebrew and Greek idioms can you think of in the Bible? (If you’re a translator and you think there are none, you’ve probably missed something central.)
Here are a few to get the list going:
- chara apo — “his nose burned.” It means “was furious,” as in Genesis 30:2: The literal “Jacob’s nose burned through Rachel” means “Jacob was furious with Rachel.”
- erech apaim — “length of two noses.” It probably means “patient,” as in the attributes of God in Exodus 34:6 and elsewhere.
- nasa einav — “lifted his eyes.” It almost surely means “looked up” or “looked around.” (Surprisingly, the LXX translates this almost literally, but doesn’t always use the same verb for “lifted.”)
- ne’esaf el amav — “was gathered to his peoples.” It means “died,” maybe with the more gentle force of “passed away.” (Perhaps interestingly, the Hebrew is usually the plural “peoples,” but the LXX translates with the singular “people.” Most English translations do the same.)
What else?
Gender in Modern Hebrew – An Example
I think it might be informative to look at how av (usually translated “father”) and its plural, avot, work in Modern Hebrew. Even though we can’t directly conclude anything about ancient Hebrew or Greek from Modern Hebrew, we can learn more about how gender — at least potentially — works in human language.
In no particular order, here are some facts about av and avot in Modern Hebrew:
- When people talk about their literal father, one word they use is av.* (When they talk about their mother, one word is em.)
- The word av is grammatically masculine.
- The plural avot is grammatically masculine, even though it ends in -ot which is often reserved for feminine plurals.
- When Lucy, the “first human,” was discovered, she was called av kadmon in Hebrew, literally “original av.”
- When people talk about how “fathers” are different than “mothers,” the words they use are avot and imahot (the plural of em).
- The Hebrew for “old-age home” is bet avot, literally, “house of avot.” (The phrase applies equally to men and women.)
- When people talk about their “ancestors,” the word they use is avot. (Again, the phrase does not have specifically male connotations.)
It seems to me that if a theory of gender and language doesn’t allow for the possabilites above, it’s probably inaccurate, or, at least, incomplete, so we shouldn’t use that theory to try to understand ancient languages.
(*) In addition to av, there’s a less formal word aba in Hebrew. The two words approximate the difference between “father” and “dad.”
When the Translation Becomes the Text
There seem to be times when the translation of a text becomes the text, at least emotionally, if not rationally.
This creates a translation dilemma, because it’s hard to fix a bad translation that everyone thinks is the original text.
Here are three examples:
- The “jubilee year,” the 50th year that commemorates the end of seven sets of seven years, is, in Hebrew, the yovel year. The Hebrew word yovel, probably a horn of some sort, has nothing to do with rejoicing or jubilation. But the Latin for yovel is iobileus, which just happens to sound like iubileus, and that word is related to the verb iubilare, “to celebrate.” So we end up with the inaccurate “jubilee year.”
To change it now (“Year of the Yovel horn”? Or “Year of proclamation”? Or, as in the LXX, “Year of manifestation”?) would make it unfamiliar to the probably millions of readers who know what the “Jubilee year” is. Are we locked in to a bad translation forever?
- Buber’s famous philosophical book on theology was translated into English as “I and Thou.” But Buber’s point was to emphasize intimacy, and he chose the German “Ich und Du” to contrast with “Ich und Sie,” using the informal, personal, intimate du rather than the formal Sie. (This is like tu vs. vous in French.) So a much more accurate translation would be “Me and You,” because “thou” doesn’t indicate informality in English.
Again, to retranslate the title now would make it unfamiliar to three generations who already know what “I-thou” represents.
- The KJV translation “still small voice” (I Kings 19:12) for kol d’mama daka is so well known that the phrase has become a common expression in English. I’m working on a translation of the 1,500-year old liturgical poem Unetaneh Tokef. The poem cites I Kings. I think the phrase is best rendered in English as “thin whisper of a sound.”
Never mind whether I’m right or not. If I am, and if I translate the English correctly, am I destroying the original effect of quoting I Kings in the poem?
Gender Neutrality and Gender Indifference
A quick note about “they” in colloquial English. It’s used for two purposes: (1) when the speaker doesn’t know the gender of the referent; and (2) when the speaker doesn’t care about the gender of the referent.
For example, if I see a cell phone in the aisle of a plane as I’m exiting, I might pick it up and give it to a flight attendant, explaining, “I think someone dropped their cell phone.” I use “their” because I don’t know if it’s a man or a woman.
But equally, if I want to tell you about a phone conversation I had last night, I might tell you, “I was talking to a colleague yesterday and they said the most interesting thing….” I use “they” not because I don’t know who I was talking to, but because I don’t want to emphasize their gender. (See? I did it again. “Their” gender.)
Why Both Kings and Queens Can Be Parents
Grammatical and Real-World Gender, Part II
Earlier, I wrote about the difference between grammatical gender and real-world (or semantic) gender. I noted that the former doesn’t always indicate the latter. For example, personne in French is grammatically feminine but semantically inclusive.
As promised, here’s a little bit about how to tease the two kinds of gender apart.
Ellipsis
One good way is to use ellipsis, such as “and so did…” or “and so is….” because ellipsis requires meanings to match up (semantic identity) but not the grammar.
For example:
(1) John went to the party and so did Mary.
It’s clear that the second half of the sentence is short for “Mary went to the party,” even though “and so did Mary went to the party” isn’t grammatical in English. In other words, ellipsis here copies the meaning of “went” but not the grammar of “went.”
Another example comes from:
(2) John loves his mother and so does Mary.
This is ambiguous. Either Mary loves John’s mother, or Mary loves her own mother. This second meaning is particularly interesting for us, because it shows us again that the “and so” ellipsis construction copies meaning and not form. (We also learn that “his” and “her” in English mean the same thing.)
Ellipsis In English
With this in mind, we can compare four sentences:
(3) John is an actor and so is Mary.
(4) John is a parent and so is Mary.
(5) *John is a father and so is Mary.
(6) *John is a king and so is Mary.
The asterisks indicate the ungrammatical sentences.
The examples in (3) and (4) are fine because “actor” and “parent” in English are gender-neutral in the real world. That is, men and women can both be actors and parents, even in the dialects that use the word “actress” for a woman actor.
By contrast, in English, only men can be fathers and kings.
Ellipsis In Other Languages
The reason this is so important is that the pattern in (3)-(6) is the same even in languages that have grammatical gender. For example, in Modern Hebrew:
(3′) John sachkan v’gam Mary [lit.: John actor and-also Mary]
(4′) John horeh v’gam Mary [lit.: John parent and-also Mary]
(5′) *John aba v’gam Mary [lit.: John father and-also Mary]
(6′) *John melech v’gam Mary [lit.: John king and-also Mary]
Just to be clear, (3′) is grammatical in Hebrew even though *Mary sachkan ["Mary actor"] is not, because Hebrew requires Mary sachkanit ["Mary actress"]. In other words, Hebrew has masculine and feminine words for “actor” (sachkan and sachkanit, respectively). Generally, the masculine word is used for men, and the feminine for women. But we see from ellipses that this difference is purely a matter of grammar, not of meaning.
Toward Two Kinds of Gender
The pattern in (3)-(6) and (3′)-(6′) works the same way in modern languages across diverse language groups: German, French, Russian, Arabic, and more. In other words, kings and queens seem to be different in ways that actors and actresses are not, and the difference doesn’t depend on which language is used to express it.
Some languages have masculine and feminine forms for “actor” and “actress,” but even so, ellipsis shows us that the words mean the same thing.
Further investigation shows us that the following kinds of words are the same for men and women: nouns in general, including jobs, positions, functions, roles, etc. By contrast, the following are generally not: royalty (king, queen, and sometimes lower ranks), family roles (father, mother, and sometimes son, daughter, brother, sister), and gender roles (man, women).
A Note on Parenthood
We stop to note that this answers an important question: In languages that have grammatical gender, what’s the difference between “father” and “[male] parent,” or between “mother” and “[female] parent”? The answer is that, like in English, “parent” is the non-gendered word, while “mother” and “father” are the gendered words. In other words, both men and women can be parents, but only men can be fathers, and only women mothers. This fact doesn’t depend on the grammatical gender of any of the words involved. (As chance would have it, “parent” in Modern Hebrew is horeh, and the word is masculine. There is no feminine word “parent.”)
Some Results
Because all languages seem to work the same way in the core cases, we can use the data about modern languages to understand ancient ones. What we expect, and what we find, is that ancient Greek and Hebrew have grammatical gender that only sometimes matches up with real-world gender.
In particular, basileus and melech are specifically a man (“king”), while basilissa and malka are specifically a woman (“queen”). They do not mean “ruler.” Similarly, patros and av are masculine in the real word (semantically) as well as grammatically, and meter and em are feminine. They do not mean “parent.”
Plurals
It is tempting to extrapolate the pattern we have seen with singular nouns and apply it to plural ones, too, but it’s a mistake — a topic I’ll turn to soon.
On Ethics
Thanks to Dr. Jim West for bringing an essay by Professor Philip Davies to my attention. In it, Davies claims:
Ethics develop in a society where individuals have to make their own moral judgments about intrinsic goodness. [...]
[T]he Bible cannot serve a modern democracy as a moral guide — unless of course we decide ourselves, on or own ethical principles, which bits of it we will follow and which ones we will not.
In other words, according to Davies, “ethics” is when we decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. I’m curious how many people belive this.
Of these two options:
1. “Ethics” means I have to choose what’s right and wrong.
2. “Ethics” means I have to discover what’s right and wrong.
what do you believe?
From AGS-
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