Today we board a plane and return to the Western Cape, where its already Summer. Who needs Spring anyway?
See y’all on the flip side.
Language Expectations for Bibliobloggers
Published December 31, 2009 Biblical Languages , Biblioblogs 5 CommentsTags: food for thought
John commented at the blogger dinner that it would be interesting to make biblical language tests for bibliobloggers. A kind of unofficial standard for talking Bible-smack online with a degree of credibility. How did it come up? Ken and Og.
Karyn gifted us with some pre-Christmas treats in New Orleans, one of which was a copy of Og the Terrible. And as we were sitting at the table with Ken Brown and Mike Kok, eating and drinking, Ken picked up the comic book and started properly vocalizing the Hebrew, only occasionally looking at the bottom of the page for English translation help.
We were very impressed. For those of you unfortunate enough to not know Ken, he’s a NT guy, right now specializing in Johannine lit. And most of the Texas NT guys specializing in John that we know suck at vocalizing Hebrew. No way they could vocalize with confidence like Ken did. So for NT folks, we think Ken is your new Hebrew standard.
So does Ken pass the unofficial test for bibliobloggers? Well there’s not one, so who knows? He definitely aced our hypothetical vocalization test. John’s test would probably include sight reading Isaiah, Maimonides, and a modern Israeli newspaper. What would your test look like? Would we fail your Greek test using an Erasmian pronunciation? Would you let us use digital tools? Would you care about translation? What are your expectations?
Bibliobloggers 2010 New Year Resolutions
Published December 31, 2009 Biblioblogs 3 CommentsTags: Humor, you're not funny
1. Post more!
2. Stop disappointing James Crossley with whiteness, maleness, and conservatism.
3. Make sure your Hebrew is at least as good as Ken Brown’s.
4. Arrive at the blogger dinner on time.
5. Find a new translation to rip on… the NLT is old news (or is it?)
6. Befriend more atheists… digitally, not in real life 
7. Come up with good nicknames like (Poison?) Sumac, Matchbox 20, Captain Kurk, Sideburns, καναδα, and the Hobbit.
8. Stop reading Jim West’s blog… go ahead, see if you can!
9. See if I can get a refund for my GOBM T-Shirt… its too minimal.
10. Reach out to our friends in the knitting blogosphere.
Qohelet 11 in Translation
Published December 14, 2009 Bible translation , Hebrew Bible , Uncategorized 3 CommentsTags: Wisdom!
Here’s a first-round translation of Qoh 11.
שלח לחמך על־פני המים כי־ברב הימים תמצאנו
11.1 Cast your bread across the surface of the waters,
for after those many days you will have it back.
תן־חלק לשבעה וגם לשמונה כי לא תדע מה־יהיה רעה על־הארץ
11.2 Divide [your] property into seven (or even eight!) portions,
for you don’t know what bad things might happen across the country.
אם־ימלאו העבים גשם על־הארץ יריקו ואם־יפול עץ בדרום ואם בצפון מקום שיפול העץ שם יהוא
11.3 If the clouds have been filled with rain water, over the earth will they pour.
And if a tree falls to the south, or if to the north, the place where it falls- there it will be.
שמר רוח לא יזרע וראה בעבים לא יקצור
11.4 Whoever watches wind never plants, whoever gazes at clouds never harvests.
כאשר אינך יודע מה־דרך הרוח כעצמים בבטן המלאה ככה לא תדע את־מעשה האלהים אשר יעשה את־הכל
11.5 Just like you know nothing about the direction of the wind, or how the human-frame [is] filled in a womb- just like that- you also don’t understand the work of God, who makes everything.
בבקר זרע את־זרעך ולערב אל־תנח ידך כי אינך יודע אי זה יכשר הזה או־זה ואם־שניהם כאחד טובים
11.6 In the morning, plant your seed. Also during evening, may you not rest your hands, for you don’t know whether one particular thing you did will succeed or another or another, or if two of them [together] as one will do good.
ומתוק האור וטוב לעינים לראות את־השמש
11.7 And sweet is the light! Good for the eyes [is it] to see the sun.
כי אמ־שנים הרבה יהיה האדם בכלם ישמח ויזכר את־ימי החשך כי־הרבה יהו כל־שבא הבל
11.8 Yes, if human[s] lives many years, through all of them may they rejoice!
But let them remember the dark days, for many of those will happen.
All that has come is futile.
שמח בחור בילדותיך ויטיבך לבך בימי בחורותך והלך בדרכי לבך ובמראי עיניך ודע כי על־כל־אלה יביאך האלהים במשפט
11.9 Rejoice, young man, in your youth! May your heart do you good during your youth! Follow your heart’s direction and what your eyes see. But know that on account of all these things, God will bring you to judgment.
והסר כעס מלבך והעבר רעה מבשרך כי־הילדות והשחרות הבל
11.10 So remove stress from your heart, and keep bad stuff away from your body, for being young and looking young are futile.
3 notes
- We’ve elected to go plural (and thus gender neutral) in v8 as האדם, in our view, invokes human kind and is only grammatically masculine in this context.
- bad stuff in v10 is רעה in Hebrew, usually learned as evil. Sickness is an option in this context, but that delimits too much, and evil is too biblish.
- Also in v10, looking young is how we’ve rendered what is “literally” black hair. This, at a minimum, refers to a physical trait of youth (black hair as opposed to gray hair), and at most refers to the libido of a young man. We’ve opted for the minimal rendering as it seems a cleaner fit with youth, its partner in parallelism.
Its Always Sunny on Bob Cargill
Published December 9, 2009 Biblioblogs 2 CommentsTags: charlie, its always sunny, robert cargill
We’ve only briefly met him once, but doesn’t Bob Cargill look a whole lot like Charlie on Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
Andrew Brown, blogger for The Guardian, writes of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
He has got himself into a position where he thinks that he can tell liberal Americans what to do, but dare not tell conservative Africans. He’s certainly wrong about the Americans; the Ugandans may leave him with no choice but to speak out.
Tim’s paper at SBL was a treat to hear. He focused on presence in distance learning and made the point that presence is not equal to geography. Being in the same room with someone does not necessarily mean that both of you are present. If you don’t know what that means, you’re probably not married (as Tim also made the point). Anyway, with that in mind, there is great possibility for distance teaching with so many digital tools.
But what about people who can’t get their hands on technology? These folks are not just indigenous peoples of the third-world without access, or poor Africans who simply can’t afford access (though it is available). Some people are prohibited from using technology. In this country, these people are prisoners.
About mid-next year, we’ll begin a project (slowly) developing biblical language material for Texas inmates. The problem we face is the complete lack of regular presence. One can schedule weekly classes (or even a few times a week) with inmates in certain units with certain (open-minded) chaplains. But even then, nothing is consistent. Both prisoners and guards see to that. There are fights, murders, suicides, riots, and like that can regularly disrupt a teaching agenda. To be sure, Texas prisons were not made for education.
On top of that, no computers. A lot inmates have relatively regular access to a CD player, but that’s it. The material for them will have be, in at least a technological sense, very old-school.
So how does one get more presence with prisoners that want to learn? How might we teach to those in an environment that is antithetical to education? We invite your ideas. Our first idea is mail. All prisoners have access to their mail. Of course, their mail will be opened, read, and sometimes “lost”, but it is one of the most consistent ways to communicate with inmates.
Your thoughts?
We haven’t updated the list in quite a while. Well now we have. Enjoy and please let us know of student bibliobloggers not on the list.
Political Agenda or Just Another Bad Translation?
Published December 3, 2009 Bible translation , Hebrew Bible 20 CommentsWe’ve pointed out some problems with the NLT in the past. Here’s another one.
Qoh 11.5 – Hebrew Text and NLT-SE
כאשר אינך יודע מה־דרך הרוח
כעצמים בבטן המלאה
ככה לא תדע את־מעשה האלהים אשר יעשה את־הכל
Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind
or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.
The issue we take is with the second line of the NLT-SE’s translation of this verse. To our knowledge (which only consists of research from this afternoon), עצם (often translated bones or skeleton) is never used to connote a tiny baby. Neither is מלא used to mean grow (rather, filled; in this case, filled up in the womb). These are interpretive stretches the NLT-SE translators have made that are not supported by BH lexical data. Instead of providing one possible option for translating this verse, the NLT-SE reads more like anti-abortion propaganda.
We have two options for English interpretation. 1) The body parts/bones are formed/made complete in the womb, or 2) The skeletal frame is filled with organs in the womb. The first option is most common; part of translations like the NIV. One of us came up with the second. Can you guess who?
So what’s your verdict? Is this just another case of the NLT doing bad translation work? Or are they doing some inappropriate political preaching through “translation”?
The following is a memory of an SBL session our good friend Jack attended. Enjoy.
Review of Greek Language & Linguistics Section:
Verbal Aspect in the SynopticsWhen I saw the stars-studded lineup for the Greek Language and Linguistics, my inner Greek-nerdiness got really excited. Though I have read only parts of the books of the Fanning and Porter, and do not consider myself an expert on this topic by any means, I offer this review.
Campbell – got there late; helpful hand out; talked of idiolect, genre, and register; the audience was very pleased at the end though
Decker - examined imperfects in Mark 1-8 in an effort to categorize the tense-form based on function only one who prioritized usage over form; helpful, outlined handout
Fanning – talked about present, imperfect and aorist indicatives in the Synoptics; only English translations with a few comments for a some verse chunks; not very helpful for the listener
Porter – suggested verbal aspect as method for comparing the Synoptics; no handout; not helpful, but funny and entertaining.The debate/Q&A following the presentation of papers was quite entertaining, more so than the papers, as it consisted of the 4 scholars questioning each other and responding to audience questions. Fanning argued that the tense-form, carries time as well as aspect and voice, citing the historical present as his chief-example (though he admitted that sometimes the historical present does not always carry the same semantic function). Porter and Campbell disagreed, regurgitating arguments from their respective books (with Porter reminding the audience that his was the first). Decker did not seek to put forth any rules for understanding time, aspect or aktionsart for any tense. Instead, he stress that the function of various tense-forms should receive greater weight and greater attention. They also went back and forth on mainline & frontline, foreground & background, though their differences had to do more with terminology. Campbell and Decker focused on structure while Fanning emphasized prominence and meaning.
If it were a competition based on applause, Campbell would have won as his paper received the most resounding applause. But, in terms of strength of argument in the papers and the discussion which followed, Decker’s was the strongest because it is the simplest, has the fewest problems and is most helpful. However, it requires more work from the reader, evaluating how tense forms are used on a discourse level as well as in specific contexts. Slackers and procrastinators beware!
We had a blast at SBL! Our most favorite thing was making new friends and spending time with old ones. We posted on a few things we saw and heard, but lost blogging steam the last two days. Too many good things to do.
A few more sessions we greatly enjoyed…
The children’s bibles section – Unfortunately, we missed Roland’s paper, but learned a lot about children’s bible story books that edit down bible stories, and many consistently edit out woman in the creation stories. Hmm…
ANE archaeology – Learned a lot on iconography and how Asherah, in particular, sheds light on BH metaphor.
The pedagogy sessions – on distance learning (which had a blogger trifecta, unfortunately Brooke Lester went last and we missed it) and teaching biblical languages (ever thought of using inscriptions to teach Hebrew or Greek? or completely dropping parsing exercises from language tests?)
And David Clines’ presidential address. Our first! We’re normally out at a pub when the SBL president speaks. Glad we changed that tradition.
We also had a great time eating with bloggers and kindred spirits at Giovanni’s and the Deutsches Haus. In fact, we’re still full from eating Chris Meyer’s food! Thanks to Jim West and John Hobbins for their work in organizing the respecitve events. And much thanks to fellow Matie Jerermy Thompson for taking us to Maspero’s and introducing us to the wonderful world of Abita beer. We hope to one day host all you bloggers in either Houston or Cape Town, or both!
Here’s one story that will make you laugh…
I was walking to my room to get a bag of Dorito’s and the maid’s cleaning cart happened to be by the door. A prominent NT Greek and text-critical scholar walked out of his room, a few doors down, heading to the elevator and said, “Excuse me, miss. We’re ready for our room to be cleaned. Room 1766.” (You know who you are!) To which I replied, “I’m just getting something from my room”. Then a very embarrassed scholar offered his apologies as he rushed quickly to the elevator.
Stayed for two papers (after that the drowsiness sets in)- Tamar Zewi on translating הנה and Steve Runge on redundancy. I enjoyed both papers equally (despite the fact that anyone would sound like goy butchering Hebrew if you read after Tamar… tough vocalization act to follow Steve!) and plan on using their research. Steve’s paper on redundancy, in particular, has great explanatory power. Perhaps we’ll post on one of his examples later.
The Linguistics and BH section had their theme session this afternoon: Word Order in BH. If you read this blog regularly, you know that’s right up our alley. Here are the presenters, shorter paper titles, and our brief reaction.
Christo van der Merwe – Word Order in Joel – Heard it (helped write a bit of it!) in Stellenbosch.
Randall Buth – Multiple Frontings in Poetry – Didn’t hear about much poetry. Randy used a few examples from the Psalter but most were in Genesis. His word order model only superfically differs from Christo’s: What Christo called topicalization, Randy calls contextualization (simply to get away from the topic=subject oversimplification… a helpful distinction)
Eep Talstra – Word Order in His Syntactic Database – I’m excited about using Talstra’s database in the future. I’m not so excited about hearing him present another paper. Almost fell asleep.
Pierre van Hecke – Word Order in היה Clauses – It was great to hear someone offer some thoughts on this issue that has been a lacuna in BH word order studies. He also had a very nice slideshow which made following along much easier. Rather than describing every היה clause (which he should do… 3,000 occurences is not all that much), Pierre attempted to differentiate between copulative and existential forms of היה.
Ros Clarke – Structure of Song of Songs 7.11-13 – Ros by far had the best presentation (though we are biased toward bloggers) of the session. She offered her own internal structure of the poetic passage (which was very innovative!) which illuminated semantic connections between the song’s hypothetical garden and the woman’s body… So THAT’S where John Mayer got his song from (or should it be, Your Body is a Gardenland?). Also, Ros’ paper was the only one that dealt exclusively with poetry
Jeremy Thompson – Afterwards, we ate lunch at Maspero’s with this local blogger and talked about his project on BH vocabulary. Thanks for showing us your hometown Jeremy!
I thought I would be hearing papers on Relevance Theory. But the SBL program book was insistent that it is in fact Revelance Theory.
Gutt’s paper was well worth the standing (full room). If you’ve read his book on Relevance Theory, you didn’t miss much. The gist of it is that we need new goals (and ways of measuring those goals) in translation as equivalence does not exist and communicating what Scripture says (via a translation) doesn’t happen… or at least is not comprehended by hearers. .
By the way, this year’s tote bag is lame. It looks recycled and will break with one good trip to a South African grocery store.
So we left Houston at 6AM. Arrived in NOLA about 1PM. Then I ventured to the 5th floor of the Marriott’s River Tower to partake in the Accordance Seminar (Audubon room according to the program book), and no one was there. Where they all on lunch break… still? Hmmm.
We’ll go have another look and see if we woke up early in vain. If so, David Lang owes me some sleep.
UPDATE: Found it. Room change. You can stop worrying.
If you’ve studied the OT and/or BH for any length of time, you are no doubt aware of other ancient languages that illuminate the ANE world or sometimes even explain grammar issues of BH. Of course to read Scripture in full, Aramaic must be a part of one’s study at some point. But how much more knowledge is needed for the BH student? And to what depth of expertise should one shoot for? Is a basic knowledge of the literature and some relevant grammar factoids enough?
Obviously there are some things that every serious student should know, like that the primeval stories in Genesis 1 are not one-of-a-kind, for example. But should one have read those other stories? in their original languages?
Christo’s answer is practical. If there’s an issue in a BH text that cannot be explained without an appeal to another language, then do it. Otherwise, only venture into the larger world of Semitics and ANE languages if you intend to spend as much time on them as you do BH.
Your thoughts?
And if you haven’t read Kaltner and McKenzie’s Beyond Babel: A Handbook for BH and Related Languages, then read it.
We’ve updated the list of bibliobloggers reading at SBL in New Orleans. A few things have been fixed and room assignments have been added. We hope you find it useful!
Now on to other updates.
You’re Not Paul…
Published November 5, 2009 Bible translation , Biblical Languages , Biblioblogs , Hebrew Bible 6 CommentsTags: beware of humor, proverbs
… so please stop proof-texting Scripture. He’s the only one who can get away with that!
If during a theological discussion you’ve ever told someone that they are leaning on their own understanding with that twinkle of contempt in your eye (assuming you’re both believers), thinking you’ve won the argument by a poor invocation of Proverbs, then this post is for you. Let’s read a bit of Proverbs 3 before we go around quoting it.
Prov 3.1-5 Text, a Messy Translation, and Some Thoughts
בְּנִי תוֹרָתִי אַל־תִּשְׁכָּח וּמִצְוֹתַי יִצֹּר לִבֶּךָ
כִּי אֹרֶךְ יָמִים וּשְׁנוֹת חַיִים וְשָׁלוֹם יוֹסִיפוּ לָךְ
חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת אַל־יַעַזְבֻךָ קָשְׁרֵם עַל־גַּרְגְּרוֹתֶיךָ כָּתְבֵם עַל־לוּחַ לִבֶּךָ
וּמְצָא־חֵן וְשֵׂכֶל־טוֹב בְּעֵינֵי אֱלֹהִים וְאָדָם
בְּטַח אֶל־יהוה בְּכָל־לִבֶּךָ וְאֶל־בִּינָתְךָ אַל־תִּשָּׁעֵן
1 My child, may my teaching never be forgotten by you and may my commands be observed by your heart!
Our translation has clearly rendered the two Hebrew negated volitional verbs as passives. We’ve sacrificed “accuracy” in this regard to be more accurate about the information structure of the verse. Teaching and commands are parallel, fronted topics (each in their respective clause) in this verse, something obscured in most English translations. Thus, as we read it, those constituents are the most salient.
2 For longs days and years of life and peace will they add to you.
Why is the final לך marked as feminine? A masculine suffix ך was used in v1, in addition to the masculine vocative בני. Why is the grammatical gender changed here? And why do commentaries ignore this sort of thing?
3 May chesed and emet never leave you! Tie them around your throat! Engrave them on the tablet of your heart.
When not sure how best to translate, its okay not to and explain why. In this case there’s the obvious need to alert John Anderson that his blog is in the Bible. Apparently, the wise will heed to Anderson.
Then there’s the issue of the 14 other instances of the exact same phrase (which we think John should post on! Gn 24.49; 47.29; Ex 34.6; Jos 2.14; 2Sam 2.6; 15.20; Ps 25.10; 61.8, 85.11; 86.15; 89.15; Prov 14.22; 16.6; 20.28) plus others that are close but not exact (like Gn 32.11) which is why the NET Bible calls it a nominal hendiadys. A hendiadys is English for a Greek compund meaning one-through-two, in case you didn’t know. Its like saying rock-and-roll. Rock-and-roll is one thing but we use two words (plus a conjunction) to say it. But what exactly does it, chesed ve-emet, mean? We’d like to hear John’s answer.
4 So obtain favor and good esteem in the eyes of God and man.
מצא here has clearly been semantically extended from a simple sense of find. Favor and good esteem were not lost and now the Sage commands them be found. Rather they are goals taught for the child to pursue.
5 Trust to Yahweh with all your heart, and to your own insight do not place confidence.
What’s up with אֶל? Trust to Yahweh? Why not trust ביהוה in Yahweh (as most translations would have you think) like Isa 26.4, Jer 17.7, Ps 21.8; 37.3; or 40.4? What’s the difference, if any, between בטח ביהוה and בטח אל־יהוה? How much semantic overlap is there between ב and אל?
There’s a small chiasm of VP+PP//PP+VP.
To be continued…
We’ve been home in Texas now for about 2 weeks. Half of us are working and half of us are visiting family. Neither of us have been posting.
Here are a few things we don’t miss about South Africa…
Waiting until later when people say ‘now’.
The appaling lack of Mexican food.
The bus drivers.
South African beer.
Shoeless undergrads roaming the streets and classrooms of Stellenbosch.
That being said, we will miss the time to just study, the slower pace of life, our church, the mountains, and all the wine.
We are glad to see there has been no shortage of posts in our absence. Our friends Kris and Jayna Lyle are also blogging now (Kris most recently on Psalm 37). They studied with us at HBU and are also trying to make their way to South Africa.
We are also happy to report that this blog has now been up for one year (on Halloween). For those interested, here are some 1-year anniversary stats, of course given in the form of Top 10 lists.
Top 10 posts
The Death of Johnny Cash
Adam the Artist
BSC XLVI
20 Qs with Traphagen
20 Qs with Heiser
SA Election Results Online
Bloggers at SBL
Psalm 136 – Vol. 1
20 Qs with Brown
More on Vocab
Top 10 Referrers
Christian Colleges
Jared Calaway
Top50
Hobbins
Calvin and Mandy
Doug Magnum
John Anderson
Karyn Traphagen
Accordance Blog
Biblioblogs
Thank you!
Top 10 Search Engine Terms
johnny cash
waynes world
human anatomy
romeo and juliet
hebrew and greek reader
yhwh in hebrew
is lost good
robert rezetko
bum fights
wu tang
Top 10 Clicks
Karyn
Cook-Holmsted Textbook
Adam’s Resources
Josh and Bri
Phillip Marshall
Danny Zacharias
Charles Grebe
Heiser
Mike Aubrey
Cambridge Ulpan
We Want More For Our Money
Published October 13, 2009 Biblioblogs , africa 4 CommentsTags: podcasts
We’ve been happy to hear the wonderful podcasts by bibliobloggers. But we have one request from us and the rest of the so-called third world who listens: please make smaller MP3 files. That would make your podcasts more accessible to people with limited funds and internet access.
There is no such thing as a free wireless hotspot in South Africa (though that is suppose to change in the next two years) and most people who use the internet do not have a monthly contract. Rather, we pay for data. So the bigger your MP3 file is (or the bigger your webpage is), the more your podcast costs.
To date, the most expensive podcast we’ve downloaded is Mark Goodacre’s first glimpse at Thomas, which comes in at around 11 mb and is only 12 minutes long. We can download Democracy Now from KPFT for 10mb and that, as all you informed listeners know, is an hour long. So please dear bibliopodders, sacrifice a bit of audio quality (if you’re just talking, you won’t notice a thing… we promise) and give us more affordable podcasts!
By the way, we’ve been busy packing (and not posting) as we are coming home this week to see family, make some money, and buy books at SBL. We’ll be back in Africa next year for thesis-writing. So fortunately, we only have to deal with this limited internet access for a few more days.
