My good friend John Hobbins at Ancient Hebrew Poetry is daring enough to use Joseph Addison’s The Spectator, a wonderfully witty periodical from 18th-century England, as a rhetorical pea-shooter for the same tired argument for overly literal translations that I’ve been valiantly fighting against since the inception of this blog.
As Martin Luther so colorfully put it:
We do not have to inquire of the literal Latin, how we are to speak German, as these asses do. Rather we must inquire about this of the mother in the home, the children on the street, the common man in the marketplace. We must be guided by their language, the way they speak, and do our translating accordingly. That way they will understand it and recognize that we are speaking German to them.
In the same way we must not inquire of toffee-nosed poetasters in stockings and high lace collars, or even Hebrew shepherds for that matter, as to how an English translation of the Bible should sound. A clear translation in English will open up the world of the Bible to us making it accessible in language we can understand. And from that point if a desire is birthed in our hearts to dive into the original languages we will do it with the great panorama of the Scriptures from “In the beginning” to “Amen” echoing in our hearts rather than a jumble of misunderstood historical artifacts locked up in a half-translated book of mysteries.
Sorry, this was meant to just be a plug for John’s article but I got a little carried away. Please consider reading his entertaining post.
I wish I could get away with calling people names like Luther did. Although I sometimes mentally use the word above prefixed with “dumb.” But not as much anymore since I stopped teaching high school.
You were thinking of fellow teachers I assume. My favorite Luther quote is something like “When Luther farts in Germany, the Pope smells it in Rome.” That guy was a genius at the subtle quip.
Yes, Luther did find mother “in the home” and kept Katharine von Bora (his wife) and Elizabeth, Magdalena Margarethe (his daughters) there too. Hans, Martin Jr., and Paul (his sons) got to fart around “in the streets.” At least Luther knew Aristotle was wrong, as an all too common man “in the marketplace,” when he said females are botched males. God takes progress where he can get it.
I wish I could get away with calling people names like Lingamish does.
I’ve been very naughty lately. But it drives me insane when things get quiet.
“Yes, Luther did find mother “in the home” and kept Katharine von Bora (his wife) and Elizabeth, Magdalena Margarethe (his daughters) there too. Hans, Martin Jr., and Paul (his sons) got to fart around “in the streets.”
Of all the rights granted to men, that I, as a woman, may have been denied, I must say the liberty to pass gas in the streets is something that never crossed my mind.