Culture and Translation
I am very dark, but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Song of Songs 1:5 ESV
But – Look at the translation of this verse in your Bible. Is the conjunctive translated as “but” or as “and”? In some editions, you will find that the vav has been translated “and.” You might ask why. The answer reveals how much of our Bible is really the product of our cultural worldview rather than an expression of the worldview of the author. The problem here is the current sensitivity to racial implications. The actual Hebrew words (shehorah ani vena’va’) are literally “black I but beautiful.” The woman explains by remarking that her brothers made her work in the vineyards where she was exposed to the sun. In other words, she is deeply tanned. There is no reason to suppose that she is black-skinned. In fact, her explanation precludes such an assumption. But in a culture of racial sensitivity, we allow the translation to adopt our view of the circumstances rather than attempt to describe the author’s worldview. We go out of the way, and out of the text, to suggest that she is Black and beautiful.
This is only one example of our misunderstanding of the culture of the Bible. We might find the same “rewriting” of the culture when it comes to terms like “slave” or ideas like the extermination of whole people groups. If you thought that adopting a Hebraic worldview meant using Hebrew words like Brit Hadasha instead of New Testament or using Yeshua instead of Jesus, then you missed the point. The Hebraic worldview is not the Western (Christian) perspective with a new vocabulary. It is a totally different construction of the way the world works and the meanings of everything in the world. Concepts about race, religion, government, economics, citizenship, “law,” justice and goodness all change.
Consider the thoughts of John Walton:
Existence is functional. It is defined by the relationships, not by an interior sense of self.
There are no abstractions. There is only observable behavior.[1]
God’s attributes are not interior qualities. They are exterior actions. God is what He does. God creates evil. The standard is what God does, not a list of moral attributes. Good is what God does, whatever He does. We do not have a list of moral actions that apply to God. That is Greek conceptualization.[2]
There is a lot more. Perhaps in order to truly understand the text of the Bible we have to first step away from all of our usual assumptions about the world. It’s not just new vocabulary. It’s a new way of seeing what is and what is not.
Topical Index: Hebraic worldview, Song of Songs 1:5, black, slavery, evil, justice
This brings up a very complex, yet critical point. There is the traditional hebraic understanding (at the time) and then there is the revision and correction given by Yeshua. The challenge is to understand both – to take from both the old and the new.
Good point. There is the 2000 year old traditional Hebrew worldview – which is really a Hellenized Hebrew perspective. Then what if we went back,…and somehow dug up scrolls from apostate Israel wandering the desert, or during the time of the kings? We could be in danger of calling this a “Hebraic Worldview”, when it was really against the character of God.
I would argue though, that Yeshua did not teach anything new – only renewed. However, any conflict between Torah and Yeshua is our own misunderstanding – based on Yeshua’s own words.
“revision and correction given by Yeshua”
Hi Christopher,
I don’t think the theology is revised by Yeshua
But Yeshua, who according to Matthew sees himself as the Messiah ben David
Makes a very different impression on us than King David himself
Who “murders” his loyal soldier and commits adultery with his soldier’s wife
On the other hand, our most famous Hebrew woman is probably Eve, who opened Pandora’s Box
Or the adulterous Mary, mother of Jesus (unless one believes in the immaculate conception)
So I guess in the Hebrew worldview we have great leaders like Moses and Jesus
Who are models for mankind
And we have a sacred Hebrew text that we are supposed to do our best to live by
IMO
“leaders like Moses and Jesus”
Hmmm
Maybe I should point out that I don’t think one must be a man to lead like Moses or Jesus
One of my favorite female characters in Western literature becomes a model of Jesus IMO
Here name is Hester Prynne and she is the hero in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
Hester gives birth to a child in the very religious Puritan society of colonial America
Her problem is that nobody knows who the father is, except for the Reverend Dimmesdale
Hester is condemned and persecuted by the Puritan community for her sin
While the Reverend is revered
In response to her persecution, Hester learns to assuage her guilt by serving the community
Making sure the poor have food and that the sick receive proper care
Hester is a very alienated individual in her society, living alone with her daughter Pearl
She actually feels more at home in the forest with the tribes of wild Indians
Some critics have compared Hester to the Wandering Jew
But I tended to see her as the Suffering Servant
Who transforms her Scarlet Letter from a sinful sign to a symbol of Androgyny
Neither masculine nor feminine, Hester becomes a whole person
Who can stand alone and be content even under extreme adversity
Around that time (77) I was reading a lot of Philip K Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)
And wondering if there were a relationship between Androids and Androgyny
You have probably all seen the movie Bladerunner with Harrison Ford
In the movie, which is based on Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
The Alien is a bad Android
So, where are we “coming from?” On what do we base our “worldview?” “I see your point!- I know where you are coming from!- I can “identify..”
Is God (Himself) able to communicate (Himself) to us? Is our Bible (as it stands written) the Word of God?
Yes, it does come around.to. “Back to the Bible..” and “(Living) Word of God, speak!”
It was our LORD (Himself) who said, ~ the words I speak unto you, they are breath and they are life! ~ And when He said, (we do pay attention to His words, – right?) “by your (own) words you will be justified, and by your (own) words you will be condemned/judged, -would it then, be wise for us to pray and to petition? ~ May the words of my (own) mouth and the meditations of my (own) heart, be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, “my Strength and my Redeemer?”
Is the Word of the LORD (as it stands written) still able to transform, renew, redeem and restore our sin-broken lives, and for the better? May I say, (and with great confidence, expectation and hope) – Amen!! His Name is Wonderful!!
I see the conjunctive translated as “yet” in many translations.