Starting Over

And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 1:31b NASB

The – Other than the fact that Robert Alter’s translation of this verse changes “there was” to “it was,” is there anything really significantly different?  To answer that question, we need to read “Introduction to the Five Books” in his translation of the Hebrew Bible.  Here’s what we find:

The rabbinic sage Resh Lakish once wondered why the Hebrew text in Genesis used a seemingly superfluous definite article in the phrase “And it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day.”  (The definite article is not used for the preceding five days.)  He took this to be a hidden reference to the sixth day of the month of Sivan, when according to tradition the Torah was given to Israel: “to teach us that the Holy One made a condition with all created things, saying to them, ‘If Israel accepts the Torah, you will continue to exist.  If not, I shall return you to welter and waste’” (Babylonian Talmud: Shabbat 88A).  This is surely an extraordinary notion to entertain about the cosmic status of a book, imagining that their very existence of the world depends on it and on Israel’s embrace of it.  Jewish tradition abounds in such extravagant celebrations of the supreme importance of this book.[1]

“The” in the NASB is the same as “the” in Alter’s translation.  It’s just a definite article.  But when we look behind the text, we find that Jewish understanding of this ignominious word is wildly metaphysical; so much so that the entire creation depends on it!  You wouldn’t find that in a footnote in the NASB, or in any English Bible translation.  It’s a Talmudic view of the importance of God’s words, and that view comes only with the adoption of a Jewish perspective of Torah.  Is it extravagant?  Certainly!  Is it fundamental?  Absolutely!  Is it true?  Ah, now you’re asking a question that only a Greek would ask.  True and false don’t really apply here.  Why?  Because this Talmudic understanding of the superfluous definite article is a paradigmatic consideration.  It operates within the Talmudic Jewish worldview.  And if that isn’t the way you see Moses’ books, then you won’t find an “extravagant” meaning in this tiny definite article.  For you, it will just be another “the” in the text.  You’ll go on reading as if nothing cosmically important had occurred.

So, I’m wondering.  Do we need to start over?  Do we think that we can really understand and appreciate the Torah if we approach it from outside this paradigm?  We’ll bring our own paradigm understanding.  We’ll find hidden references to the pre-existent Jesus.  We’ll “discover” messianic prophecies.  But we won’t read the text like a Jewish sage.  We won’t see connections between the text and Jewish tradition.  We’ll read the text like an outsider—a Westerner who is desperately trying to hear in modern terms what God said to an ancient Semitic people.  We’ll instinctively and unconsciously drag the Bible into our world.

Nahum Sarna makes a decisive point:

Translations, particularly those adopted by ecclesiastical hierarchies, tend to wield potent influence, frequently deleterious, over the hearts and minds of their devotees.  They often receive virtual, if not official, canonicity.  Either way, the phenomenon engenders an attitude that encourages a fundamentalist, monolithic approach to the Scriptures, one that is subversive of intellectual freedom, corrosive of tolerance, and productive of doctrinal tyranny.  Moreover, a translation of the Holy Scriptures, however felicitously and elegantly executed, must perforce, in the long run, be the enemy of truth.  It is surely difficult enough to transplant a piece of literature from its native cultural soil into another milieu of quite a different character and composition.  Can the fine nuances of language, the deliberately introduced ambiguities, the instinctive elements and distinctive qualities of style of a great national opus of consummate artistry really be accurately conveyed and truthfully reproduced in another language?  Can the cultural, linguistic, and spiritual barriers really be overcome?  These difficulties are compounded immeasurably by the large number of obscure Hebrew words, phrases and grammatical forms that are scattered over the texts.  The truth is that despite the vast strides in our knowledge of the ancient Semitic languages made over the past century, many passages in the Hebrew Bible still remain imperfectly understood.  In many instances, therefore, translations are deceptive.  They substitute simplicities or speculative emendations for the obscurities, either of which can be quite misleading.[2]

Yes, I think we need to start over.  I wonder if we still have time.

Topical Index: Resh Lakish, definite article, Talmud Shabbat 88A, Genesis 1:31

[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: Volume 1 The Five Books of Moses Torah, p. xliii.

[2] Nahum Sarna, “Writing a Commentary on the Torah” in Studies in Biblical Interpretation (JPS, 2000), p. 254.