When Translation Becomes Tikkun - II

To review a bit:

KJV-R (Webster) Psalms 61:7 He shall abide before God for ever: O prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him.

ASV Psalms 61:7 He shall abide before God for ever: Oh prepare lovingkindness and truth, that they may preserve him.

MLB Psalms 61:7 He shall remain forever before God;
ordain lovingkindness and truth to keep him.

Young's Literal Psalms 61:7 He dwelleth to the age before God, Kindness and truth appoint -- they keep him.

RSV: May he be enthroned for ever before God;
bid steadfast love and faithfulness watch over him!

JPS Tanakh: May he dwell in God's presence forever;
appoint* steadfast love to guard him.

*Meaning of Heb. uncertain

Hebrew (Masoretic):

יֵשֵׁב עֹלָם לִפְנֵי אֱלֹהִים חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת מַן יִנְצְרֻהוּ ׃

No one knows what "מן" is supposed to mean. But, in a way, that's the least of our troubles.

It has been fashionable in recent decades to say that the KJV (1611) is a "very bad" translation. It is not. The English is archaic, but quite beautiful. The translators stayed too close to the Masoretic text, but they were also much influenced by the Vulgate, which helped.

Both the KJV and the Vulgate have the advantage of translating words according to their original meanings, and not according to currently fashionable ones.

If you look up "mercy" in Strong's Concordance, which is based on the KJV, you'll find that it occurs in that translation about 320 times. In any currently fashionable modern translation it occurs far fewer times, if at all. In most of the modern translations it has been replaced by "steadfast love." Similarly, "truth" occurs about 270 times in the KJV, but far fewer in most modern translations, where it has been replaced by "fidelity." This is something that you can check for yourself, I'm not making it up.

Apparently "mercy" and "truth" are out of favor these days. We no longer have to show mercy to neighboring countries and peoples, and truth has become a vague and relative thing, to be played with according to our convenience.

I trace the beginning of these changes back to the RV of 1885. The ASV (1901) has "lovingkindness" and "truth." The MLB (1969) uses those same words, but the RSV (1952) has already replaced "mercy" with "steadfast love," and weakened "truth" by calling it "fidelity," not only here, but everywhere. In this day of computers and "search and replace," it's a simple matter to do this, and the NRSV, NIV, NAB, JPS Tanakh, and others have followed the RSV in doing so. This is something that you can check for yourself.

Now if I go to the vocabulary section of my book on Biblical Hebrew (1955), and look up the Hebrew word "chesed" (חֶסֶד), it tells me that the word means "mercy, kindness," which is true. I want kindness from my next-door neighbor and my local bartender, but I want mercy from God. I also want powerful countries and populations to show mercy to those that are not. For me, the concept of mercy is not passé, no matter how many times you search-and-replace it, wholesale, in texts that deserve better treatment than that.

Similarly, "emet" (אֶמֶת) means truth, as I've known for well over fifty years, no matter how much you may want to water it down.

These meanings were known to the Psalmist(s) in the tenth to fifth centuries BCE, to the translators of the Septuagint (LXX) in the second and third centuries BCE, to Saint Jerome and his helpers in 400 CE, to the Masoretes in the fifth to tenth centuries CE, and to King James' scholarly translators in 1611. Let's not lose sight of them now.

(to be continued)

When Translation Becomes Tikkun

KJV-R (Webster) Psalms 61:7 He shall abide before God for ever: O prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him.

ASV Psalms 61:7 He shall abide before God for ever: Oh prepare lovingkindness and truth, that they may preserve him.

MLB Psalms 61:7 He shall remain forever before God;
ordain lovingkindness and truth to keep him.

Young's Literal Psalms 61:7 He dwelleth to the age before God, Kindness and truth appoint -- they keep him.

RSV: May he be enthroned for ever before God;
bid steadfast love and faithfulness watch over him!

JPS Tanakh: May he dwell in God's presence forever;
appoint* steadfast love to guard him.

*Meaning of Heb. uncertain 

Hebrew (Masoretic):

יֵשֵׁב עֹלָם לִפְנֵי אֱלֹהִים חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת מַן יִנְצְרֻהוּ ׃

No one knows what "מן" is supposed to mean. But, in a way, that's the least of our troubles.

This, from Wikipedia:

The Masoretes (Hebrew: בעלי המסורה‬ Ba'alei ha-Masora) were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked between the 6th and 10th centuries CE,^[1] based primarily in early medieval Palestine in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, as well as in Iraq (Babylonia). Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes (niqqud) on the external form of the biblical text in an attempt to standardize the pronunciation, paragraph and verse divisions and cantillation of the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, for the worldwide Jewish community.

The ben Asher family of Masoretes was largely responsible for the preservation and production of the Masoretic Text, although an alternative Masoretic text of the ben NaphtaliMasoretes, which has around 875 differences from the ben Asher text,^[2] existed. The halakhic authority Maimonides endorsed the ben Asher as superior, although the Egyptian Jewish scholar, Saadya Gaon al-Fayyumi, had preferred the ben Naphtali system. It has been suggested that the ben Asher family and the majority of the Masoretes were Karaites.^[3] However, Geoffrey Khan believes that the ben Asher family was probably not Karaite,^[4] and Aron Dotan avers that there are "decisive proofs that M. Ben-Asher was not a Karaite."^[5]

The Masoretes devised the vowel notation system for Hebrew that is still widely used, as well as the trope symbols used for cantillation.

The Masoretic text is the standard Hebrew text of Judaism. Our oldest complete manuscript of the Masoretic text only dates from the tenth century.

The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Septuagint (abbreviated as LXX), is many centuries older, having been done around 250-150 BCE.

The Latin Vulgate was done by St. Jerome, around 400 CE, so even it is centuries older than our oldest copy of the Masoretic text.

St. Jerome must have cared greatly about the Psalms, because he offered Pope Damasus two different versions of them, one based on the familiar LXX, and the other based on the pre-Masoretic Hebrew text of his day. The Pope chose the more familiar translation based on the LXX, but my edition of the Vulgate contains BOTH translations.

The Vulgate is still the official Bible text of the Catholic Church, but in 1945 a new Latin translation of the Psalms was made (Liber Psalmorum cum Canticis Breviarii Romani). I have that version, too. It was, for better or worse, very influential.

(to be continued)