More on Mistranslations of the Bible.

In the course of moving from one continent to another, I had to let go a lot of very good books. One of those that I could not carry was my JPS Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), but it was the compact edition, and the type was too small for these old eyes. Yesterday, in a thrift store, I found one that I like better, and can more easily read. It is the Jerusalem Bible published by Koren Publishers in 1962. [Not to be confused with the better known Jerusalem Bible published in 1966 by Darton, Longman and Todd, which was a Catholic translation, an outgrowth of La bible de Jérusalem (1956).] In that same thrift store I also found a very handsome KJV, and a nice NIV, among other things.

Last night, before going to bed, I opened the KJV at random, to 1 Samuel, and was reading the story of King Saul's pursuit of David with intent to kill him. It's a really good story, told by a storyteller who thoroughly knew his craft. I was soon hooked. Then I came to this, 1 Samuel 20.41, speaking of David and Jonathan: ". . . David arose out of a place toward the south, and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times; and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded."

What did this mean? "To exceed" is a transitive verb. He exceeded what? The passage could easily be sexual. Did David "come?" I looked the passage up in my wonderful, newly-acquired Hebrew Bible. The English is the same, obviously borrowed from the KJV, but the original Hebrew says:

  עַד־דָּוִד הְִגְדִיל

  "ad-dovid higdiyl." This means "until David became great (or large). To put it in crude terms, while kissing Jonathan, David got a "boner."

Not totally trusting myself, I reviewed the relevant Biblical Hebrew grammar: the form is the Hiph'il of the stative verb גָדַל, and it means "he became great (or large, or big)." In modern English, "he got big."

The implications of this are obvious. David, who was responsible for much of what was beautiful in the Jewish culture of his time, including most of the Psalms, was either gay or bi. Based on the Hebrew words, I don't see any way around it. Nor do I have any problem with it, but there are those who do.

The world of David's time was less fastidious about such things than we tend to be. Homosexuality was a commonplace in that world, and widely accepted. I couldn't let the matter lie, so I picked up the NIV, and read ". . . but David wept more." This is clearly a mistranslation, since the Hebrew words do not mention weeping.

This morning I dug my Vulgata out of the suitcase and read: ". . . et osculantes alterutrum fleverunt pariter David autem amplius" (. . . and kissing each other, they wept equally, but David more.) What kind of sense does this make, "equally. . . but more?" It is well known that the translators of the KJV tried to be faithful to the Hebrew, and were also influenced by the Vulgate. Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate claimed to base his work on the Hebrew, but actually relied more upon the first Jewish translation into Greek, the Septuagint. It is clear that they were all dancing around the original Hebrew words, which were a bit too much for them.

[to be continued]

Text © 2019 by Donald C. Traxler.