Respect / ᎪᎯᏳᎯ

ᎪᎯᏳᎯ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎤᎵᏍᎨᏛᎨᏍᏙᏗ ᎢᏳᏍᏗ.
ᎢᏳᏃ ᎢᏧᎳ ᎤᎭᏎ ᎪᎯᏳᎯᏁ
ᏏᏴᏫ ᏐᎢ ᎾᏍᎩᎭᎢ,
ᎥᏝᎪᎱᏍᏗ ᏰᎵᏆᏎ ᎠᎴᏫᏍᏙᏗ ᎢᏧᎸ.

Respect is the most important thing.
If we have respect
for each other,
nothing can stop us.

Text and image © 2019 by Donald C. Traxler ꮨᏺꭽꮅ.

The Book of Psalms and its Various Translations (Revisited)

The following was published, in an earlier form, as a Facebook Note. It was republished, also in that earlier form, in this blog on 19 April 2017. The version below is updated with corrections and additions based on later information and further thought.

I'm very disappointed. Recently, after not having seen one for many years, I received a copy of Liber Psalmorum cum Canticis Breviarii Romani. It is the 1944-45 translation of the Psalms by the Pontifical Biblical Institute, ordered by Pius XII.

I expected a lot of it, because I agree with its announced premise: that the best text of the Psalms is the Hebrew text that underlies the Septuagint. Unfortunately, that Hebrew text no longer exists, and they have supposedly tried to reconstruct it. I cannot speak to their methods, but I'd like to say a few things about the results.

One expects a lot from a group calling itself the Pontifical Biblical Institute, so this translation has been very influential. In fact, the Book of Psalms in every Catholic translation of the Bible since the Second World War has been based on it. Due, I suppose, to the soundness of its basic premise, it has also strongly influenced modern Protestant translations, such as the NRSV and the NIV. All of this is extremely unfortunate.

This Liber Psalmorum, or New Latin Psalter (I'll refer to it as NLP from here on) has so far failed every test to which I have put it. Not only that: It seems to have started a very unfortunate trend in Psalms translation, and in Bible translation in general.

Recently I've noticed that modern translations of the Book of Psalms are tendentious in that they water down the original, strong language of the Psalms. The effect of this is to make the Psalms less of an indictment of the human social order, and to make them less embarrassing and threatening both to the civil governments of the world and to the institutional Church. I'll give some examples.

In Psalm 8, v. 5, the Vulgate, accurately reflecting the LXX, which itself reflects a Hebrew text older than the one we now possess, has the phrase "aut filius hominis, quoniam visitas eum," "or the son of man, that you visit him." But the NLP and its followers have "that you care for him." Now that Greek word has both of those meanings, so both interpretations are possible. But the Vulgate translated the word literally, suggesting a more intimate and direct relationship with God, something the institutional Church has always found threatening. By itself, I wouldn't say much about it, but it is part of an unfortunate pattern. The Hebrew word, by the way, doesn't have that ambiguity: it simply means "to visit." Now, my edition of the Vulgate has two versions of the Psalms, one based on the LXX and the other based on the (still unpointed) Hebrew text of Jerome's time. Both versions say "that you visit him." Likewise the KJV. But the NLP and its followers (almost all contemporary translations, including the NIV, the NASB--supposedly the most literal, and the beautiful translation of Robert Alter, 2018) give an alternate Greek meaning, despite the evidence of both the Hebrew text of 400 CE and the Masoretic Hebrew text. Only the Jerusalem Bible (Koren Publishers, Jerusalem, my edition is dated 1997) faithfully follows the Hebrew text.

I should take a little detour here, and say something about our beloved King James Version, of 1608. It contains, in my opinion, one of the last honest translations of the Book of Psalms. Where it differs from the Vulgate and the LXX, it is usually because something (often a whole verse) is missing from the Masoretic Hebrew, upon which it is based. For example, it leaves out the "NUN" verse that should be in Psalm 145, an alphabetic acrostic. But the omission had no agenda; it simply reflected the imperfect state of the Masoretic text that was (and is) available. The Hebrew text is far too important for it to be ignored, and the translators of the KJV did not ignore it. In recent years there has been a campaign against the KJV, saying that it is "not a good translation," and that contemporary translations are "better." In my opinion, neither assertion is true. The only problem I see with the KJV is that its beautiful, Elizabethan English is not always well understood today.

Another example of the watering-down process is seen in Psalm 9b (10), where the Greek and St. Jerome's Latin (both the version based on the LXX and the version based on the Hebrew text of his time) tell us that while the impious man fills himself with pride, the poor man "goes up in flames." But according to the NLP, the poor man "is vexed." The Hebrew word in the Masoretic text means "to burn," it does not mean "to vex," or "to hotly pursue."

Our last example, for present purposes, comes from Psalm 11 (Vulg. and LXX)/Psalm 12 (Hebrew and KJV), where we find (in the Vulgate, which is basically a faithful reflection of the LXX) the phrase "Propter miseriam inopum, et gemitum pauperum. . ." This can be translated as "Because of the misery of the needy and the groans of the poor. . . " The LXX  has "Because of the misery of beggars and the groaning of the poor. . . " Jerome's Hebrew-based version is even stronger: "Because of the destruction of the needy and the groaning of the poor," which is close to the Masoretic Hebrew of today. But in the NLP, the "misery of beggars" or "destruction of the needy" becomes "the affliction of the lowly" (afflictionem humilium).

Yes, let's forget that there are beggars, people in need, and let's reduce their "misery" or "destruction" to "affliction," which makes it all more abstract. Let's not offend the governments of the world, or the billionaires who own and control them.

In Florida and some other states, it is now illegal to feed the homeless or their children, and those who try to do it are arrested. To feed them is, of course, to notice them, and to admit that they exist.

All of this does not just "vex" me; it burns me up.

Text © 2011-2019 by Donald C. Traxler.