Saturday, October 29, 2022

Thursday, October 27, 2022

Monday, October 24, 2022

Thursday, October 20, 2022

World without End

איך אני יכול להיות שם, כשאני כאן,

או כאן, כשאני שם,

עולמות בתוך עולמות, באוקיינוס

של נצחיות, עולם בלי סוף

(אמן), עולם ללא לב,

או הצלת אמנות, עולם ללא אהבה,

מנותק מלמעלה, עם בקושי

חבר, עולם בלי סוף,

עולם ללא סוף,

אָמֵן. אָמֵן. אָמֵן

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

What we can be fairly certain of is that the translators of the OT part of the Peshitta, in the second century CE, had no referents for the Hebrew words תוהר and תאשוּר. The same was apparently true of the legendary "Seventy" translators of the Septuagint (LXX), in about 200 BCE. If Isaiah was written ca. 720-700 BCE, then it only took at most 500 years for these two tree names to be lost.

This being the case, how did the translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls determine the meaning of תוהר to be "yew?" I suspect that they found a tree name with some phonetic similarity in a closely related Semitic language, such as Aramaic or Arabic. So, what is the word for "yew" in Arabic? It is "taqsus." Same initial consonant, vowel shifts between "a" and "o" are common, and the second consonant is, in both cases, a guttural. Don't ask me about the "-sus" part--I don't know what it means. Not proof, of course, but it's a distinct possibility. What word is used in Modern Hebrew for "yew?" Taqsus. The original, Hebrew word, has been lost.

A word for which there was a current need would probably not have been lost. But the yew may have been felled to extinction in that area. I can think of two possible reasons: 1) to make longbows, and 2) to avoid the poisoning of livestock in the course of grazing. Every part of the yew is poisonous.

"Taxus" is, of course, the Latin word for "yew," so who knows?

The second mystery tree name, תאשור, looks to me like a corruption of the Aramaic for "of Assyria." If there was a tree that was called "Assyrian," the knowledge of which tree it was had apparently been lost before the time of the translators of the Peshitta (second century CE), and even before the time of the "Seventy" (second century BCE. In other words, this knowledge had already been lost 1000 years before our oldest manuscript of the Masoretic Text. This, I think, puts Bible translation, especially of the Old Testament, in its proper perspective.

[Note on the illustration: The graphic shows verses 12-27 of Chapter 41 of Isaiah. The text is in the beautiful Estrangelo script, which began to be used for Aramaic in the first century CE. Verse 19 is exactly the same as I have given in Part II of this series, in the Hebrew letters that are in use today.]

A Matter of Trees - II

I began to make progress when I was reading THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS BIBLE: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English, by Martin Abegg, Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich (New York, Harper One, 1999) On page 336 I found this note: "820. 1QIsa-a and MT have different spellings of this obscure tree." Checking my Tanakh, I saw that the MT had תִּדְהָר (tid'har), while the DSS had תוהר (probably tohar or tuhar, while there are other possibilities in an unpointed txt such as this). But there is no known tree called "tid'har." Clearly, what has happened is that the Masoretes mistook a vav for a daleth.

Obviously, I was not privy to the deliberations of the DSS translators when they decided that the meaning of the DSS word (which I have underlined above in red) was "yew." Perhaps they found the word in an Aramaic targum, or in a text in another closely related language, With this thought in mind, I looked up Isaiah 41:19 in the Peshitta. Here t is:

אתל במדברא ארזא ואשכרעא ואסא וקיסא דמשחא אסים בפקעתא שרוינא הדירא אכחדא

Surely, I thought, this text, in a closely related language, translated from the Hebrew in the second century CE, would solve the problem of the mystery tree. But no, here it is in English:

I will give in the wilderness cedars and acacia trees and the myrtle and the tree of oil I will put in the plain cypresses glorious, together.

Those who are attentive will notice that there are only five tree names given. The translators of the Peshitta punted, and glossed two unfamiliar names of trees with the word "glorious."

(to be continued)

Monday, October 17, 2022

A Matter of Trees - I

One thing leads to another. I was thinking about the lulav (palm branch) and the etrog (citron) of Sukkot, which also involve myrtle (hadass) and willow (aravah). This, in turn, reminded me of an Israeli folksong that I learned as a young man, in the version of Geula Gill:

Eten Bamidbar - Geula Gill

I thought about translating the words, which are based on Isaiah 41:19, perhaps into my Udugi language. But to do that, or anything like it, I would have to know the exact meaning of the verse. I checked the verse in my Tanakh:

I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shitta tree, and the myrtle and the oil tree; I will set in the 'Arava cypress, maple, and box tree together:

I checked the Vulgate, which goes back to the last quarter of the fourth century CE:

dabo in solitudine cedram et spinam et myrtum et lignum olivae / ponam in desrto abietem ulmum et buxum simul

(I will give in solitude the cedar and the thorn tree, and myrtle and the wood of the olive / I will put in the desert the fir, the elm, and the box-tree alike.)

Since the Vulgate often reflects the Septuagint (LXX), which dates to about 200 BCE, I checked that, too:

I will plant in the dry land the cedar and box, the myrtle and cypress, and white poplar:

Note that the LXX gives the names of only five trees, instead of seven.

This was becoming more than a little frustrating. I checked the good, old King James Version:

I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree and the pine and the box tree together.

There was simply no agreement. I was getting nowhere.

I decided to go back to the Dead Sea Scrolls, which go back to the middle (some of them) of the second century BCE (see the screen capture above):

In the wilderness, I will put the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive; in the desert, I will set the cypress, the yew, and the elm together.

One thing made the DSS version different from all the others: it mentioned "yew," not included in any of the other versions.

Now the LXX is thought to be a little older than the DSS. But the LXX only gives five tree names in this verse. Were there a couple of trees that they didn't know, even then?

(to be continued)

Saturday, October 15, 2022

148,000 Visits and Two Weeks in NYC

Last night we passed the milestone of 148,000 visits (page-views) in this poetry/writing/photography blog. Instead of the three weeks that it took to get another thousand visits when blog activity was at its highest, it took about a month and a half this time. I'm not posting as many times per day as before--it would be fair to say that I'm slowing down.

It would also be fair to say that I'm doing a lot of other things. In addition to my usual diverse studies, my wife and I went to New York for the US Open in September. Here's a photo:

This was the second time that Sandy and I had attended a US Open. The first time was in 2009, thirteen years before. Believe me, this time it was much, much harder. We are not as young as we used to be.

Then, in late September, we had Hurricane Ian. At first it was projected to go right over us, but somehow it made an early turn into Ft. Myers, instead. We feel blessed.

October is only half over, but Sandy spent a couple of days in the hospital, and gave me quite a scare. She is home again and is doing well.

With one thing and another, I haven't had much time for the blog posts that I usually do. I especially have not had time for the extended series things that I like to do, but I celebrated my eightieth birthday with some additions to my Aging Project.

Yes, I'm now 80. Not only that, but I've decided to try for 100 or more. That should take me well beyond 230,000 blog visits. :)

Thank you all for your continued interest and enthusiasm. I close with another clothed photo, just to show that it does happen: