I have noticed that often times students who begin learning one of the biblical languages think that at the end of a few years of studying vocabulary, grammar, and syntax that they will then know how to read and translate the Bible. However, learning vocabulary, grammar, and syntax is not enough if one wants to truly understand a language–one has to also be a student of the cultures, both general and local, in which these languages were used.
I remember asking the late Michael P. O’Connor what aspect of biblical Hebrew pedagogy he thought was most in need of improvement. Without hesitation he said that the biggest weakness that he saw in the students entering a PhD program (and he was referring to students that already had at least 2 years of biblical Hebrew upon their application to the program) is that they had virtually no understanding of ancient culture–they had merely studied language, biblical content, and theology and because of this really didn’t know the language at all (and I would add that if you don’t know the language you really don’t know biblical content or theology on a deep level, but I digress).
But how could this be? Why would O’Connor make such statements? For instance, aren’t the meanings of words readily accessible in the myriad of lexicons on the shelves of any good library? Yes and no. Take Lipinski’s discussion regarding the meaning of the words we commonly translate as “slave” and “slave-girl”:
The West Semitic noun ‘abd-, e.g., can designate a slave, a servant, a king’s minister, a god’s worshipper, because its conceptual content is not a social rank, but a relation created by a dependent activity. As a result, when one is translating the Bible, e.g., into some European language, the problems of equivalence can be acute. It is easier to translate the noun in question by ‘servant’ and to have recourse to the polysemy of the English word, but ‘abd- really does not mean ‘servant’ and the corresponding polysemy does not exist in Semitic. Neither ‘dependent’ would fit the case because ‘abd- is etymologically related to the verb ‘bd which suggests some form of performed activity. Besides, diachronic aspects should not be forgotten. E.g. if the Hebrew word shipha is often translated by ‘slave-girl’,–probably under influence of Arabic sifah, ‘concubinage by capture’, ‘cohabitation by force’,–one cannot forget that mishpaha was a clan or a larger family in biblical times, and that shph means ‘posterity’ in Ugaritic and ‘family’ in Punic. One can assume therefore that shipha was originally a house-born girl who was not a legal daughter of the paterfamilias, probably because she was born from a kind of sifah. Now, these social implications are missing in a translation like ‘slave-girl’. These examples show that languages are basically a part of culture, and that words cannot be understood correctly apart from the local cultural phenomena for which they are symbols.1
All this to say, I’m looking forward to teaching a course on ancient Near Eastern culture in the Fall.
- Edward Lipinski, Semitic Languages Outline of a Comparative Grammar (OLA 80; Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 557. [back]
Interesting how basic, yet often overlooked, this point is within the process of language study. Thanks for the excellent reminder that language and culture are inextricably related.
Have you finalized the course readings, yet? Mind sharing?
Hi Tyler, I haven’t even begun to assemble the course readings but will share them when I do. Have any suggestions?
Just out of curiosity: how do you plan on teaching iconography in your class this fall?
Hi Shawn, great question. It is a very important topic; I have used Keel’s work quite a bit in the past and I can’t wait until they release the iconography compliment to DDD but I haven’t decide how I will fulfill this for this class. Any suggestions?
Ha! I took Tallay Ornan’s classes hoping to get a grip on Iconography. They were great classes, but unfortunately I am still looking for reading materials. I am sure you have thought about Fleming’s update of Pritchard’s The Ancient Near East in Text’s and Pictures. The purist in me is disappointed in the lack of full texts and lack of color pictures, but I am attracted to the single volume covering both text and pictures. I really like the volume BEYOND BABYLON, but Keel’s works are probably more helpful to the Bible student. The only text I could whole heartedly recommend is Walton’s Ancient Near Eastern Thought (though he doesn’t go into detail on Iconography in that book). Do you think you’ll be using Walton’s text in your class? I agree with Tyler though: Definitely share your reading list! I need to expand my own on both culture and iconography.
Hey Charles, is this an undergraduate or graduate level course? And the scope? For general monographs on ANE culture, nothing comes immediately to mind, although CANE and Cambridge obviously offer some helpful articles. For iconography/art, I just finished Ataç’s “Mythology of Kingship in NA Art” and highly recommend it (at least for HB/ANE graduate students). Possibly also Winter’s work (I’m thinking particularly of her articles on Art and Empire in “Assyria 1995″ [359-81] and “Art as Evidence for Interaction…” in the Rencontre 1982 [355-82])? Just a few thoughts.
Nice bibliography. It is a master’s level class in the M.A. in Liberal Arts curriculum. So, we will have discussions about how culture impacts biblical studies but we will also study ANE culture on its own terms as well.
Realizing I’m a bit late to the discussion, but de Hulster’s Iconographic Exegesis and Third Isaiah (FAT II/36) I found to be a stimulating introduction to iconography with much attention to the intersections of culture, image, and text with, of course, a great deal of systematizing of Keel’s approach.
Thanks, Nathan.
Hey Charles,
As always, thanks for your writing.
When I hear people make strong exhortations for the need to understand the culture of ancient texts there is always some sort of check in my mind that keeps me from jumping on board with this line of thought. I’ve tried to think through what my hesitancies are, and hopefully I can get some feedback from you.
Let me first say that I definitely see that at least some cultural understanding is inherently necessary (and more in depth study is perfectly fine if possible), but how far does this need to know culture go? If the need to know culture is so crucial for understanding a text, it seems that ever coming to any sort of conclusive idea about what a text means is pushed even further into impossibility. The text itself is limited by paragraphs, sentences, words, and letters. Understanding a culture (especially an ancient one) is complex, if not complicated. Making culture so important brings in a sea of information that would make coming to any sort of conclusion much more difficult in my mind. But if so, then fine; let’s study the culture. I’m not trying to be lazy. I’m just curious how much we need to know of the culture before we know that we know enough. What if there’s another cultural factor out there that we missed and it totally skews the text’s meaning?
Also, I think of the biblical commands for God’s people know God’s word, meditate on God’s word, etc. (Josh. 1:8; Ps. 1:2, 1 Tim. 4:6) None of them say (and I’m paraphrasing), “Know God’s word, and, oh yeah, make sure you know this, that, and the other about the culture or you really won’t know much about what the text is saying.” Obviously, most of the original readers (Timothy is an exception) who received these commands were in the biblical culture, so for them to be told, “Hey, make sure you know the cultural background,” would have been silly. But is their not enough of the biblical culture that we can glean from the text itself? And is there not enough commonality between different cultures and human experience for Bible readers to know texts sufficiently enough to understand them, preach them, and even die for them (as so many have and still do)?
Thanks for providing the space to flesh out my thoughts and for any responses you may have.
So very true! And to think there is hardly a Hebrew Grammar that introduces students to the ubiquitous everyday life culture of the ANE. I thinks students should read excerpts from King and Stager’s Life in Biblical Israel along with their grammar studies, so they can have a sense of the lebenswelt in which these texts were written. The upshot, for me at least, (and there are those who are ‘too clever by a half’’ that would no doubt object) is that language references an extra-textual reality. For the ANE –the history of which is truly ‘a foreign country’ that was once lost for millennia– the active recovery and decipherment of culture is imperative if one is to understand its textual traditions– including the Hebrew Bible.
Too bad I live so far away. I would come and audit the classes.
There is a third component besides language and culture, both important I am sure. That is the motivation for translating. If there is no present reality, then the ancient knowledge would be sufficient. None of us, however, (nor if motivated would we want to) can avoid imposing our own subjectivity on the translation. This may be some committee process, or confessional stance, or experiential reality.
Example, Psalm 15. What to do with ??????? ?????????? ???????. Just who are we allowed to despise righteously? This psalm is about who gets to live on that Holy Hill. Where will I put my experience of the despised and rejected of the present day? I will put it in a translation that is as non-specific as I can manage so that no one will take their own prejudices for granted. I will probably do this regardless of the ancient cultural assumptions I might (or might not) be able to infer. I would then add a note like: Do we dare reject those who are despised? It is not easy to define the reprobate. Nor is what we think was the obvious decision of the past necessarily the correct decision then or now.
What!- no Hebrew!!! That was Psalm 15:4a – my translation is “One despised in his eyes is refused”.
I would appreciate seeing the syllabus, textbooks and bibliography as well.
This could be a very significant course with additional spillover as well.
BTW, Charles, just to “nerd this up” a bit, I thought I would draw your attention to episode 102 of StarTrek: The Next Generation, which tells a story about a breakdown in communication in spite of pure translation due to a lack of understanding of cultural knowledge.
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Are you going to upload these lessons onto iTunes U? Or podcast them…I think it would be a great addition to the Free Online Masters in Biblical Studies.
I don’t know, I’ll have to check with the school to see.
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What a great example, and one very relevant these days, given the number of people who clearly are challenged by “slavery” in the Bible – not just skeptics, but scholars and commentators as well!
I have come across similar items to this reading Malina’s work, and that is why for years I have been anxious that someone might start a Bible translation that would be informed by an understanding of Biblical culture. That, and one that doesn’t use large words nobody uses anymore except to hear themselves sound fancy. Were I to even fathom having the time to undertake such a thing, I would do it myself…
Interestingly, professional non-biblical translators are ahead of this game. Those who translate literary works (and the Bible is one of those) talk and write about translating one culture into another, rather than one language into another.