Practicing Translating the Hebrew Bible

I promised that I would be posting about the contributions and challenges faced by Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans for Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, but that was me over-promising. Lately, I've been busy with work, as well as needing to take a break from using the computer, which has been super helpful, I quite enjoyed it. Plus, it takes time to type a post. Nevertheless, I'll do my best to type and post them during the remainder of this month.

Anyways, on my break, I decided whimsically to feebly attempt to translate the entire Hebrew Bible. I did this simply for my own pleasure and learning, understanding that almost certainly I will never finish such a massive project, but if I do, that would be an accomplishment itself. Nor do I believe that I will translate the Hebrew Bible well: it requires a good handling of biblical Hebrew and Aramaic narrative and poetry, as well as a good handling of English narrative and poetry, none which I have. The only person who I know that has single-handedly translated the Hebrew Bible well and received critical acclaim is Robert Alter, Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley. Alter's The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary is split into three volumes, reflecting the Jewish canon (The Law, The Prophets, and The Writings), and focuses on the literary qualities of the Hebrew Bible while attempting to be literal and concrete as possible, making it unique and much-needed among the world of English translations that tends to only focus on being readable and theological concerns. I only read a part of it and it was delightful to read.

Anyways, going back to my translation, I decided to write instead of typing because (1) I want to gain a richer understanding of the Hebrew Bible, (2) to experience the work of a scribe, getting a peek into their forgotten world, (3) to make scribal-like notes that is difficult to do on Word that will help me with making revisions, and (4) I needed a break from using the computer, as stated before.

I should preface that I do not have a degree in Hebrew or Old Testament Studies, nor am I formally trained in Hebrew and translating. I have only received informal learning through Gary D. Practico and Miles V. Van Pelt's Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar: Second Edition. In addition, I rely on the expertise of biblical scholars who actual have a degree and knows the language like the back of their hands. Basically, what I'm saying is that my work is probably heavily flawed and can benefit from more learning and training, and that my knowledge is heavily indebted to these biblical scholars who work intensely to uncover the unique and intricate world of the Israelites.

I've posted scans of my translation of Genesis 1-3:21 below, which you can read. They may be difficult to read, especially the first two pages, so I suggest zooming in to read them. I'll be referring to it to describe my translation process.

I used three books to help me translate: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (BDB), and Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar: Second Edition. The BHS essentially is the critical edition of the a Hebrew Bible manuscript with notes on variations found in other Hebrew Bible manuscripts and translations. The BDB essentially list all the words found in the Hebrew Bible, their variations, and occurrences in the Hebrew Bible. I use Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar mainly as a reference to translating the myriads of verbal forms in Hebrew (seriously, there are a lot and too many for my liking).

I started on Genesis as it's the obvious place to start. I follow Alter in terms of translation philosophy: literary yet literal as possible. One example of this is translating the word תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu wavohu), which is usually translated as "formless and void," as "wild and waste," to try to capture the rhyming. Tohu wavohu is only seen two times: here and in Jeremiah 4:23, where Jeremiah prophesies the land of Israel being de-created, and they're usually used to describe an empty track of desert. In addition, the ancients didn't have the concept of nothingness (ie. ex nihilo), but of chaos, which is unordered creation, usually in the form of the sea or desert. With all of this in mind, I translate tohu wavohu as, "wild and waste."

I have added my own scribal-like notes, which were influenced by the Jewish scribal note system called the Masorah, to help me with identifying translation problems of all sorts, which then I can consider making changes or not. I mainly identify these problems by drawing a small circle on top of the words (or between the words if the problem is a phrase) and writing the Hebrew word(s) on top of the circle(s). The nature of these problems varies greatly. One example is the first word of Genesis: בְּרֵאשִׁית (bereshit). The problem is (1) its root word (each Hebrew word has a root, which then can be modified to change its usage such as verb or adjective) ראש (rʾsh), which has a range of meanings such as "head," "former," "best," etc. and (2) it uses the preposition be-, which also has a wide range of meaning such as, "in," "when," "at," "on," and "against." These two things allows a number of possible translation for bereshit. But when one reads other ancient Near Eastern creation myths such as Enuma Elish and Atrahasis, they begin with the word "When." Such precedents allow for a translation of bereshit to read as, "When before," or the shorter "When." Such translations depict a imprecise, hazy beginning of God's work of creation. Contrast that to the more traditional, "In the beginning," which is extremely precise. In the end, I decided to follow the traditions of the ancient Near East, translating bereshit as "When." The additional advantage to this translation is that it matches with bereshit in that it uses one word, unlike "In the beginning," which is three words.

Another example of a translation problem, one that is extremely minor and perhaps shouldn't be given too much time, is the word תְהוֹם (tehom). This word refers to the primordial seas that appear in many ancient Near Eastern creation myths (sometimes in a form of a sea monster) that needs to be conquered or subdued before the act of creation begins. Tehom usually is translated as either "the deep" or "the abyss." The issue is that these words may not convey the mythical character of tehom. One can translate tehom as "primordial sea," but that is unwieldy as tehom is a single, short word. "Chaos" may work, although chaos for us is more of a state of being rather than a physical matter, which the author tries to convey here. In the end, I decided that "abyss" is good enough.

I have also made a few changes to the Hebrew text due to textual variances within other manuscripts and translations and per BHS's recommendation in order to provide more clarity or to provide a more viable reading. These changes can be identified by the half-bracket-like marks surrounding the word(s). I try to be very judicious and conservative with this as it is important to preserve the strange, unique worldview of the various authors that make up the Hebrew Bible. An example of this can be found in Genesis 1:26. In the Hebrew text, it reads, "... and over the beast and over the earth..." The Syriac (a western dialect of Aramaic) translation reads, "... and over the beast and over the animals of the earth [I translated it as "land"]..." which may parallel somewhat with verse 25. It also follows the pattern of listing out the types of animals humans are to have reign over, compare to the Hebrew text that mentions the earth, which is an odd subject of the list. English translations such as NET, ESV, CEB, NASB, and LEB follow the Hebrew text while NRSV, NABRE, and NIV follow the Syriac translation. Honestly, either reading works with little to no issues. In the end, I follow the Syriac translation, even though it is a minority reading, as I simply prefer the uniformed list.

These examples are to show you that translation is a difficult task to undertake. It isn't simply finding a word from English that will match with biblical Hebrew. Translation is the task of making a culture, time period, and worldviews more intelligible to the current culture that the translator lives in. One cannot map an English word onto certain Hebrew words because these words have cultural understandings to them, understandings that we do not naturally perceive. One also has to understand how other culture's narratives and poetry work. A culture may have literary and poetry techniques that are unfamiliar, or used rarely in our culture. Hebrew narratives are saturated with the word "and," as a way to sequence the narrative; English translations have smoothed out this characteristic, a move that Alter abhors, which I agree. Hebrew poetry is terse, using two words that may be translated into six or seven words in English.

There are so much about the practice of translation that I barely covered. I hope that you gained a sense of amazement and appreciation of the work that translators do. I know I have. I also benefited much from translating the Hebrew Bible as I am forced to consider and examine every word and sentence of every verse, gaining better insight to the theological and literary power of the text.

I'll continuing to translate and revise it, and typing this, I feel more invigorated to translate as far as I can, hopefully the whole text. I know it will be far from perfect, perhaps even a bit atrocious, but the joy comes from engaging with the text "with all of my heart and with all of my being and with all of my might."