Judeo Talk

Several times now, I have made reference to the difficulty of directly translating Hebrew into English. This problem has resulted in centuries of debate over the exact meaning of many passages from the Torah. This is not an issue confined to any one religion. Modern Jews who have little to no training in Hebrew, Toritic or otherwise, often approach scripture from the same angle as Christians who only have the Old Testament in their regional vulgate. So, why is Hebrew difficult to translate and why are there so many discrepancies between the many versions of the same passages?

The story begins in Alexandria, Egypt circa 300 BCE. At this time, the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon spread throughout the Mediterranean region, including the former Egyptian Empire. After Alexander’s death, Egypt came under the control the Ptolemy line, maintaining a decidedly Greek influence in the area, including the Greek language. Alexandria was the home to The Great Library, a collection of texts that was, at the time, unrivaled the world over. Countless scrolls and other documents came through Alexandria where they routinely underwent translation by a veritable army of scholars.

Among those scholars were Jewish thinkers who found that it was necessary to bring their holy texts into the modern world so those Jews under Greek rule who had no Hebrew education could still study the Torah. So, the Septuagint project was born.

As the name suggests, the Septuagint was reportedly translated by a series of approximately 70 scholars. This process took place over the course of 200 years. Given the timeframe, complexity and sheer scale of the project, mistranslations and general disagreements were bound to happen.

On top of these problems, there is an issue inherent to bringing a semi-linear Semitic language into a decidedly linear European language. As I’ve pointed out before, Hebrew’s shoresh system using “root” combinations of three consonants creates the potential for myriad connotations and shared symbols between several words that aren’t necessarily related in other languages. Take for instance the Hebrew word Dahm. This means “Blood” and naturally shares a root with word Adom, the word for the color Red. Of course, these also share their root with the word Adama, “earth, ground, or soil” which is where the name Adam comes from because in Genesis Adam was created from clay. These shared roots and connotations do not survive into the Greek, let alone into further translations from Greek into other languages.

Beyond the Septuagint, the Torah or Old Testament underwent more translations into other European languages. The Greek Bible soon found its way into a Latin translation during the Roman Empire. After that, the Latin was used to translate the text into German. In time, every society with a monotheistic presence had a version of the Bible in their native tongue. As one might guess, this resulted in a very complicated version of the Telephone Game. A translation of a translation of a translation is bound to have some errors and lost content.

This doesn’t mean that it is impossible to get a lot of wisdom out of Biblical texts in a language outside of Hebrew. The stories are simple enough on the surface to be accessible in Martian if need be. All the same, Hebrew is the original language of the Torah. In order to understand the text in all its fullness, one must be able to read it as it was first written.

On the 25th day of the Hebrew calender month of Kislev, it has been the tradition for several thousand years to celebrate a holiday called Chanukah. This festival commemorates the liberation of what would become Israel from the occupation of Seleucid forces under King Antiochus IV. Many people grow up with the fable about the oil in the Temple lamps during the rededication of the Temple after the war. Legend says that one day’s worth of oil miraculously lasted eight days, but it is false to say that the holiday is meant to celebrate this supposed miracle. Jews today recognize that story as being a metaphor for hope and perseverance in difficult times. So, if Chanukah isn’t about the miracle, why do we celebrate it?

The real essence of Chanukah is the lesson of holding to one’s beliefs regardless of external pressures. Many times throughout history, Jews have been persecuted for their culture and their faith. More than once, we have been pressed to convert to other religions. One such event was the occupation of the Levant region by Antiochus IV and his armies, who mandated the conversation of all those living in Judea to Hellenistic Greek traditions. So, who is Antiochus?

When Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, he left a massive empire. Having spent most of his life pursuing war, Alexander’s closest political allies were his generals. When the time came to hand power to another, Alexander’s son had yet to be born. Alexander’s generals, known in this period as the Diadochi, spent many years afterward vying for control over the fragments of the Macedonian Empire. During a long period of in-fighting that involved murders both on and off the battlefield, the line of Antiochus took segments of Asia. Due to the endless wars between competing Greek forces, many local cultures grew strong enough to pursue independence, among them were Carthage, Rome and an upstart group of rebels in Judea under a devout leader named Judah Maccabee, whose name translates as “Hammer”.

The Maccabee rebels represented a fairly small portion of the Judean people. They were, in a sense, political and religious extremists intent on maintaining the traditions associated with the Temple of Jerusalem. Using guerrilla tactics to wear down the Seleucid armies (which were already stretched thin from other, larger wars), the Maccabee movement wrested control of the region from the Greeks. After the war, they rededicated the Temple, which is where the festival gets its name. “Chanukah” relates to the root word “Chanakh” meaning “To dedicate” in the sense of religious sanctification.

Since that time, the liberation of Judea has been celebrated by Jews all over the world. Because the lighting of special candelabra called Menorah (pl. Minorot) was a feature of the rededication of the Temple, the most important Chanukah tradition is the lighting of the Chanukiah, a special 9-branched Menorah. The ninth branch, called the Shamash (protector) represents God, while the other eight branches represent the eight days of the festival. Eight is a very important number in Judaism, but that’s another lesson.

Chanukah 2008 runs from the evening of Sunday, December 21st to the following Sunday, December 28th. Happy Holidays. Join us here at Judeo Talk this Wednesday for a special Chanukah edition of our Hebrew lesson.