(From an e-mail to a friend, 2/26/19):
Having studied three different "foreign" languages and having been once fluent in German, I have done a few translations, and “de Debbil be in de details!" When one considers how the stories in the Bible have “migrated” down to us, first, as oral recollections, then written down in Hebrew, Aramaic and/or Greek, then Latin, then laboriously transcribed and copied over and over by monks, then Elizabethan English, then “modern” English, etc.
This reminds me of the game of “Telephone” that we used to play in elementary school, where we all sat in a line or circle, and the teacher would whisper a single word into the ear of one child who would pass it on to the child next to “her,” then it would be passed to another, then another, then another, until finally at the end some garbled nonsense spurts out bearing NO resemblance to the original word from the teacher! It was an object lesson in learning how “gossip” and other stuff gets garbled and twisted as it passes from person to person, each putting his/her own spin on it and passing the content selectively until the salacious (mis-)information going around bears no resemblance whatsoever to the truth!
My late German professor (also an ordained Episcopal priest and fluent in Greek and Latin, too) told me, years ago, that the Greek (?) word for “virgin” is also the same as “young girl,” so it may well be that the VIRGIN Mary was simply a young woman and not sexually “intact”! I don’t really care, because the multicultural “Hero’s” virgin birth is a common legend shared in many religious traditions, according to the late Joseph Campbell. Most Christians, Catholics especially, think they’ve got a monopoly on “virgin birth,” but they don’t! I loved his book, Hero With A Thousand Faces. I recommend it. (See Amazon.com.)
We learned very early in German to not translate “I am warm/hot!” literally into German, “Ich bin warm/heiss!” That implies “I am warm/hot-BLOODED,” meaning “homosexual"! You can imagine a bunch of young guys still in their teens in the 1960’s cottoning up to THAT concept! INSTEAD, it is supposed to be said, “Es ist warm/heiss!” stated reflexively in the third-person, “It is warm/hot (for me)!” Details, indeed! Translation is an art, NOT a science!
I once got into an argument with an ULTRA-“Wrong-Wing” twit in Orange who was ranting and raving one day at lunch about how “violent” the Koran is! (Ergo, Muslims are inherently violent, too!) So, I asked him to which verse in the Koran he was referring, and he told me. I came home, looked it up on the Web and, sure enough, the overall tone was pretty violent. BUT, there were several other translations listed in Google, so I looked at another, and it was OBVIOUSLY the same verse, but it had an entirely different, peaceful spin on the language! It just depends upon to which translation one is referring! English speakers who don’t read Arabic simply cannot ASSUME that the translation they have chosen to read is the “correct” translation!
Bill Maher, whom I admire and watch EVERY week is, nevertheless, a bigoted bastard indulging in “group-think” when it comes to condemning the “inherently violent” nature of Islam! He regards himself as an Ivy-League-educated (Cornell) enlightened being, untainted by bigotry, and he angrily rejects any such accusation and will brook no argument against him! But, I suspect that Bill Maher cannot read Arabic! I wonder if he has ever learned ANY other language fluently! Those who THINK they “know” what is “in” the Koran are fools if they don’t inherently understand Arabic! I can’t read Arabic, but I understand the calligraphy is VERY subtle and particular as to meaning, like Chinese writing. And the Koran, like the Bible, has been copied and re-copied and re-written numerous times! How can any such document NOT be subjectively influenced thereby? Think also of those native English-speakers who can’t even agree on what ENGLISH means, like the 9 Justices on the Supreme Court disagreeing about the "plain language" of the Constitution? Dangerous!
In Bad Honnef, Germany, where we lived in der Rheinland for about 3 weeks at the end of our summer in Europe, there is a small street with the sign, “Fuckengasse,” which sign was ALWAYS being stolen! (The VERY idea!) Well, in Germen a street is a “Strasse” and an alleyway is a “Gasse.” I guess that “Fucken” is a proper noun, because sexual intercourse is “ficken” in German. I don’t know that “Fucken” has a translatable meaning. Then there is the “Cologne-Dusseldorf Rhine Steamship Line” which is translated as the “Köln-Düsseldorf Rhein Dampfschifffahrt”! (Say it fast!) “Fahrt” means trip or journey in German, derivative of the verb, to “travel” or “ride,” “fahren.” A “Dampfschiff” is a “steamboat.” As you may know, the Rhineland has been passed back and forth between France and Germany for years (currently in Germany). So, the city’s French name is “Cologne,” and the German name for the same city is “Köln”! French “Eau de Cologne” is “Kölnish Wasser” in German and plain ol’ “toilet water” in English! As far as I know, dogs don't drink "Eau de Cologne"! (Maybe French poodles?)
The Norman invasion of England in 1066 CE (*) was a turning point in the development of “proper” English, initiating the French influence on a previously “intact” Anglo-Saxon language, which was a Germanic derivative. Thus, the words for “fucking” and “shitting” and so forth were deemed “vulgar” as commonly used by the defeated native Anglo-Saxon peasants, while the words for same used by the victorious Norman-French, e.g., “fornication,” “defecation,” etc. were deemed “proper.” And, that is why those “Anglo-Saxon"-derivative words are STILL "vulgar" to this day!
Jesus is coming! Look busy!
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(*) The “Bayeux Tapestry” famously depicts the "Battle of Hastings” following the Norman Invasion in 1066 CE, and Halley’s Comet also flew by that year, too. The Comet is represented in the Tapestry!
