tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post112755608458907338..comments2023-06-08T07:32:39.725-05:00Comments on Aristotle's Feminist Subject: PreservesJ. K. Gaylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-76246754029638309012009-07-09T08:49:26.463-05:002009-07-09T08:49:26.463-05:00Thanks for your comment, Jared.
Ha! You caught me...Thanks for your comment, Jared.<br /><br />Ha! You caught me making "beginner" into "The Beginning." Confession: although I was trying to suggest a metaphor (i.e., the beginner IS The Beginning), more negatively I really didn't want to make Joshua (in English) into a mere beginner, as if a novice of sorts (although I do think he is, in this text and context, conceivably a learner, and humble about his growing). If I had to force the accusative aspect from Greek into English, then maybe it'd be something like an overtranslated, "the beginner of the Beginning." It's all too heavy (w/ respect to phrase length) when there's τῆς σωτηρίας αὐτῶν tacked on. <br /><br />What strikes me, a reader of the Greek, is the wordplay in vv 3 & 10 around ἀρχὴν "the Beginning" and τὸν ἀρχηγὸν "the beginner of the Beginning" and (in complementary contrast) τελειῶσαι "The End."<br /><br />You ask (rightly and rhetorically, as if for my opinion): "γάρ signals shifts in subjects (as well as paragraph markers)?"<br /><br />Yes- I agree! (And I'd say δέ also helps specify the shifts!)<br /><br />And you confirm our agreement by saying: "I think that would resolve the pronoun issue in vv. 10-11, if so."<br /><br />On "supernatural" v "natural" - you said it best in the update at your post:<br /><br />"Aristotles distinction between 'physics' and 'metaphysics'" <br /><br />Aristotle's binary (with its excluded middle) is the difficulty. Metaphysics is where he most explicitly justifies logic by using logic. Highly suspect - postmodernists would agree. In your fabulous post on the opener to the book of Hebrews, you show how there's an uncanny nod to Homer and the opener of the Odyssey! That's the kind of il-logical language (i.e., dialectical if not rhetorical) that Aristotle preaches against. But Homer and the writer of Hebrews are not interested in categorical distinctions per se. You go on in the post to say the Hebrews writer begins separating Jesus (aka Joshua) from the angels and from so many other humans. And yet, I think your post on Hebrews 2:10-11 suggests much more that the subject of Hebrews (i.e., Joshua) is less distinct and is more playfully like God and other humans both.<br /><br />Thanks for updating further with Ken Schenk's comments. I like his reading of "Jesus" as the climax, which I call a rhetorical move to 2:9. And I really like his reading back of 1:3 in light of 2:10, a delayed re-cognition of "a metonymic reference to Jesus as creator--he is the telos of creation."J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-90339610614252784872009-07-08T16:39:48.054-05:002009-07-08T16:39:48.054-05:00I like how your translation plays with the beginni...I like how your translation plays with the beginning and ending language, yet how do you handle the accusative aspect of the noun "beginner" with the verb "to end/complete/perfect"? <br /><br />Would you suggest, then, that γάρ signals shifts in subjects (as well as paragraph markers)? I think that would resolve the pronoun issue in vv. 10-11, if so. <br /><br />The language of "nature" is borrowing from the text itself (from v. 14). I am not sure Hebrews would distinguish between natural and supernatural. Supernatural is part of nature, or what we would consider "supernatural" would be perfectly "natural." I think its underlying distinction is more between created and uncreated (or, perhaps Ken Schenk is right, that it is between "shakable and unshakable").Jared Calawayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09380681998833566514noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-56743907822030580322009-04-29T09:57:00.000-05:002009-04-29T09:57:00.000-05:00Wonderful question, Dannii! I'll try to illustrat...Wonderful question, Dannii! I'll try to illustrate an answer and to show where I am going with translation of the first mention of Ἰησοῦν (Joshua/Jesus) just after this quotation (i.e., verses 6-8 as a quotation of the Greek translation of Psalm 8:4-6). I'll try to illustrate in another post sometime. <br /><br />There's an important rhetorical build to this author's unveiling of this presumably unequivocal subject named "Joshua."<br /><br />Before I try to explain to anyone's satisfaction why there's this rhetoric, let me just say that I'm "over-translating" rather intentionally (if in this post not completely to "Joshua"). I am in this post trying to act as more "than a conventional translator; [and as. . . ] the author's accomplice who maintains the strangeness of the source text, and seeks at the same time to communicate its multiple meanings otherwise 'lost in translation'."<br /><br />(Here I'm quoting "Feminist Translation: Contexts, Practices and Theories" by <A HREF="http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~vonfloto/index.htm" REL="nofollow">Luise von Flotow</A>.)J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-60978466078408636152009-04-29T08:39:00.000-05:002009-04-29T08:39:00.000-05:00Several modern "gender neutral/accurate" versions ...Several modern "gender neutral/accurate" versions translated verses 6-8 with non-gendered words, like the TNIV. I don't know the specifics here, but I'm very happy to accept that the original Greek had no gendered meaning components, and that our translations shouldn't either. Why in your translation then do you not only introduce gendered language, but bring a strong rhetorical importance to it?Danniihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13934835328750335927noreply@blogger.com