tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post6716054222790832159..comments2023-06-08T07:32:39.725-05:00Comments on Aristotle's Feminist Subject: trans-apparent HIMJ. K. Gaylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-44532732935774514812009-06-15T09:19:00.349-05:002009-06-15T09:19:00.349-05:00Ha! Bob - your Hebrew pun alert reminds me of what...Ha! Bob - your Hebrew pun alert reminds me of what Robert Alter says:<br /><br />"The Hebrew noun <i>zera</i> has the general meaning of 'seed,' which can be applied either in the agricultural sense or to human beings, as the term for semen. Modern translators, evidently unwilling to trust the ability of adult readers to understand that 'seed' — as regularly in the King James Version — may mean progeny, repeatedly render it as offspring, descendants, heirs, progeny, posterity. But I think there is convincing evidence in the texts themselves that the biblical writers never entirely forgot that their term for offspring also mean semen and had a precise equivalent in the vegetable world. To cite a distinctly physical example, when Onan 'knew that the seed would not be his,' that is, the progeny of his brother's widow should he impregnate her, 'he would waste his seed on the ground, so to give no seed to his brother' (Genesis 38:9). Modern translators, despite their discomfort with body terms, can scarcely avoid the wasted 'seed' here because without it the representation of spilling semen on the ground in coitus interruptus becomes unintelligible." (page xx of <i>The Five Books of Moses</i>) <br /><br />Alter goes on to show some examples of the problems modern translators make for themselves. Makes me thankful that Mark was no modern translator of the Hebrew of the Rabbi Yeshua.J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-5702440617170019292009-06-14T16:02:48.707-05:002009-06-14T16:02:48.707-05:00Love it! Sure makes a new mash out of it all (Hebr...Love it! Sure makes a new mash out of it all (Hebrew pun alert)Bob MacDonaldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11335631079939764763noreply@blogger.com