Awaking the Dead Hebrew, Part II

David Ker has a plan: "I’m going to learn Hebrew backwards."

And in this post, I have an opportunity, the opportunity to continue an earlier post "Awaking the Dead Hebrew, Part I."

What I really want to say is this: how linguists think of "language" really seems to determine what they think about how to "know" or to "learn" a language (like dead Hebrew).

(A while back, Mike Aubrey posted on "knowing" a language, which starts to descend from linguistics down into philosophy, and further down into epistemology. How do you know, or know that you know? So now I'm trying to get back to my claim that What you think you know language is sort of spells out How you think you can come to know a particular language. I'm going to postpone that a little by suggesting an add-on to the thesis and by telling some stories. The add-on is this: Generally, male linguists (which are most of them), as early as Aristotle, think of language as something that inherently belongs, by nature, to them--something at which they are deeply competent / something for which they are not blamed if their performance is imperfect; something acquired / not learned. Mike, in comments on Part I, wants me to acknowledge Joan Bresnan's work. So, now the stories. First, against charges that Noam Chomsky's a "traditionalist, . . . an old-fashioned patriarch [who. . . ] never really understood what the feminist movement was all about," Chomsky claims he hired Bresnan and Donca Steriade, according to biographer Robert Franklin Barsky. Maybe this was Mike's point, but I'm not so sure Bresnan has been a good Chomskian, like Steven Krashen has been. Seems like Steriade found her way back to MIT, but from her publications, did not find her way back to Chomsky. Second, women and men can participate in Aristotelian or Platonic--i.e., traditionalist masculinist--linguistics; and most do.

Last week, I had lunch with a Ph.D. in Linguistics who's a native English speaker who's been a student of Japanese in Japan and a user of French in the U.S. and in France, confessing "after a decade in French, I still don't know how to get the writing style right"; and with a Ph.D. in Physics from a U.S. university who's a native speaker of Japanese, confessing "I don't know how to speak English properly, exactly." To make them feel better, I cracked a joke in Japanese, which they both laughed at politely--laughed at, because my Japanese is really funny stuff since I don't know it well; and politely, because I hadn't made fun of her French or his English. During dessert, we talked about my "knowing" dead ancient Greek and Hebrew, but neither asked how. They were more interested in how one of my teachers, who had learned more directly from Tommy Wildcat, gave me some pointers on awaking nearly-dead Cherokee from the now-dead Elias Boudinot / Ga-li-ga-na? Watie).

I'm not sure anyone ever asked Mary Sidney Herbert or Julia Evelina Smith how they awoke dead Hebrew (although their translating is good proof that they did, and here's some blogging on the translating by Sidney and Smith).

I do understand that Ruth Behar is "somebody who understood displacement from an early age" who learned Hebrew (as she had to learn her anthropology that breaks your heart) by "displacing" herself "to try to understand another" by "coming from the outside. . . while trying to become an insider." Behar's father, who reads the Torah, is not speaking to her; she calls it, "A nightmare: Seventy-five translated women are burning in the flames. And there my name, the name I took from my father, is burning too" (page 71).

I am fascinated to read how Mary Douglas starts in awaking dead Hebrew, saying: "It will be painful and a failure." Some time back, I shared this fascination with you, saying:

Douglas is "going to change Hebrew by learning it. Of course, she must change too."

You remember, I went on to conjecture more, saying:

1. There’s no law that tells her What she must learn to “learn” Hebrew.
2. There’s no enforcement officer forcing her to Do certain drills or exercises a certain way.
3. There’s not even a living speaker of ancient Hebrew to negotiate with her various meanings.
4. Rather, there is a good bit of listening, hypothesizing, observing, reading, did I say guessing, failing, and hurting she must do. She may listen to texts and she may read living and dead experts. But she cannot stay the same person and still learn Hebrew. The how requires adult human conversion to one profound degree or another.

Let me backtrack again to the thesis statement of this post: how linguists think of "language" really seems to determine what they think about how to "know" or to "learn" a language (like dead Hebrew).

Mary Sidney Herbert and Julia Evelina Smith and Ruth Behar and Mary Douglas think of language (even dead Hebrew) much differently from linguists such as Noam Chomsky and Steven Krashen.

Such linguists think of language as this abstract thing. At least, it's an abstractable thing. Hebrew of the Bible, for example, is what's written in the Bible. At least, to begin with, it's אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי or אלפבית. Especially if you're a man (and not a woman such as Mary Sidney Herbert or Julia Evelina Smith or Ruth Behar or Mary Douglas), you don't really have to change. You don't really have to go from the outside in because you're already an insider. (I'm running out of time to say more, or motivation to make this clear just yet. So Part III is coming soon enough. I suppose I may say something about Rahab, who had to learn [not acquire] the language of men, including the Hebrew of some of them. I do think Ker's on to something useful; more then soon enough.)

cheering or groaning? laughing or laboring towards liberty?

There are lots of ways to look at the Earth and earthquakes.  In an earlier post today, I looked at how the Bible (at least I Maccabees in Greek and in English translation) shows mother Earth as sympathetic and empathetic.

Then, similarly, there's what Paul writes to Romans (in Greek, for which I'll also supply some great English translations below).  Paul, we all know, was an earthquake survivor, was actually literally liberated by this act of God.  More on that in a moment.

But first, here's what an American radio talk-show host says to his audience.  Notice how he's assuming that "the quake and subsequent tsunami" are to be viewed as a vengeful act.  Notice how he's saying that "Gaia" (i.e., Mother Earth) mocks and "just wipes out" the Japanese, to spite them:

"On his Friday [March 11, 2011] show, Rush Limbaugh wondered if environmentalists will 'cheer' the earthquake in Japan, since the quake and subsequent tsunami hit the region of the country that thrives on car manufacturing."

"Rush Limbaugh laughed about Japanese refugees recycling after the earthquake that struck the country on his Tuesday [March 15] show.... 'They've given us the Prius. Even now, refugees are recycling their garbage.' Here, he began to laugh, continuing, 'and yet, Gaia levels them! Just wipes them out!'"

Now here's the contrast to Rush Limbaugh.  It's Bible, and not just the turn-or-pay preacher's Bible either.

Here's the Bible showing Mother Earth to be our mother, showing her quakes to be labors toward our liberty.

Here's the Jewish Paul writing to men and women living in the capital city of the Jew-mocking Roman empire.  I'm giving you a few English translations because the translators, without some committee weakening the force, were able to render the Greek in some powerful ways, fitting for the noted events:

... ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι ὅτι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις ἐλευθερωθήσεται ἀπὸ τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ. Οἴδαμεν γὰρ ὅτι πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν. Οὐ μόνον δέ, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτοὶ τὴν ἀπαρχὴν τοῦ πνεύματος ἔχοντες, ἡμεῖς καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐν ἑαυτοῖς στενάζομεν, υἱοθεσίαν ἀπεκδεχόμενοι, τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν.
....--Paul

We know that all creation groans. Till now
It suffers labor pains, and not only creation
Aches but we too, the first fruits of the spirit,
Groan and in eagerness wait for adoption
And for the redemption of our bodies.
....--Willis Barnstone (translating Paul)

Yet there was the hope that creation itself also would be set free from slavery to decay, and have the glorious freedom of God's children. We know that all creation keeps sighing deeply together and is in birthing pains together up to the present time. Not only that, but also we ourselves who have the Spirit given to us as the first offering, we also keep sighing deeply within ourselves looking forward to our adoption, that is, the setting free of our body.
....--Ann Nyland (translating Paul)

... but there is hope, because this world will be set free from slavery to decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole world groans and is in labor together, until now; not only that, but even we who have some foretaste of the Spirit also groan within ourselves as we await adoption and the redemption of the body.
....--Richmond Lattimore (translating Paul)

... in hope, That also the creation itself be freed from servitude of corruption to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that all creation groans together and travails together until now. And not only, but also they having the first fruits of the Spirit, and we ourselves groan in ourselves, waiting for adoption as a son, the redemption of our body.
....--Julia Evelina Smith (translating Paul)

And here's the Jewish physician Luke, for his friend, Theo-Philus, making a record of how an act of God actually freed Paul's body, how an earthquake liberated not only Paul but also other prisoners and even one of the imperial prison wardens:

ἄφνω δὲ σεισμὸς ἐγένετο μέγας, ὥστε σαλευθῆναι τὰ θεμέλια τοῦ δεσμωτηρίου· ἠνεῴχθησαν δὲ παραχρῆμα αἱ θύραι πᾶσαι, καὶ πάντων τὰ δεσμὰ ἀνέθη.
....--Luke, at the onset of this act of God, this liberating earthquake

Suddenly there was an earthquake so great that it shook the foundations of the prison, and all the doors came open and everyone's chains came loose.
....--Willis Barnstone (translating Luke)

Suddenly there was such a major earthquake, that the foundations of the prison were rendered unstable! Immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains became loose.
....--Ann Nyland (translating Luke)

and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and all the doors came open, and the chains fell off all of them.
....--Richmond Lattimore (translating Luke)

And suddenly was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and the bonds of all were let loose.
....--Julia Evelina Smith (translating Luke)

Man Stuff: After Mother's Day 2008 AD

Throughout church history the traditional interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:14 has been that women are more easily deceived than men. . . The only problem with the traditional interpretation is that most Western Christians today, patriarchalists included, recognize that this perspective is factually incorrect. Women are not inherently (by virtue of their gender alone) more easily deceived than men. It is not only politically incorrect to say so today, it simply does not square with the hard data.
--William J. Webb
Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals:
Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis
2001 AD

Could Paul have looked down to the nineteenth century with clairvoyant vision and beheld the good works of a Lucretia Mott, a Florence Nightingale, a Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton, not to mention a host of faithful mothers, he might, perhaps, have been less anxious about the apparel and the manners of his converts. Could he have foreseen a Margaret Fuller, a Maria Mitchell, or an Emma Willard, possibly he might have suspected that sex does not determine the capacity of the individual. Or, could he have had a vision of the public school system of this Republic [i.e., the U.S.A.], and witnessed the fact that a large proportion of the teachers are women, it is possible that he might have hesitated to utter so tyrannical an edict:
“But I permit not a woman to teach.”
--Lucinda B. Chandler
The Woman’s Bible:
A Classic Feminist Perspective
1895 AD

“It sounds like Aristotle,” says Suzanne McCarthy to John Hobbins in a conversation, she with him and with others, in 2008 AD. The “It” is the “argument,” or the logic, “that men have the courage of command and women the virtue of subordination.” It is the logical argument in order “to put women in the role of ‘responder’ to men as ‘leaders’.”

Now, I’m suggesting we all respond. You respond, and I respond, regardless of our sex. But let me warn the men among us who cannot be taught by a woman: Do not read Suzanne’s blog. She has something to say, something to teach, to men and to women as well. Aristotle absolutely could not listen. Maybe Paul and Timothy would not either. If you, a man, believe Aristotle and Paul (perhaps), then you should not be womanly by responding, and by responding to a woman or her blog.

The point I want to make is that men who are honest will listen, and will learn from a woman.

And don’t we all believe that Aristotle and Paul and Timothy all listened, at least, to their mothers, once upon a time? Their mothers taught them very many important things. So why must these men stop listening to a woman when they as boys pass through puberty or something else towards manhood? Does the progymnasmata or the Bar Mitzvah or one latter day circumcision for Christ help them make the argument that they really do have the courage of command while women really do have the virtue of subordination? Why must these authoritative men silence women? Are women really that naïve, that much more sin-prone, that much lesser than men spiritually or psychologically or biologically?

What, really, is the evidence if Suzanne presents it? What are the facts? In 2008, are we repeating the cycles of history? Do you have manly courage enough to ask yourself whether you are perpetuating the cycles of history? Do you really think you are not responding?

Here are men who did not think they needed to respond to what a woman taught:

In 66 AD or so, Paul writes and Timothy reads this:

διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός
ἀλλ' εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ
Ἀδὰμ γὰρ πρῶτος ἐπλάσθη εἶτα Εὕα
καὶ Ἀδὰμ οὐκ ἠπατήθη
ἡ δὲ γυνὴ ἐξαπατηθεῖσα ἐν παραβάσει γέγονεν

Now do you think that young “Timothy” [“Honorer of Gods”] took the letter to his father and his mother? What did Mama “Eunice” [“Blessed Victor”] married to the Greek Pappa say to what Paul had written to their son?

So fast forward to the 1870s AD. Three teams of 101 men, and no women, began work in England and America on the “Revised Version” of the English Bible. In 1881, the men insisted on translating Paul’s Greek, and published it, as follows:

12 But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man,
but to be in quietness.
13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve;
14 and Adam was not beguiled,
but the woman being beguiled hath fallen into transgression:

These men, authorized by the Church of England, practiced what they translated. The men notably viewed Julia Evelina Smith Parker as beguiled. And as infamously, they refused to include her in their translation project. She was absolutely excluded from involvement or consideration. Equally ignored was her complete translation of the Bible into English from the Hebrew, the Greek (including the Septuagint), and the Latin (particularly the Vulgate). They especially did not want to consult Smith or her work as to how she translated Paul’s letter to Timothy.

Women and men who were reading Smith’s translation did notice the silencing. Thus, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucinda B. Chandler, and twenty three other women from around the world, decided to publish a commentary, which they entitled, The Woman’s Bible. Francis Ellen Burr wrote the Appendix in which she gives a biography of Smith and praises her work: “Julia Smith’s translation of the Bible stands out unique among all translations.” Burr notes:

Frequently her wording is an improvement, or brings one closer to the original than the common translation. Thus in I. Corinthians viii, I, of the King James translation, we have: “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.” Julia Smith version: “Knowledge puffs up and love builds the house.” She uses “love” in place of “charity” every time. And her translation was made nearly forty years before the revised version of our day, which also does the same. . . This word “charity” was one of the words that Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of English, charged Tyndale with mistranslating. The other two words were “priest” and “church,” Tyndale calling priests “seniors,” and church “congregation.” Both Julia Smith and the revised version call them priest and church. And she gives the word “Life” for “Eve:” “And Adam will call his wife’s name Life, for she was the mother of all living.” . . . Her work has had the endorsement of various learned men. A Hebrew professor of Harvard College (Prof. Young) . . . examined it. He was much astonished that she had translated so correctly without consulting some learned man. . . She received many letters from scholars, all speaking of the exact, or literal translation. Some people have criticised this feature, which is the great merit of the book.

That was 1895 AD.

So again we fast forward, to seven years ago. Then, in 2001, there was another “publishing team [that] includes more than 100 people.” But again, not even one of those “people” is a woman. Their statement is this: “The team is 100-member team, which is international and represents many denominations, shares a commitment to historic evangelical orthodoxy, and to the authority and sufficiency of the inerrant Scriptures.” You may recognize the team as the “ESV [English Standard Version] publishing team.”

Here’s how they translate Paul’s letter to Timothy:

12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man;
rather, she is to remain quiet.
13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve;
14and Adam was not deceived,
But the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Wouldn’t we all like to read how Julia Evelina Smith Parker translates Paul’s Greek? No? The Revised Version teams of the 1870s want her to remain silent. Likewise, the ESV team seems not interested in the facts of Smith’s translation either. Alas, neither I nor my university’s library nor any bookstore I can find has a copy of Smith’s work. It’s not online. History silences her and it. If we listen to Suzanne McCarthy, who brings herself to listen both to men and women, then we know, “It sounds like Aristotle.”

More Results: From Both Lists Combined

So far, sixteen bloggers have listed both "books (or scholars) that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how [they] read the Bible" and "the 5 most influential female [biblical] scholars on their scholarship."  Their lists are reproduced below from Ken's and Mike's blogs.

The most-named scholars (or books) on both lists combined are:

1. April DeConick (with 6 mentions)
2. Paula Frederickson (with 5 mentions)
3. Adele Berlin, Morna Hooker, Carolyn Osiek, and Francis Young (with 4 mentions each)
4. Rudolf Bultmann, Mary Douglas, Amy-Jill Levine, Carol Meyers, Elaine Pagels, E.P. Sanders, Marianne Meye Thompson, and Phyllis Trible (with 3 mentions each)
5. Robert Alter, Margaret Barker, Richard Bauckham, Adela Yarbro Collins, James D.G. Dunn, Majella Franzmann, Susan Niditch, Kenneth Lee Pike, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, the Septuagint, and Simone Weil (with 2 mentions each)

The counts here include all doubly-mentioned scholars (and books).  There are 18 women and 6 men (and 1 book,  mostly-translated by males?) mentioned at least twice.  

In contrast, among this group of sixteen bloggers, in just their first list of scholars (which could be women or men), here was the result:

1. Rudolf Bultmann and E.P. Sanders (with 3 mentions each, Dr. Jim West mentioning Bultmann twice in his list)
   
2. Robert Alter, Richard Bauckham, James D.G. Dunn, Kenneth Lee Pike, and the Septuagint (with 2 mentions each)
   

The counts there include only these 6 same men and that one (male-translated?) book.  No woman was mentioned twice on the first set of lists.  And, of course, Mike started his meme because Ken noticed that for his meme, there was (with the more than 50 participants) “a shameful under-representation of women (only Margaret Barker and Toni Morrison received more than one vote, with two each).”

So, again, so far, here are the results of the combined lists of sixteen bloggers playing both memes.

John Anderson at Hesed we ‘emet: Robert Alter, Terence Fretheim, Elie Wiesel, Walter Brueggemann, Marvin R. Wilson.  John Anderson:  Anathea Portier-Young, Paula Fredriksen, Phyllis Trible, Danna Nolan Fewell, Adele Berlin, Diana Lipton, Nancy deClaisse-Walford, Amy-Jill Levine, Diana Edelman, Mary Douglas, Susan Niditch

Ken Brown at C. Orthodoxy: Charles Dickens, E.P. Sanders, Robert Alter, Margaret Barker, Jon D. Levenson.  Ken Brown:  Margaret Barker, Mary Coloe, Susan Niditch, Marianne Meye Thompson, Gale Yee

Matthew Burgess at confessions of a bible junkie: John J. Collins, Thomas F. Mathews, Wayne Meeks, David C. Parker, E. P. Sanders.  Matthew Burgess:  Adela Yarbro Collins, Paula Fredriksen, Judith Kovacs, Elaine Pagels, Diana Swancutt

Doug Chaplin at Clayboy: J.D. Salinger, Julian of Norwich, N.T. Wright, E.P. Sanders, Jürgen Moltmann.  Doug Chaplin:  Frances Young, Morna Hooker, Paula Fredriksen, Margaret Thrall, April DeConick.

Daniel and Tonya both posted lists at Hebrew and Greek Reader. Daniel: Herman Hess, Peter Enns, Christo van der Merwe, Steven McKenzie, Ray Jackendoff; Tonya: Practico/Van Pelt, Bill Mounce, Koehler/Baumgartner, BDAG, Waltke/O’Conner.  Daniel and Tonya:  Carol Dempsey, Rachel Williams, Cynthia Miller, April DeConick, Karyn Traphagen, Amy Jill-Levine.

J.K. Gayle posted twice at Aristotle’s Feminist Subject: Homer, the LXX, Kenneth Lee Pike, Jacqueline Jones Royster, Philip Yancey; then Ruth Behar, Anne Carson, Cheryl Glenn, bell hooks, Gayl Jones, Anne Lamott, Nancy Mairs, Toni Morrison, Krista Ratcliffe, Alice Walker. J. K. Gayle:  Carolyn Osiek, April DeConick, Adele Berlin, Phyllis A. Bird, Julia Evelina Smith

John Hobbins at Ancient Hebrew Poetry not only offered some additional discussion of other people’s lists, but also posted his own: Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Buber, Emil Fackenheim.  John Hobbins:  Adele Berlin, Tikvah Frymer-Kensky, Carolyn Osiek, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Phyllis Trible.  (And outside of biblical studies), Leora Batnitzky, Mary Douglas, Martha Nussbaum, Simone Weil, Frances Young.  

Mike Koke at The Golden Rule: James D.G. Dunn, Larry Hurtado, Daniel Boyarin, John P. Meier and Walter Wink.  Mike Koke:  Denise Kimber Buell, Paula Fredriksen, Michelle Murray, Judith Lieu, Mary Douglas

Suzanne McCarthy at Suzanne’s Bookshelf: Aristotle, Paolo Freire, Kenneth Bailey, Simone Weil, Richard Bauckham (and the Septuagint, Mary Doria Russell, George Eliot).  Suzanne McCarthy:  Linda Belleville, Carol Meyers, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Catherine Booth, Karen King, Elaine Pagels, Katherine Bushnell

Pat McCullough at kata ta biblia: David L. Balch, Willard M. Swartley, Stuart Murray, Anita Diamant, George W. E. Nickelsburg/James C. VanderKam (plus Robert McAfee Brown, Brian McLaren).  Patrick McCullough:  Marriane Meye Thompson, Adela Yarbro Collins, Paula Fredriksen, Martha Himmelfarb, Margaret M. Mitchell, Judith Lieu, Reta Halteman Finger, Carolyn Osiek 

Bob Macdonald at Sufficiency: the Bible itself, Jonathan Magonet, Douglas Hofstader, Hans Küng, Peter Craigie, Richard Bauckham (plus Mark Nanos, Lawrence Hoffman, Donne, Herbert, Milton, A. A. Milne and Lewis Carrol). Bob MacDonald:  Susannah Ticciati, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Jody Magness, Carolyn Osiek, Mary Coloe, Morna Hooker, Elizabeth Schlussle Fiorenza

James McGrath at Exploring Our Matrix: James D.G. Dunn, John A.T. Robinson, Rudolf Bultmann, Keith Ward, Pimsleur.  James McGrath:  Frances Young, Elisabeth S. Drower, Jorunn Jacobson Buckley, Elaine Pagels, April DeConick

Nick Norelli at Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth: The Gospel of Luke, The Gospel of John, Craig Evans, Richard Bauckham, Gleason Archer.  Nick Norelli:  Sarah Coakley, Marianne Meye Thompson, Frances M. Young

Judy Redman at Judy’s Research Blog: Brendan Byrne, Nigel Watson, David Scholer, Majella Franzmann, April DeConick (plus Morna Hooker).  Judy Redman:  Morna Hooker, Marjorie Procter-Smith, Elizabeth J Smith, Phyllis Trible, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Sallie McFague, Elizabeth Johnson, April DeConick, Majella Franzmann, Judith Plaskow, Carol Christ, Dorothy McRae-McMahon, Karen Armstrong, Luisa Schutroff

Tony Siew at Revelation is Real: Augustine, John Calvin, Eric & Carole Meyers, Roland Meynet, Ian Kershaw.  Tony Siew:  Elizabeth Fiorenza, Adele Berlin, Carol Meyers, Edith Humphrey

Jim West at Dr. Jim West: Gerhard von Rad, Rudolf Bultmann, Walther Eichrodt, Kurt Aland, Rudolf Bultmann (again). Jim West:  Amy-Jill Levine, Gisela Kittel, Charlotte von Kirschenbaum, Helen K. Bond, Diane Edelman

How Sophia Auld Taught You to Read the Bible

In the Second Testament, 1 Peter 2:18-25 does something very similar to Ephesians 5:21-33 in that it holds up the unjust suffering of slaves as a mirror of the suffering of Christ, and enjoins slaves therefore to submit even to cruel masters. We have long ago rejected that comparison as illegitimate. It is time to acknowledge the same dangers in the wedding of the bride of Christ.

--Carolyn Osiek, 2002

I am, as it is obvious, both black and a woman....  It is a disadvantage because America as a nation is both racist and anti-feminist....  In 1966, the median earnings of women who worked full time for the whole year was less than the median income for males who worked full time for the whole year.  In fact, white women workers made less than black male workers, and of course, black women workers made the least of all.  Whether it is intentional or not, women are paid less than men for the same work, no matter what their chosen field of work.  Whether it is intentional or not, employment for women is regulated more in terms of the jobs that are available to them....  Whether it is intentional or not, when it becomes time for a high school girl to think about preparing for her career, her counselors, whether they be male or female, will think first of her so-called natural career -- housewife and mother -- and begin to program her for a field with which children and marriage will not unduly interfere.  That's exactly the same as the situation of the young black students who the racist counselor advises to prepare for service-oriented occupations, because he does not even think of them entering the professions....  We must replace the old, negative thoughts about our feminity with positive thoughts and positive actions affirming it, and more.  But we must also remember that we will be breaking with tradition, and so we must prepare ourselves educationally, economically, and psychologically in order that we will be able to accept and bear with the sanctions that society will immediately impose on us.

--Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm, 1970

Mr. and Mrs. Auld [my new Master and Mistress] were both at home [in March 1826], and met me at the door with their little son Thomas, to take care of whom I had been given [as my service-oriented occupation without wages].  And here I saw what I had never seen before; it was a white face beaming with the most kindly emotions; it was the face of my new mistress, Sophia Auld.  I wish I could describe the rapture that flashed through my soul as I beheld it.  It was a new and strange sight to me, brightening up my pathway with the light of happiness.  Little Thomas was told, there was his Freddy, -- and I was told to take care of little Thomas; and thus I entered upon the duties of my new home with the most cheering prospect ahead.

--Frederick Douglass, 1845

God said:

Let us make humankind, in our image, according to our likeness!

So God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God did he create it,

male and female he created them.

--the ancient beginnings of the Hebrew Bible, translated by Fox

Sometimes, it's good to remember our history.  It can help us re-form our present and our future for ourselves and for our children and for their children.  History may be extremely important as we read the Bible.  Won't we read it?  How?

Today, I want to post on how Sophia Auld taught you and me to read the Bible.  I want to show how Bible reading has changed us, because of her, and how it might help us more.  The traces of this stream go from the Hebrew Bible to Aristotle to the Greek Bible to Jesus.  The traces of the stream continue to Paul.  They go to Sophia Auld to Frederick Douglass to Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  They go to Julia Evelina Smith to Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Frederick Douglass to Abraham Lincoln to Victoria Clafin Woodhull to Shirley Chisolm to Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton to John Glenn to Sarah Palin to Barack Obama.  They go to Carolyn Osiek, and then to you and me.

Yesterday, Rod posted on how Shirley Chisolm entered American politics and helped us acknowledge the dangers of "the old, negative thoughts about ... feminity."  That's not an unimportant trace here in the stream of our history.  And Rod goes deeper into history to quote Frederick Douglass also; more on that in a moment.

A couple of days ago, I posted on how Carolyn Osiek has given us a very important call to read as illegitimate any uses of Jesus -- in Aristotelian ways -- to prop up slavery or hierarchical "complementarian" marriage.  Commenter John Radcliffe encouraged me to give her conclusion, which is now reposted here as the first epigraph above.

I'm re-membering, outlining, re-calling but not in chronological order so much.  Jacqueline Jones Royster would re-mind us how our past is a stream in which there are traces.  Royster finds herself in the stream, as a woman, as an African American, as one literate, as she writes history (her Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African-American Women). Likewise, Michelle Baliff helps us remember that we're in the history that we would write, translate, and read; in her "Re/Dressing Histories; Or, On Re/Covering Figures Who Have Been Laid Bare by Our Gaze," (Rhetoric Society Quarterly, v22 n1 p91-98), Baliff recalls with some justified protest the following:

According to Aristotle’s aesthetics, a narrative must be arranged according to some organizing principle.... Aristotle also offers us the classificatory system of binaries to help us order our stories, to order our experiences, to order ourselves.... But perhaps Woman can (un)speak in the unthought, not-yet-thought, non-spaces produced by alternative paradigms, by new idioms, by paralogical and paratactical and, thus, illegitimate discourses. What... if our narrative had no syllogistic, metonymic, linear or triangular structure? .... What if Truth were a Woman... what then? Cixous replies, Then all stories would have to be told differently....

So now let's pretend we're starting our story differently.  Let's start again with Sophia Auld.

Historian Henry Luis Gates starts us in 1827.  Says this of Frederick Douglass:  "Asks Sophia Auld to teach him to read, and learns the alphabet and words of up to four letters.  Lessons are stopped by Hugh Auld [Frederick's Master and Sophia's Husband], who believes that learning makes slaves discontented and rebellious."

Historian Sandra Thomas keeps us there.  She notes:

Upon Frederick's arrival at the Auld Home, his only duties were to run errands and care for the Auld's infant son, Tommy. Frederick enjoyed the work and grew to love the child. Sophia Auld was a religious woman and frequently read aloud from the Bible. Frederick asked his mistress to teach him to read and she readily consented. He soon learned the alphabet and a few simple words. Sophia Auld was very excited about Fredericks progress and told her husband what she had done. Hugh Auld became furious at this because it was unlawful to teach a slave to read. Hugh Auld believed that if a slave knew how to read and write that it would make him unfit for a slave. A slave that could read and write would no longer obey his master without question or thought, or even worse could forge papers that said he was free and thus escape to a northern state where slavery was outlawed. Hugh Auld then instructed Sophia to stop the lessons at once!

Frederick learned from Hugh Auld's outburst that if learning how to read and write was his pathway to freedom, then gaining this knowledge was to become his goal. Frederick gained command of the alphabet on his own and made friends with poor white children he met on errands and used them as teachers. He paid for his reading lessons with pieces of bread. At home Frederick read parts of books and newspapers when he could, but he had to constantly be on guard against his mistress. Sophia Auld screamed whenever she caught Frederick reading. Sophia Auld's attitude toward Frederick had changed, she no longer regarded him as any other child, but as a piece of property. However, Frederick gradually learned to read and write. With a little money he had earned doing errands, he bought a copy of The Columbian Orator, a collection of speeches and essays dealing with liberty, democracy, and courage.

A couple of things, or more to note in re-reading these accounts.  First, Frederick Douglass wrote his own biographies,  which Gates also has edited and expanded with the timelines.  Second, Douglass actually had no ill will against his Master or his Mistress or their Son, whom he was to serve.  Third, Douglass had the idea to learn to read.  Fourth, Sophia Auld was, at first, happy to help him.  Fifth, it was illegal for her to help him read, illegal in the real sense that the laws of the United States of America prohibited her from teaching him.  Sixth, she would disobey her husband, who was over her, if she did not stop.  Seventh, although she would not or could not rebel, she opened up the Bible to Douglass, and he learned how to become free.  Eighth, official American freedom did not come until abolitionists in England paid for Douglass's freedom.

So, was the Bible just a little blip for Frederick Douglass as Sophia Auld read it aloud to him as she taught him to read it for himself?  The answer is No.  The Bible played a huge part of Douglass's freedom, his own, his abolition work, and his feminist work.  More on that in a moment.  It's worth our hearing Douglass in his own voice.  Be thankful you, like him, can read!

... I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and, without hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters.  My mistress seemed almost as proud of my progress, as if I had been her own child; and, supposing that her husband would be as well pleased, she made no secret of what she was doing for me.  Indeed, she exultingly told him of the aptness of her pupil, of her intention to persevere in teaching me, and of the duty which she felt it could teach me, at least to read the bible.  Here arose the first cloud over my Baltimore prospects, the precursor of drenching rains and chilling blasts.

Master Hugh [Auld] was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of human chattels.  Mr. Auld promptly forbade the continuance of her instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief.  To use his own words, further, he said, "if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;"  "he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it."  "Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world;"  "if you teach that nigger -- speaking of myself -- how to read the bible, there will be no keeping him;"  "it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave;"  and "as to himself, learning would do him no good, but probably, a great deal of harm -- making him disconsolate and unhappy."  "If you learn him now to read, he'll want to know how to write; and, this accomplished, he'll be running away with himself."  Such was the tenor of Master Hugh's oracular exposition of the true philosophy of training a human chattel; and it must be confessed that he very clearly comprehended the nature and the requirements of the relation of master and slave.  His discourse was the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture to which it had been my lot to listen.  Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband.

So we see how the Bible - reading it and writing subsequently from it - began to shape Frederick Douglass, thanks to Sophia Auld.

Douglass found himself working with feminists at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with several of her colleagues, wrote (and she read aloud) the Declaration of Sentiments, a more inclusive Declaration than was Thomas Jefferson's and his colleagues.  They went on to write the two volume Women's Bible, a commentary on male readings of the Bible.  There they acknowledged Julia E. Smith, a woman, for her work in translating the Bible from the Hebrew and from the Greek into English in such a helpful way, for now they could read how women, such as Eve, can bring Life, which is how Smith translated Eve's name from the Hebrew.

But let's backtrack a bit. Have we missed anything? In 1830, when it was illegal for Frederick Douglass to be taught to read because he was a black slave, a white woman, Sophia Auld, broke the law and taught Douglass how to read before he was a teenager. And then, by age sixteen, he was breaking the law by teaching other slaves to read parts of the Bible and other works that he considered abolitionist. Some years later, he married a freed slave Anna Murray -- who gained her freedom as a black person before he could; they worked together side by side.  His and Anna's marriage was not only free as the Auld's marriage was; but Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray enjoyed an egalitarian marriage as well, one in which both partners were created in God's image, female and male.

In 1846, Douglass became the publisher of several abolitionist newspapers, including the North Star, which had as it's motto: “Right is of no sex--Truth is of no color--God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren." Note the inclusivity of persons with respect to both gender "and" race.  Anna was not just his mere complement, his completer.  They were equals in sex and in race.

In 1848, Douglass participated in the first women's conference in the United States of America in Seneca Falls, New York, where he himself signed the Declaration of Sentiments.

By 1863, Douglass had been engaging President Abraham Lincoln in conversation about abolitionism and, that year, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This is the same Lincoln of whom historian Philip Magness said this month:  "He never had a chance to complete his vision. Lincoln's racial views were evolving at the time of his death."  Here's exactly what Frederick Douglass, as historian, wrote:

It is true that we have the proclamation of Jan. 1863.  It was a vast and glorious step.  But, unhappily, excellent as that paper is, it settles nothing permanently....  

President Lincoln introduced his administration to the country as one which would faithfully catch, hold and return runaway slaves to their masters. He avowed his determination to protect and defend the slaveholder’s right to plunder the black laborer of his hard earnings. Europe was assured by Mr. Seward that no slave should gain his freedom by this war. Both the President and the Secretary of State have made progress since then.

Our generals, at the beginning of the war, were horribly proslavery. They took to slave catching and slave killing like ducks to water. They are now very generally and very earnestly in favor of putting an end to slavery. Some of them, like Hunter and Butler, because they hate slavery on its own account, and others, because slavery is in arms against the government.

The rebellion has been a rapid educator. Congress was the first to respond to the instinctive judgment of the people, and fixed the broad brand of its reprobation upon slave hunting in shoulder straps. Then came very temperate talk about co...nfiscation, which soon came to be pretty radical talk. Then came propositions for Border State, gradual, compensated, colonized emancipation. Then came the threat of a proclamation, and then came the Proclamation. Meanwhile the Negro had passed along from a loyal spade and pickax to a Springfield rifle.

Haiti and Liberia are recognized. Slavery is humbled in Maryland, threatened in Tennessee, stunned nearly to death in western Kentucky, and gradually melting away before our arms in the rebellious states.

The hour is one of hope as well as danger. 

In 1870, Frederick Douglass saw that the fifteenth amendment was passed, giving blacks but not women the right to vote.

In 1872, Douglass ran as the U.S. Vice President candidate of a woman.  That woman was Victoria Clafin Woodhull, a candidate for President. Woodhull could not vote although Douglass could.

In 1882, Douglass's wife Anna Murray passed away and, a couple of years later, Douglass remarried and wed Helen Pitts.  She, with him, caused controversy because they were a mixed-race couple. Douglass, of mixed race himself, said: "This proves I am impartial. My first wife was the color of my mother and the second, the color of my father."  Again, in marriage there was equality, of sex, and of race, though the two were different.

Douglass worked side by side with Helen Pitts, for eleven years as husband and wife, until the day he took his last breath (February 20, 1890, when he died of a heart attack in the evening at home).  It was a day when Douglass, still fighting against the subjugation of women, had taken the platform at the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C.  Douglass saw the subjugation of people because of race as the same sort of problem as the subjugation of people because of gender.

In 1920 (just to keep the timeline going), some thirty years after Douglass passed away, women in the USA were granted the right to vote.  That year, Charlotte Woodward, who was with Douglass at the 1848 first national woman's rights convention, cast her vote.  At 81 years of age, Woodward was the only female participant in that convention who ever legally got to vote.

As Rod pointed out yesterday, in 1972, Shirley Chisolm entered our stream and helped us trace the dangers of "the old, negative thoughts about ... feminity."  So after Hillary Clinton, John Glenn, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama also entered with us, have the dangers gone?  As Carolyn Osiek advised use nearly a decade ago, "It is time to acknowledge the same dangers."  But how will we?  Is it just by reading the Bible?

Or isn't it by learning to read the Bible the way Sophia Auld taught Frederick Douglass to read it, when she was a subservient "complementary" wife and he an obedient "content" slave?  Teaching and learning and reading and breaking the law and "rejecting as illegitimate" the male Master's reading of the Bible?

As you read now a final bit from Douglass, remember his justified grievances with his Master Auld, with the anti-abolitionists and the anti-feminists in the U.S. government.  And remember how Sophia Auld so taught him to read the Bible and might teach us.  Hasn't Sophia Auld taught us, and -- as Carolyn Osiek says -- isn't it about time?  The italics are Frederick Douglass's, having learned illegally to read the Bible from Sophia Auld; the exclamation points are his too:

The Bible is peculiarly the companion of liberty.  It belongs to a new order of things -- Slavery is of the old -- and will only be made worse by an attempt to mend it with the Bible.  The Bible is only useful to those who can read and practise its contents.  It was given to Freemen, and any attempt to give it to the Slave must result only in hollow mockery.

Give Bibles to the poor Slaves!  It sounds well.  It looks well.  It wears a religious aspect.  It is a Protestant rebuke to the Pope, and seems in harmony with the purely evangelical movement in England to give Bibles to our Slaves, -- and this is very desireable!  Now admitting (however difficult it may be to do so) the entire honesty of all engaged in this movement, -- the immediate and only effect of their efforts must be to turn off attention from the main and only momentous question connected with the Slave, and absorb energies and money in giving to him the Bible that ought to be used in giving him to himself.  The Slave is property.  He cannot hold property.  He cannot own a Bible.  To give him a Bible is but to give his master a Bible.  The Slave is a thing, -- and it is the all commanding duty of the American people to make him a man.  To demand this in the name of humanity, and of God, is the solemn duty of every living soul.  To demand less than this, or anything else than this, is to deceive the fettered bondman, and to soothe the conscience of the Slaveholder on the very point where he should be most stung with remorse and shame.

Away with all tampering with such a question!  Away with all trifling with the man in fetters!  Give a hungry man a stone, and tell what beautiful houses are made of it, -- give ice to a freezing man, and tell him of its good properties in hot weather, -- throw a drowning man a dollar, as a mark of your good will, -- but do not mock the bondman in his misery, by giving him a Bible when he cannot read it.

various poet translators turning around Tehillim 90

- Pamela Greenberg, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, April 2010 (Iyyar 5770):

Psalm 90

A prayer of Moses, man of God.

God, you have been a dwelling place for us
from one generation to the next.

Before mountains were born,
before earth and its people came to exist.

From eternity until eternity you are holy.

Mortals can turn to you until they are crushed.
You say, “Return, children of Adam.”



- Ann Nyland, New South Wales, Australia, March 2010:

90.

A prayer of Moses, a person of Elohim.
1 Adonai, you have been our place of safety through all generations.
2 Before the mountains came into existence,
or you brought the earth and world into being,
you are El, everlasting to everlasting.
3 You make humankind return to the dust,
and say, "People, return to dust!"


- Julia Evelina Smith, Connecticut, USA, 1855:

PSALM XC.

PRAYER to Moses the man of God.

        O Jehovah, thou wert a refuge to

us in generation and generation.

     2 Before the mountains were born,

and the earth shall be begun, and the

habitable globe, and from forever even

to forever, thou art God.

     3 Thou wilt turn man even to crush-

ing, and thou wilt say, Turn back, ye

sons of man.


- Mary Sidney Hebert, Wilton House, Wiltshire, England,1599:

PSALM 90  DOMINE REFUGIUM

Thou our refuge, thou our dwelling,
    O Lord, has byn from time to time:
Long er Mountains, proudly swelling,
    Above the lowly dales did clime:
Long er the Earth, embowl'd by thee,
    Bare the forme it now doth beare:
Yea, thou art God for ever, free
    From all touch of age and yeare.

O, but man by thee created,
    As he at first of earth arose,
When thy word his end hath dated,
    In equall state to earth he goes.
Thou saist, and saying makst it soe:
    Be noe more, O Adams heyre;
From whence ye came, dispatch to goe,
    Dust againe, as dust you were.


- Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (or maybe his sister Miriam), Yam Kinneret, Israel, 902AD (4662):

תְּהִלִּים

א תְּפִלָּה, לְמֹשֶׁה אִישׁ-הָאֱלֹהִים

אֲדֹנָי--מָעוֹן אַתָּה, הָיִיתָ לָּנוּ; בְּדֹר וָדֹר

ב בְּטֶרֶם, הָרִים יֻלָּדוּ-- וַתְּחוֹלֵל אֶרֶץ וְתֵבֵל

וּמֵעוֹלָם עַד-עוֹלָם, אַתָּה אֵל

ג תָּשֵׁב אֱנוֹשׁ, עַד-דַּכָּא; וַתֹּאמֶר, שׁוּבוּ בְנֵי-אָדָם

- Some unnamed Elder scholar(s), Alexandria, Egypt, around Nisan 20, 3561 (or 200BC or so):

Ψαλμοὶ πθ

προσευχὴ τοῦ Μωυσῆ ἀνθρώπου τοῦ θεοῦ

κύριε καταφυγὴ ἐγενήθης ἡμῖν
ἐν γενεᾷ καὶ γενεᾷ
πρὸ τοῦ ὄρη γενηθῆναι
καὶ πλασθῆναι τὴν γῆν
καὶ τὴν οἰκουμένην
καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος ἕως τοῦ αἰῶνος σὺ εἶ
μὴ ἀποστρέψῃς ἄνθρωπον εἰς ταπείνωσιν
καὶ εἶπας ἐπιστρέψατε υἱοὶ ἀνθρώπων

ESV, Luther Bible, and Jewish Women

43 million people hours will be spent nationwide in Israel's cleaning preparations for Passover this year. How does that break down? Of those cleaning hours, 29 million are done by women and 11 million by men. Persons paid to clean do the remaining 3 million hours
--Judy Lash Balint, Jerusalem Diaries

As usual in our own day the Jewish women were allowed to give generously, work untiringly and beg eloquently to build altars and Tabernacles to the Lord, to embroider slippers and make flowing robes for the priesthood, but they could not enter the holy of holies or take any active part. in the services.
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman's Bible

Moreover, a focus on women uncovers women's distinctive perspectives on public life, which often differed from those of men. . . . For example, the Nazis murdered a disproportionate number of elderly women, suggesting age and gender were a fatal combination. . . . Even if ultimately Jewish women, seen as procreators, were also enemies in the Nazi's "race war," at the beginning Jewish women saw their men arrested. . . and tried to rescue them.
--Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair

John's post (comparing the 1984 revision of Martin Luther's translation of the Bible with the 2001 English Standard Version) overlooks the issues of racism and sexism in the translations, which makes their marriage in a bilingual volume now so curious. Suzanne posts an excellent analysis of some of the differences between the Luther revision and the ESV, saying, "In no way is the Luther Bible an equivalent to the ESV in terms of general translation style or gender philosophy." My post here is to offer some illustrations of what Suzanne is saying.

And I am wanting to complicate the race and gender and translation issues a bit more. I'm wanting to show that women matter, that Jewish women matter, in Bible translation.

Luther overlooks the Jews (when translating their bible) - if he did break away some from Aristotle's misogyny. The all-male ESV translation team overlook women - even if they were trying to stay true to the Hebrew (and to the Jews' Greek also in the case of the NT and the LXX).

But women such as Gertrud Käthe Chodziesner (aka Gertrud Kolmar) and Julia Evelina Smith show that both race and gender are inherently important to Bible translation. Jewish women are not unimportant in translation of the bible.

Luther wrote however that "Whoever would speak German must not use Hebrew style. Rather he must see to it—once he understand the Hebrew author—that he concentrates on the sense of the text, asking himself, 'Pray tell, what do the Germans say in such a situation?'" Whether this is one of his infamous antisemitic statements, I don't know. What is apparent to me is that Luther presumes that Hebrew style is nothing that a German man would use. More on that in a moment.

The ESV team wrote that "In the area of gender language, the goal of the ESV is to render literally what is in the original. For example, 'anyone' replaces 'any man' where there is no word corresponding to 'man' in the original languages, and 'people' rather than 'men' is regularly used where the original languages refer to both men and women. But the words 'man' and 'men' are retained where a male meaning component is part of the original Greek or Hebrew." Now, that sounds pretty good, except when we keep reading their statement it becomes clear that there is a male bias, and a Christian male bias at that. The default English pronoun is "he," and the default referent to mortal humans (vs. God) is "man," and the default original language of the bible (in terms of gendered examples) is Greek of the Christian New Testament (never Hebrew of the original testament), and when there is mention of "an important familial form of address between fellow-Jews and fellow-Christians" then the default is the masculine "fellow" during the default Christian time period, "in the first century." One is left to wonder how "gender language" is worked out when the Hebrew text of the bible explicitly refers to women, and Jewish women at that. How is there consistent "transparency to the original text, allowing the reader to understand the original on its own terms rather than on the terms of our present-day culture"? So there again is the aristotelian presumption Luther makes: there's this binary that one culture's terms and style are necessarily and purely different from the other's.

Before going on to how Kolmar and Smith rise above Luther's and the ESV male-translation binaries, I'd like to give you a bit more of what Marion Kaplan says:

Women's history asks the kinds of questions that are central to an understanding of daily life, revealing crucial private thoughts and emotions. Moreover, a focus on women uncovers women's distinctive perspectives on public life, which often differed from those of men. But such a focus shows more than how gender--the culturally and hierarchically constructed differences between the sexes--made a difference in the way people perceived and reacted to daily events. It also shows how gender made a difference, ultimately, in matters of life and death. . . . To stress women's history, however, is not to exclude men--quite the contrary. To understand how gender operated, men's history is also required; their memoirs and diaries are also essential. In addition, the memoirs and interviews of Jewish women provide an inclusive viewpoint. Men and children, as well as extended family and friendship networks, were central to women's recollections and hence are visible and active at every term. Although the clamity that hit German Jews affected them as Jews first, they also suffered based on gender. (Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany, page 7)

Notice that "German Jews who are women" may just conflate some of the binaries of Luther and of the ESV male-only Christian-only team. And German Jews who are women may just give a perspective important to the histories of those who are not women, who are not Jews, and who are not German Jews. If you are not a German Jew who is a woman, then her history can help with the telling of yours anyway. To parse out gender and race affects the parser outer negatively, no?

So we might want to listen to Kolmar. A (Jew, German, Hebrew-reader, translator) woman. The wikipedia folks call her the "the finest woman writer in the history of the German language." Here's a long quote from one of her letters to a family member perhaps explaining why:

You bought yourself a Bible--and I own four! An old Luther Bible from the year 1854, it was given to Mutti's mother (according to the inscription); then I have the, though incomplete, Bible with pictures and marginal illustrations by Lilien; then the completely new, handy, thin-paper edition (without new testament), which cites Professor Torczyner, a Hebraist at the University of Jerusalem [sic; Hebrew University], as the responsible editor and which presumably also offers the most reliable German text. The translation is by various scholars; for example, the prophet Samuel was translated by Thea's father. Torczyner proofread everything and translated large parts himself and that which has its own rhythm in the original language has been presented by him for the first time as recognizable poetry, as hymn, also from the outside. This is also the reason why laymen and professional critics alike are very divided in their assessment of the new work. Thea's father, for example, was, of course, quite satisfied with his own work but did not approve of Torczyner's rhythmic texts. Mrs. Feld, on the other hand, whose father had originated the idea for a new complete translation, though Torczyner's psalms and prophets beautiful but was not at all enthusiastic about the prose of the other contributors. She much preferred the Luther Bible, and event he later Zunz Bible. I, myself, reach again and again for the Torczyner, especially when I'm reading my Hebrew Bible--for I own this one as well--and need help with translating. I had been reading the Luther Bible all my life, and some people who are in a position to judge such things have claimed that its language has clearly influenced by poetic language. I remember a colleague at Döberitz saying once: "You talk like Martin Luther." Because I said: "This towel is dirty beyond all measure." I'm less well versed in the New Testament, and I have read, if at all, always only the Gospels; Paul and the other epistles rarely, and hardly at all the apostle stories. I would very much like to participate in your course. For even though, as I said, I know and honor the Bible, there is a good deal about its development that I could learn. (My gaze is turned inward: letters 1934-1943, By Gertrud Kolmar, Translated into English by Brigitte Goldstein, pages 87-88)

Notice how facile, how humble, Kolmar is with the Hebrew, with the German translation including her own translating. Notice how she, a Jewess, writes like the German Martin Luther, while understanding poetry and rhythm and style - a German Jewish, Jewish German, Hebrew womanish, like the manliest man of German bible translation, range of styles.

Listen to her poem, "The Woman Poet" (as you're trying to forget, trying not to think about, the horrors in her holocaust poetry):

. . . You do not think
A person lives within the page you thumb.
To you this book is paper, cloth, and ink,
Some binding thread and glue, and thus is dumb,
And cannot touch you. . . .
[But] you hold me now completely in your hands. . . .
So then, to tell my story, here I stand. . . .
You hear me speak. But do you hear me feel?

Do you hear? Hear how dependent this Jewish woman poet is on you, the reader? To catch the "here I stand" resemblances to the Martin Luther you think you've heard before? Who has had to do more work? Who was sentenced to die, who died, because of her race, her gender, her voice?

Now, when turning to Julia Smith, I really want to turn to her own translation of the Hebrew and Greek bible. She does write a philosophy of translation and a bit of commentary on her translation (as do some of the contributors to The Woman's Bible). But given how long this post is already, it's worth just comparing Smith's translating to the Hebrew and to Luther's (1984 updated) and to the ESV men's. Given the time, I'll try to do that in another post another time.