S-U-B-M-I-T, find out what it means to her

In public, Michele Bachmann, candidate for the Chief Executive of the world's largest superpower, says that she will continue to submit to her husband.  However, this submission, she says, is respect.  And this submission, she explains, is mutual.   Here's exactly how she put it last night answering why she did something her husband told her she must do even though she hated doing it:

“Marcus and I will be married for 33 years this September 10. I’m in love with him. I’m so proud of him. What submission means to us, it means respect. I respect my husband. He’s a wonderful godly man and great father.

“He respects me as his wife; that’s how we operate our marriage,” she continued. “We respect each other; we love each other. I’ve been so grateful we’ve been able to build a home together. We have wonderful children and 20 foster children. We’ve built a business and life together, and I’m very proud of him.”

If Ms. Bachmann becomes President, then her relationship together with Marcus should not change.  He may tell her to do some things that she hates, and she will obey; she must do it.  This also came up last evening:

During last night's Fox News debate, moderator Byron York questioned Rep. Michele Bachmann about her 2006 remark that her "husband said you should study for a degree in tax law. You said you hated the idea. And then you explained, 'But the Lord said, 'Be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.'" York asked Bachmann, "As president, would you be submissive to your husband?" The question received loud boos from the audience, and was the subject of attention in write-ups of the debate.

York, after hearing Bachmann's answer, was pleased.  He said:  "I personally thought she handled it very well. She handled it much more human -- it was like a very human moment for her."   So what does York mean by "human"?  Not mousey and wifey and womanly?  Rather mutual and sharing and two-way respectful?

We get the idea, then, that a President Michele Bachmann would have her cabinet submit to her.  In a human sense, therefore, they would love her and would work together to build with her and would mutually respect her.  The question remains where that would leave First Gentleman (not First Lady) Marcus Bachmann.  If he told his wife to do something she hated, then would he get obedience?  And what would be the chain of command for the Commander in Chief?

Now Wayne Leman at BBB blogged on this.  He says "we at BBB" (meaning the all-men team of bloggers at BBB) want to know:

Does the Greek word ὑποτασσω in Ephesians 5:21–and assumed by almost all Bible translators to be implied in the next verse–mean ‘respect’ or something else?

 Yesterday, I linked to an essay, a post, by Wayne Grudem in which he says that "submission is a respectful affirmation" but that submission must only go one way in a marriage.  Submission, he explains, is not "mutual."  Marcus Bachmann is not to submit to his wife Michele Bachmann.  As the husband, he is not to give her "respectful affirmation" in the sense that he is under her.  Rather, she is under him because she is a woman, because she is his wife.  She must respectfully follow his leadership even if he tells her to do something that she hates.

The BBB all-male blogger team want to know what this means.  If you are a woman, then do know that there is a special practice by this team for moderating the comments of females.  The way blogger Theophrastus has tracked this is as follows:

The situation over that the BBB is that all male-blogging team has decided on a secret rule that issues of gender cannot be discussed in blog posts.  However, this rule is inconsistently enforced – it is particularly enforced on women who try to comment on that blog.

If you'd like to comment freely, whether you are a woman or a man, then always feel free to do so at this blog.  Or, if you really want to reply to the BBB questions but find yourself moderated in any particular way by the all-male BBB team, then feel free to do so at the BBBB.  The BBB all-male no-woman team has promised that everybody gets automatically moderated in reply to Wayne Leman's recent post.  The BBBB, however, will allow you to make your comments openly on this same topic or on any topic you somehow want to bring up there.

Now, before we leave the topic of ὑποτασσω as Paul wrote it to Greek readers in Ephesus, I thought we might listen to how his first Greek readers, those Ephesians, may have heard this word.  There's no reason to believe that these Ephesians in Ephesus were uncultured.  There's no reason to think that the husbands and wives to whom Paul addressed his letter would not have attended the local plays.  There's no reason to suggest that they might not have gone to watch the plays by Euripides or even his play that we know today as The Bacchae.

As we all know, the Bacchae were women, not men.  

They were also called maenads, those females who followed and nursed and submitted to the god Dionysus.  The Bacchae or Maenads were "Raving Women."

If you've watched the play by Euripides or have read it, then you know how these raving women murdered a human king for banning their worship of the god.  If it's significant, this particular god, Dionysus, had a human mother.  At any rate, we all know how the Bacchae or Maenads or Raving Females broke the law of the king and killed him.  They did not submit.  They did not like this chain of command, this male hierarchy from the king.  In fact, the mother of this king usurped the male authority and led the raving women.

Here's a memorable moment from the play in which this king, before he gets assasinated, is getting a report on these women and on his own mother (as translated from the Greek of Euripides into English, by George Theodoridis):

But just then she [your mother] shouted, “Hey, my speedy bitches, there are some men here who are hunting us.  They want our submission. Come, run with me.  Arm yourselves with your thyrsus and come with me! Let’s get them”

We just managed to run away and escape the slaughter but they threw themselves, with no spear nor sword, at the calves that were quietly grazing nearby.  One of those women tore a poor, tiny calf away from its mother’s udder and others ripped calves to bloody pieces with their bare hands and then they began eating them raw.

My Lord, you could see bits of flesh strewn all around the place. Whole sides of animals, legs, other chunks of animal flesh hanging from the fir trees, dripping blood.  Huge bulls, my Lord which only a few minutes earlier stood tall and proud, the sort that if one got them angry they’d tear everything apart with their massive horns, well, now they dropped their bodies to the ground and straightaway countless girls dragged them about with their bare hands and… and by the time you blinked your royal eye, my Lord, they’d have the skin torn off those massive carcasses of them bulls.

And then they went flying about like the wild birds that ruin the proud wheat stalks of Thebes, the ones that fly low next to the rushing waters of Asopos river.  Then off them women rushed to the villages of Erythres, near Ysies, at the foot of Mount Kitheron and just like an invading army they turned everything upside down, ripping children out of their houses and taking all sorts of goods from there, which they just threw carelessly over their shoulder without tying anything together; still nothing fell to the dark soil, not even bronze or iron, my Lord!

And, o, my Lord Pentheus [the king], around their hair there was this brilliant fire that had no effect on them. Didn’t burn them one bit.

Then all the men came out fuming with anger and fully armed, wanting to bring these Bacchants into submission [ὑποτάσεις], but then, my Lord, if only you could have seen this most awesome thing!  Most terrible thing to see.

So the Ephesians would get that submission was not mutual in some contexts, that the king was to be obeyed, that women especially raving females should be under male gods and male leaders.  This was a gendered thing.  A one-way sexist thing.  Or was Paul suggesting mutual submission of all one to another also?

Weird, Womanly Words of Obama

In this post, I'd like us to consider President Obama's words as womanly and also as weird.  But can we also talk about how a translator may and "ought not" translate these words of his?

(This has implications for translation theory and practice as related to what's better for the bible.  So maybe we can get to that some too.)

First, I'm not the only one to say Barack Obama's words are womanly.  Second, I am going to call these words "weird."  Third, would you look at and listen to them with me.  Finally, let's talk translation.

First

Mr. Obama's speech tends to be rich and nuanced and different from the stereotypical speech of a man.  (The stereotypes were created by Aristotle or were reinforced by him in many cases.  Aristotle made a big big deal out of the differences between male and female speech; Anne Carson, a careful reader and wonderful translator of ancient Greek has noted many of these differences; and Nancy Mairs makes a big deal out of these differences too.)  Deborah Siegel of girlwpen.com posted how some of us have observed the stereotypically womanly characteristics of Mr. Obama's words in answering the question, "Is Obama Leading Like a Woman?"

Second

I'm calling Obama's speech womanly.  But let me also qualify much of it as "weird."  Now let me go a step further and say it's not only womanly and weird but also "foreign."  (Aristotle would have called it absolutely barbaric or barbarous or something like that.)  Please know that I'm now using the words weird and foreign in the way that two of the Better Bibles Blog bloggers are using those words this week.  I don't at all agree with their arguments yet (i.e., that the Bible doesn't have weird or foreign language and/ or that even if it did a translation of the Bible shouldn't have weird or foreign language); I'm only using the words they way they do:  "We may have to learn many more new things all at the one time when we read the Bible, but that doesn’t require weird language" and "It may be inevitable that sometimes the message sounds foreign, but there is nothing about this that suggests that the [English Bible] translation should sound foreign, generally speaking."  

What I'm saying is that Obama's language is weird and might sound foreign and that better translators of his language do even better when they translate it that way.  

Third

Want some evidence?  Okay then.  Here's some recent stuff from President Obama:

1. his Presidential Proclamation for the National Day of Prayer (which happens to be today)
2. his speech announcing the killing of Osama bin Ladin (which most of the world has heard now)
3. his recent book (which is the only children's book any US president in office has ever written)

In 1. his President Proclamation, he uses interesting language at least at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the pronouncement.

At the beginning, President Obama hearkens to history and quotes what others before him have said, including a former president and a civil rights leader.  He identifies with both men quoted.  But to quote the civil rights leader (with whom he identifies, by race, at least in other contexts), Mr. Obama first quotes a woman:

The late Coretta Scott King recounted a particularly difficult night, during the Montgomery bus boycott, when her husband, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., received a threatening phone call and prayed at the kitchen table, saying, "Lord, I have nothing left.  I have nothing left.  I have come to the point where I can't face it alone." 

Here, the President's words are rather nuanced.  He's not giving the source for his first quotation.  But when quoting the African American leader, he does.  And he goes on at length.  And his readers see how important it is to him that a woman, this particular woman, has recounted with some considerable pathos (i.e., remembering "a particularly difficult night") some danger and much desperation beyond all human limits.  If this were translated into, say, Arabic language, then wouldn't the better translator try to account for the English language nuance here, for the digressions that back up the story and put it back into the memory of a woman who is not really the central one being talked about in the first place?  Well, yes.

In the middle of his Proclamation, President Obama uses gendered language that is inclusive.  He says:

Let us pray for the men and women of our Armed Forces and the many selfless sacrifices they and their families make on behalf of our Nation.  Let us pray for the police officers, firefighters, and other first responders....

Notice the language that many say is awkward and just politically correct.  It's awkward to specify men "and women" and it's even more awkward to use two words and five syllables (i.e., "police officers") instead of more directly "policemen" and to use three syllables (i.e., "firefighters") for the clear two in "firemen," and so forth.  The translator should not bother readers with literal forms.  The dynamic-equivalence translator would be kind to let the readers know that were talking about mostly men anyway.  However, wouldn't the better translator of Chinese language do well to take the time to render the President's female-equal and woman-inclusive words as 男人女人 even though that can also simply and clearly communicate 人?  And how about his woman-inclusive words?  Wouldn't she or he (the translator into Chinese) find 消防队员 more descriptive of what the President wrote than 救火队员 , the former phrase literally meaning something like Fire-Rescue Team-Member for "firefighter" and the latter phrase meaning literally something like Warrior-of-Fire Team-Member and referring exclusively to males? Well, yes and yes.

At then end of his Presidential Proclamation, the President writes the following:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 5, 2011, as a National Day of Prayer.  I invite all citizens of our Nation, as their own faith or conscience directs them, to join me in giving thanks for the many blessings we enjoy, and I ask all people of faith to join me in asking God for guidance, mercy, and protection for our Nation.
      IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fifth.

          BARACK OBAMA

Now, that's just weird.  I'm talking about the President's words here.  If a team of linguists were to field test this among native speakers of natural American English in 2011, then they'd say, "Not my heart language."  And if some other linguist in, say, Mozambique were to try to take this into African Portuguese, then he or she would likely want to rid the language of its strange and foreign sounding high register.  Otherwise, who knows what President Obama really meant?  But the better translator into Portuguese would translate it as weird and foreign-sounding un-natural and un-contemporary Portuguese just as it's weird and foreign-sounding un-natural and un-contemporary English on May 5, 2011, right?  Well, yes.  Here's the Proclamation.

In 2. his speech announcing the killing of Osama bin Ladin, President Obama uses womanly and weird and foreign-sounding words too.  You can read the speech here at Unsettled Christianity.  You can listen to it and watch it again here at feministing.com.

First of all, he's mentioning with men, again, "women, and children."  And with "their father," also "their mother."  (Of course, I'm being a little silly to point out his gender inclusiveness, again.)  Secondly, the President is way too subjective.  He's getting way too personal.  He's used first person personal pronouns, "I" and "we" and "I" and "we" all over the place.  He's named groups "my team," and "their Pakistani counterparts"; he's identified individuals by name, insinuating how they deserve a share of the credit, "Leon Panetta," and "President Bush," and "President Zardari."  (Yes, I know.  He's taken some political partisan flack for that and has been cynically suspected of being a slimy woman-like sophist trying to garner his own political capital from the electorate and the populous and even the world audience.)  Thirdly, he says "may God bless" at least twice.  (And we all know that in natural field-tested English this shouldn't be used for common-man language but for helping someone out after they sneeze.  "God bless you."  A perfect, non-literal and dynamic equivalent to that is "Gesundheit."  What the President should have said, what he really intended is this:  "Thank you. Don't Worry; be happy. And that goes for the United States of America too."  In colloquial, natural German it's Danke. Keine Sorge, glücklich zu sein. Und das gilt für die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika zu.)  And yet, doesn't the better German translator keep Obama's language just a marked and as weird as it is in English?  Well, yes.

In 3. his recent book, President Obama again uses womanly and weird and foreign-sounding language.

Well, we just have time to consider the title.  But if you read it all for yourself, you'll get it.  The title alone is Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters.   Well, okay, peek in for a bit.  It's dedicated:

To Michelle -- whose fierce love and daily good sense
have nourished such wonderful daughters
--B.O.

And the book's about 13 Americans, not all of whom are men.  That's right.  Some are also African Americans, some are even African American women.  The audacity.  Is this weird hope again?

Now, I said we only have time for the title.  So let's get back to it.  "Of Thee I Sing"?  Doesn't the President know how antiquated this phrase is?  Doesn't the President care how ambiguous this phrase is?  How will the readers know what he means?  Who can tell us what he surely must intend singularly intend as writer?  Well, the translator can.

The translator won't confuse us with the fact of the deep cultural significances of this phrase for African Americans closer to the onset of the Civil War and beyond.  No, surely Obama is being more American than that.

The translator won't bother us (unless in an endnote) with the fact that this particular phrase has had earlier and more enduring historical significance for women in America working for their rights.  So let's just take time to read a page real quickly from that history (from Sweet Freedom's Song: "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and Democracy in America) -

Those women's rights songs riffed off of "Of Thee I Sing":

Let your joy be unconfined. 
Let it speak so clearly that its echo will be 
heard around the world.
[Let] it find its way into the soul of every woman
who is longing for the opportunity and liberty still denied her.
Let your voices ring out the gladness in your hearts! . . .
Let us sing, together, 
"My Country, 'Tis of Thee . . .
Sweet Land of Liberty,
Of Thee I Sing.

Thee means what?  That weird womanly foreign-sounding language is written to whom?  To two young people, English readers.  Both black.  Both female.  Both growing up in America when it's still 2011.  The audacity.

The other day, I read that there's a Korean translator who's translated this book into Korean for Korean readers.  Although I haven't seen it yet, I wonder if she or he has kept in the womanliness, the weirdness, and the foreign-sounding tone of President Obama's words.  Would that be a better thing than not to do?  Well, yes.

Finally

let's talk translation.  how do you think a translator may (and "ought not") translate these words of Barack Obama, these weird, womanly words of his?