A literary review of a literary translation of the Psalms

Robert Alter's new translation of the Psalms is creating a fair stir. There's a particularly good review by James Wood in The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Avdat.)

Wood is a literary critic and novelist. The literary perspective of the reviewer corresponds to Alter's goal of producing a literary translation:

[Alter's] work has been characterized by … a desire to convey in English the concrete ferocity of the original Hebrew. He is particularly alive to formal aspects of ancient Hebrew poetry and prose such as repetition, internal rhythm, and parallelism …. Because the Psalms are poems, he wants to preserve in English what he calls the "rhythmic compactness" of the originals, "something one could scarcely guess from the existing English versions." His helpful introduction is more polemical than the exegeses he has provided for his other translations: he argues that even the King James translators, whom he, like everyone else, has always admired, pad out their versions with filler.

I am of course delighted to see that Wood reads the Psalms much like Walter Brueggemann does. Wood is alert to what Brueggemann would summarize as the absence and silence of God in certain Psalms:

Many Psalms seem to involve three modes, shuffled into different combinations, which one could call plea, plaint, and praise. Psalm 13 is characteristic, beginning in plaint with the great central cry of the Psalter, "How long": "How long, O LORD, will you forget me always? / How long hide your face from me? / How long shall I cast about for counsel, sorrow in my heart all day? How long will my enemy loom over me?" …

Then, in the fourth verse, the supplicant switches to a plea: "Regard, answer me, LORD, my God. / Light up my eyes, lest I sleep death." And in the last verse of this short psalm the writer switches again, this time to a kind of formulaic praise, apparently sure that his prayer has worked: "But I in Your kindness do trust. . . . Let me sing to the LORD, / for He requited me."

The three modes are very close to each other in spirit, staining each other: one often hears a barely suppressed note of desperation in the praise, as if it were about to collapse back into plea or plaint. When the psalmist exults "Let me sing to the LORD, / for He requited me," at the end of a prayer that is only six verses long, and which has barely earned its right to such certainty, do we accept it as a statement of fact or as an expression of wishful yearning? Why would a God so absent six verses earlier suddenly make himself present?

This is all part of the human drama of the Psalms, that sense we have of a voice arguing with itself and its God.

The review is four "pages" long. If you read nothing else, read page four. Wood's analysis of Psalm 137, and his insight into the KJV translation of verse 7, is not to be missed.

And perhaps I should add:  I've told my family to put Alter's translation of the Psalms on my Christmas wish list.

The "Uh-oh" principle, part 2: Poetic justice in the prophets

I've decided to write two more posts on the David and Bathsheba story.

First, in this post, I want to explore a concept that Walter Brueggemann flags as a core element of rhetorical criticism. Brueggemann maintains that there is a very close relation between what gets said (the message of the text) and how it gets said (the literary or rhetorical techniques utilized by the author).

But let's quote Brueggeman himself on the subject. Here he is, contrasting historical criticism with rhetorical criticism:

Historical criticism, as it has come to be practiced, has been notorious for its lack of interest in the actual expression of the text itself. Indeed, the primary references for historical criticism characteristically are outside the text or, as is often said now, "behind the text" in the historical process. …

The commentaries are characteristically occupied with sorting out what is "genuine" in the text and with identifying parallels in other cultures. Such treatment of the text does not at all attend to the statements of the text itself, but is in effect a sustained raid on the text, looking for clues that support historical reconstruction. …

Rhetorical criticism is a method that insists that how what is said is crucial and definitive for what is said, so that the theology of the Old Testament does not trade in a set of normative ideas that may be said in many ways, but in a particular utterance that is spoken and/or written in a certain way.

It is now agreed that the primary impetus for rhetorical criticism as an intentional Old Testament enterprise stems from the address of James Muilenburg, "Form Criticism and Beyond," presented in 1968 and published in 1969. …

Muilenburg almost single-handedly made credible the practice of close reading, whereby one notices the detail of the text, such as word patterns and arrangements, the use of key words in repetition, the careful placement of prepositions and conjunctions, and the reiteration of sounds of certain consonants. … He held that such detail in the text is characteristically intentional, and that the force of the text cannot be understood apart from noticing such detail.

(Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, dispute, advocacy, Fortress Press, 1997, pp. 53-55.)

I am attracted to rhetorical criticism, in part because it puts evangelicals and liberals on common ground, at least to a significant extent.

To be clear, Brueggemann does not suppose that everything in the text is historical, or that the various Old Testament texts agree with one another. On the contrary, he maintains that scripture speaks with many voices:  there are diverse agendas at work in the texts as they have been handed down to us.

But insofar as rhetorical criticism begins with the text as it appears in the Bible, seeking meaning in (not behind) the text, evangelicals will find the method amenable.

Personally, I am at a disadvantage because I do not know Hebrew. Many of the details of importance to Muilenburg do not carry over into an English translation. But some of them do, so we will work with such details as are present to us.

With this method in mind, let's take another look at 2 Samuel 12. I'm using a different format this time, highlighting certain keywords:

(past experience of God's grace)
Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, "I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.

(present moral failure)
Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

(impending consequences)
Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife."

Thus says the Lord, "Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun."

(2 Samuel 12:7b-12)¹

The reader should note the pattern that emerges when the text is colour-coded in this way. The word "wife" recurs in all three sections of the text (past experience of God's grace, present moral failure, and impending consequences). The word "sword" appears in the latter two sections.

Rhetorical criticism tells us to be alert to the repetition of keywords. The literary technique is a clue to the meaning of the text. In this case, it tells us something interesting about the worldview of the author:  what I have called "poetic justice" in the title of this post.

• David sins with Uriah's wife (present moral failure), even though YHWH has already provided him with wives² (past experience of God's grace); poetic justice deems that his own wives will be taken by another man (impending consequences).
  
  
• David uses the sword to rid himself of a problem (present moral failure); poetic justice deems that David's kingdom will never be free of the sword (impending consequences). (That is, Israel will never be at peace with its neighbours while David is king.)

The idea of poetic justice is found not only here, in Nathan's oracle to David, but elsewhere in the prophets as well. It seems to be an important element of the prophetic worldview.

Klaus Koch describes this phenomenon in an evocative way. He is commenting on Jeremiah 1:13-16 —

The word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, "What do you see?" And I said, "I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north." Then the Lord said to me, "Out of the north disaster [literally, evil] shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the Lord, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah. And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.

This text is not laid out in the same neat pattern as the one in 2 Samuel 12. There is no mention of God's prior grace to Israel. Moreover, the "present moral failure" is the last element mentioned. Israel's moral failure consists of forsaking YHWH to worship idols:  "… all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands."

Even though the pattern is not as tidy, we see a similar repetition of a keyword:  evil. Israel has committed evil, and evil (calamity) will be turned back upon Israel. Here's what Koch says:

In the prophetic genres, key words generally form the pivot in the logical progression from the 'now' to the 'impending'. … The word ra'a [evil] is used ninety times in [Jeremiah] and becomes the common denominator, both for human transgression that has already taken place and for a catastrophe that is going to break in from outside. …

For the prophet, ra'a is not an abstract power. It is an aura, with effects on the world, an aura encircling the particular agent, who brings about his own destiny.

(Klaus Koch, The Prophets II: The Babylonian and Persian periods, Fortress Press, 1982, p. 20.)

This is an evocative picture:  an aura of evil surrounding Israel which then attracts evil upon Israel. In the same way, David's aura of adultery or his aura of "the use of the sword" attracted precisely those consequences upon him in punishment. It is poetic justice.

I'm not convinced that we should take Koch's description at face value. It might better be understood as a metaphor rather than a literal, Magical Mystery principle of the cosmos.

Regardless, our rhetorical analysis of these two texts leads to an enriched understanding of the "Uh-oh" principle. When people do evil, "Uh-oh!" — that same evil will be turned back on their heads.

(Next up: a consideration of Bathsheba's voicelessness in the 2 Samuel 11-12 narrative. Whereas the first two posts have been evangelical in their treatment of the text, the third post will explicitly adopt a critical perspective.)



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¹Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

²YHWH's assertion, "I gave you … your master's wives into your arms" is odd:  we're not told any such thing in the narrative where David assumes the throne. However: (1) it was customary in that era for a new king to take the former king's wives, perhaps as a symbol of his succession to the former king's place; (2) David and Saul both had a wife named Ahinoam, although we can't be certain that it is the same woman in both references.

To Babel and back, part 1

This series of posts will introduce the concept of the blog. Part one surveys the history of biblical interpretation in the modern West.

1. The Normative Era:

People used to know things by consulting the Holy Bible. For example, if some scientist told you that the earth was millions of years old, you could whip out your Bible and prove him wrong.

The Bible was normative. Everyone agreed that the Bible was true; and truth can't contradict truth, right? So science had to agree with the Bible.

2. The Critical Era:

Eventually sceptics began to subject the Bible to critical scrutiny. For example, that question about the age of the earth wouldn't go away. New evidence was adduced to show that the earth is older than anyone would deduce from Genesis.

Theologians adapted. Maybe there are gaps in the Genesis genealogies, they reasoned. Maybe one "day" of creation actually refers to an "epoch". But the questions only multiplied:  evidence began to mount that the Bible wasn't absolutely trustworthy after all.

The assault from science was formidable enough, but then came historical criticism. It began to undermine confidence in texts that were critical to theology.

In the Hebrew scriptures, salvation is grounded in the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt. But did the Exodus really happen? All those plagues? The death of every first-born son in Egypt, and no trace of it in secular histories?

(In my view, the Exodus is simply too ancient an event to withstand critical scrutiny. Faith may say that it happened, but there is no independent evidence to corroborate the biblical account.)

For a while, Jesus was sacrosanct. Everyone shrank from criticizing the Gospels. But in 1778, Reimarus opened the floodgates. Critical scholars began to ask, for example, whether Jesus really walked on water.

And did he really claim to be God, or was that merely a myth, introduced later by Jesus' followers? The importance of historical criticism can scarcely be overstated:  it struck a savage blow at the very roots of Christian faith.

3. The Relativizing Era:

First, the assault from science; then, historical criticism; now, globalization. Globalization matters for religion because it exposes us to all the other traditions out there. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, native religions:  a veritable smorgasbord of religious traditions, most of them with a venerable history. And all of it is now available at your local Chapters!

The result:  a descent into Babel. A cacophony of voices, all talking at once, each trying to make itself heard over the others.

Exposure to many traditions has called all of them into question. Christians offer a narrative account of how the cosmos came into being, what went wrong with it, and how God will rescue us in the end. But what's so special about that? The Dalai Lama has a competing narrative; American Indians have one of their own; Mormons have still another; and so on and so forth.

Every religion is equally convinced that its narrative is true. The effect is to relativize all of them:  my narrative doesn't look so special anymore.

Science weighs in with its authoritative opinion, claiming that all of the sacred texts are equally bogus. Science profers a narrative of its own. There is no god; the cosmos is billions of years old; all living creatures evolved from the humblest, single-celled organisms; evolution has no end goal (it is not purposive); human beings are an accident of nature; inevitably, the cosmos will collapse back onto itself, and that will be that!

Science has its own epistemology, too:  reason and the scientific method are the only sure guides to knowledge. But here's where the story takes an unexpected twist:  from a post-modern perspective, the scientific narrative is as suspect as any other:

Science has been under unprecedented attack with the rise of postmodernism. Both in academic circles and in popular culture, we see today a contempt for the sciences that many find hard to understand. Science is viewed as the vanguard of European exploitation, a discipline run amok, the instigators of nuclear and other weapons systems, the handmaiden of big business, and as the defilers of nature.

Postmodernists argue that the ideal of the scientist as a neutral, objective observer is pretentious. There is no such thing as an uninterpreted "fact"; and the interpreter of that "fact" is always biased:

Hypotheses do not simply rise up from raw data. Instead, they originate in the mind of the observer, who then imposes the hypothesis upon the data as a way of organizing it.

In sum, we have all arrived in Babel together:  Christians and Muslims; Mormons and Buddhists; mystics and scientists; theists and atheists. No one's opinion is normative anymore.

4. Triangulating a way out of Babel:

I do not believe Christianity has cornered the market on truth. Nonetheless, I am a Christian:  which is to say, that is the tradition that I operate out of.

My method (which I will explore in subsequent posts in this series) is to rely on three approaches to knowledge.

• Theological first principles.


• Careful exegesis rooted in historical criticism.


• Ultimately, I employ the texts as narratives which provide a necessary counterbalance to the presumptions of the modern, secular West.

Thus there are three elements to my method. We might describe the process as triangulating our way out of Babel, since there are three points at which we will seek to establish our bearings.



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