Tract 1 — The Original Semitic
Part 2 of “Let the Text Speak”
For the importance of understanding the original language the Bible was composed in, I appeal to the striking prologue of the deuterocanonical book of Sirach, accepted as scripture by both the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox and considered at least as historically important by Protestants.
You are urged therefore to read with good will and attention, and to be indulgent in cases where, despite our diligent labor in translating, we may seem to have rendered some phrases imperfectly. For what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same sense when translated into another language. Not only this work, but even the law itself, the prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little as originally expressed.
Any student of Tarazi is already very familiar with this passage because of how much he has brought it up over the years, but it deserves to be continuously used in these discussions because of how striking it is. That at least some Christians of the past took Hebrew seriously is evidenced by Origen and Jerome undertaking this extremely difficult task. For Jerome specifically, in the effort of translating the Bible into Latin, he could have merely translated the Greek of the Septuagint but specifically spent time with rabbis to learn the consonantal Hebrew in order to make sure that this critically important project at least attempted to reflect the original sense of the text. What is also critical here, is the notion in Sirach’s prologue that the Greek text being encountered is potentially an imperfect rendering. This is true, not only of the book of Sirach but also applicable to the Greek translations of the law, the prophets, and the other writings. In other words, the Septuagint is not and cannot be its own reference. The goal of the Septuagint is not to be a perfect translation, but to be a beacon pointing the Greek hearer to the original Semitic Hebrew Bible. It is an invitation to the original text, not a substitute which is typically how translations behave. Works in other languages are translated so that the recipients don’t have a barrier between them and the original work. But no matter how faithful a translation is, that barrier will always be there by virtue of the fact that the words the hearer is encountering are not the words employed by the original author, but rather are somebody else’s interpretation of those words. To drive this point even more forcefully, I would imagine that most people would not consider a modern colloquial abridgement of Shakespeare’s body of work to be the actual Shakespearean literature. Reading such a version of Julius Caesar is not the same as reading it in the original manner in which Shakespeare composed it. The famous line beware the ides of march is not the same as look out for March 15th even though that is essentially the meaning, the latter is not Shakespeare’s intention. Shakespearean English is a style in and of itself. It is not merely the language employed by William Shakespeare, but a stylistic attribute. It is so closely tied to the literature that to divorce it from that is to do damage to it. So, modern abridged versions function to help a modern audience understand Shakespeare’s original intent with the language and is not intended to be a replacement nor the main reference. No matter how incomprehensible Shakespearean English will be to successive generations of English speakers, the Globe Theatre will never present these plays in any language other than Shakespeare’s 16th century dialect. Whether the audience understands the dialogue is immaterial. There exists resources designed to help them out but the original remains firm and unmoved by time.
The original text of scripture needs to be treated with the same respect. Throughout his prolific career, Fr. Paul Tarazi has testified to scripture’s virtual incomprehensibility without the original Hebrew. His magnum opus, The Rise of Scripture, focuses the bulk of its pages on interconnected Hebrew words via their triliteral roots, and also important grammatical features of the language which are inexpressible in translations. I will do my best to represent the ones that are the most striking to me, but anyone serious about learning more should read Tarazi’s latest books for themselves to get the full scope of what I am talking about.
In Semitic languages, the triliteral root is everything. This is because Semitic languages are natively written without vocalic sounds. Everything expressed on the page is written in consonants, which can be challenging to read, but the connection between words is readily apparent. One example has to do with unwritten vocalic sounds having to do with identifying nouns and verbs. A famous Hebrew noun is the word DBR which is typically translated as a word, matter, or thing. When it is presented as a verb, it is written exactly the same way. The only difference is in pronunciation. DBR as a noun is pronounced like dabar and when expressed as a verb, is pronounced like dibber. A similar mechanism can be found in Greek, for the simple fact that both the Greek and Hebrew alphabets derive from the Phoenician alphabet, which was also a Semitic language without vowels. The vowels were added by the Greeks for ease in pronunciation, although the Semites have done just fine without them up to the present day. The corresponding word to DBR in Greek is logos. The verbal form is legō, meaning to speak. Logos then refers to a spoken thing. Like Hebrew, the only thing that has changed with the basic stem of the word is the vowel.
The triliteral root is also frequently matched with prepositions in order to create new functions for these roots. In almost every case, these connections are completely inexpressible in any other language. For example, a notable case is in the word MDBR which is created by attaching the mem preposition with the DBR root. The mem preposition often has to do with physical location, so the connotation of MDBR would literally be a place where the DBR is employed. Compare this with the root KTB which refers to writing. The verbal form means simply to write whereas the noun form is simply a written thing, hence the third section of the Old Testament’s delineation as the Ketubim (the writings). MKTB then refers to an office, a place where writing happens and where written things are found. Interestingly though, MDBR is employed in the scriptural narrative to describe the desert. How strange. What is it about a desert that would warrant a word like this? What is its function? The answer has less to do with the nature of the desert itself, but what is found within the desert. From the perspective of the authors who had the Syro-Arabian desert in their immediate purview, this can only refer to the activity of bedouin shepherds who keep their flocks together by the calling out, QRA, of their voice. Unsurprisingly, this image of shepherdism is immediately consistent with the content of the scriptural narrative, where God is routinely described as a shepherd who is leading his flock, Israel. The saga of Israel in the desert must necessarily be seen as a bedouin (God) leading his sheep by the call of his voice. It is precisely within the MDBR where God’s DBR is codified within the TWRH, instruction, which becomes the bread of life for the sheep who live, not on physical bread, MN, but by every DBR which proceeds from the mouth of God. The teaching becomes their sustenance, a teaching that is necessary for them to live. This is forceful with the backdrop of the Syro-Arabian desert firmly in mind, because such extreme environmental conditions are essentially fatal for individual sheep. In order to find the well watered oasis, GN B’EDN, the flock relies on its shepherd completely. It takes total unabashed trust, AMN, that the shepherd will lead the flock to safety. The sheep themselves have no choice nor any alternative. It is either put full trust in the shepherd and follow his call, or do your own thing and succumb to the elements. It seems bleak but those are the conditions laid out by scripture. We are on a swift path to destruction and our only salvation is in following the voice of the shepherd in complete faith and obedience to his call. Arabic, a sister language to Hebrew, retained this basic function of DBR by employing this same root in the act of project management. In no way, shape, or form can any of this be expressed by an English translation. It can be described tangentially in English, but there is no word in our language which links a command with the desert itself. The fact that the Bible does is critical to its message, and testifies to the importance for teachers of the Bible to be aware of it. Without it, the results are nearly always disastrous.
I would like to offer a few more interesting Semitic roots and their functions. In Semitic languages, the root RḤM refers to the womb on the one hand and mercy on the other. Actually, in Hebrew, if the noun is singular, it almost always refers to the womb and when it is plural, it refers to mercy. How can this be? Again, to understand this, I will compare it with another example which will be more immediately comprehensible. In Hebrew the root DM refers to blood and in the plural form, refers to bloodshed. In other words, it is the movement of the blood. Similarly, mercy is seen as being the movement of the womb. In these Semitic languages, mercy is not an abstract concept but specifically tied to what a pregnant woman goes through, physically and emotionally, in her becoming a mother. To put it another way, in Semitic cultures, the only person who truly understands the meaning of mercy is a woman who has carried a child and given birth. So any discussion or Bible study on mercy in the Bible must be stemmed from this understanding of the words, or the entire study is in vain because the participants are speaking in terms of their own experience, not the content of scripture.
I will offer but one more example in this section of the paper. At the 2023 OCABS Symposium while presenting excerpts from his upcoming collection of homilies, Fr. Marc Boulos shared a story where he was preaching on Luke’s account of Jesus’ temptation by the Devil in chapter 4. In the part where the Devil sets Jesus on the pinnacle pterygion, he quotes Psalm 91 which employs the word KNF, which literally refers to a wing, but also has the connotation of covering. In the Greek Septuagint, pterygion is used to translate KNF in Psalm 91:4. While Fr. Marc was explaining this wordplay to his parish, an Arab woman who attends his church spoke up and explained how the root is used in colloquial Arabic in terms of keeping a family safe. It is a protective covering. It is clear then, when using the Semitic as a base for understanding and not the Greek alone, that the Devil used Psalm 91 to try and trick Jesus into betraying his Father by considering himself to be the protective covering of his flock in the wilderness, and not his Father. As Fr. Marc explained at the symposium, this woman in his congregation understood what was going on functionally in this Biblical story better than your typical Ivy League theological student. This is despite this parishioner not being a scholar herself, and certainly not erudite in an academic sense. But she speaks Arabic, and that naturally gives her the edge in understanding a text that is Semitic to its core.
Continue to Track 2…
