View from My Window
I'm really enjoying Andrew Sullivan's posts of the views from his readers windows.
So, here's the view from my window:
Mid-day, Silver City, NM.
Looking out the front of the store onto Bullard St.
Disdain All Around
Of course I'm angry and hurt by yet another trotting out of the Federal Marriage Amendment during an election year. It infuriates me that the cynical Republican leadership thinks little enough of gay people that they would risk fostering more gay-bashings just to win a few extra votes in November. I wanted to call up Senate Majority leader Bill Frist on 06/06/06 and tell him he was channeling the spirit of the anti-Christ, as he opened the Senate floor to debate this wicked amendment last Tuesday morning.
However, I'm not the only one who should be angry.
Doesn't anyone on the religious Right realize how they're being used by the Republican Party? Every two years, the Senate and the House debate the Federal Marriage Amendment and take a vote, even though they have no intention of actually passing it. They throw the Christianists a fake bone, and then go back to business as usual. After November, the FMA will no more be a priority for Republicans than the Department of Peace.
If Congress truly believed same-sex marriage spelled the ruin of Western Civilization as the Christianists do, they would make it a priority every year. But the fact that this amendment is only a priority in election years shows Congress's general disdain for Christianists and homosexuals alike.
(Note: I'd still rather have Congress pay me lip-serivce, than have them foster violence against me.)
[Insert Number Here]
Doing research on King Saul and David for a novel I want to write, I came across an interesting case of translators writing what they want into the biblical text.
In The Artscroll Tanach (the Jewish translation I've been reading), 1 Samuel 13:1 says, "It was in the first year of Saul's reign (he reigned over Israel two years)." So, I wrote in my notebook, "Saul reigned two years."
Then, I was listening to the same passage on my iPod using the New International (per)Version — because companies that publish recorded editions of the Bible only give you a choice between NIV and KJV versions, and I find the KJV really hard to listen to. In the NIV, 1 Samuel 13:1 says, "Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years." Huh? Where did they get that?
So, I turned off my iPod and went and looked up the passage in my New Revised Standard Version, which is usually pretty literal in it's translations: "Saul was . . . years old when he began to reign; and he reigned . . . and two years over Israel." Okay, the Hebrew text must be difficult to translate, so I went to see what the Hebrew says.
Literally translated, 1 Samuel 13:1 reads, "A son of one [was] Saul in his reign. And two years he reigned over Israel." Seems pretty straightforward, so what's the problem?
Apparently, sometime in the nineteenth century, scholars decided that "a son of one" was a reference to Saul's age, and since it was ludicrous to think that Saul was one year old when he took the throne, and the Bible was believed to be inerrant in it's original text, a number must have dropped out during the years of transcribing. Hence the translation, "Saul was [insert number of your choosing] years old when he began to reign." Even the Jewish Publication Society uses this translation.
Then, in the twentieth century, some Christian scholars started to think about the discrepancy between 1 Samuel 13:1 and Acts 13:21, which says Saul reigned forty years. They'd already fixed the first problem by assuming a dropped number, so why not fix the second problem the same way? Hence the translation, "And Saul reigned [forty] two years."
A forty must have dropped out, because Acts is infallible, right? We can explain the discrepancy between forty-two years (Samuel) and forty years (Acts) the way the NIV does in it's Footnote: "See the round number in Acts 13:21."
Faith crisis averted. Whew!
So where does this leave me? Well, when I write the story, I'm going to say Saul reigned two years. I figure there's no reason to mess with the text, and it'll make the plot much quicker-paced.
Also, I'm going to take the time to translate the story from Hebrew myself.
Note: In writing this post, I got help from T.L. Hubeart.
In The Artscroll Tanach (the Jewish translation I've been reading), 1 Samuel 13:1 says, "It was in the first year of Saul's reign (he reigned over Israel two years)." So, I wrote in my notebook, "Saul reigned two years."
Then, I was listening to the same passage on my iPod using the New International (per)Version — because companies that publish recorded editions of the Bible only give you a choice between NIV and KJV versions, and I find the KJV really hard to listen to. In the NIV, 1 Samuel 13:1 says, "Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years." Huh? Where did they get that?
So, I turned off my iPod and went and looked up the passage in my New Revised Standard Version, which is usually pretty literal in it's translations: "Saul was . . . years old when he began to reign; and he reigned . . . and two years over Israel." Okay, the Hebrew text must be difficult to translate, so I went to see what the Hebrew says.
Literally translated, 1 Samuel 13:1 reads, "A son of one [was] Saul in his reign. And two years he reigned over Israel." Seems pretty straightforward, so what's the problem?
Apparently, sometime in the nineteenth century, scholars decided that "a son of one" was a reference to Saul's age, and since it was ludicrous to think that Saul was one year old when he took the throne, and the Bible was believed to be inerrant in it's original text, a number must have dropped out during the years of transcribing. Hence the translation, "Saul was [insert number of your choosing] years old when he began to reign." Even the Jewish Publication Society uses this translation.
Then, in the twentieth century, some Christian scholars started to think about the discrepancy between 1 Samuel 13:1 and Acts 13:21, which says Saul reigned forty years. They'd already fixed the first problem by assuming a dropped number, so why not fix the second problem the same way? Hence the translation, "And Saul reigned [forty] two years."
A forty must have dropped out, because Acts is infallible, right? We can explain the discrepancy between forty-two years (Samuel) and forty years (Acts) the way the NIV does in it's Footnote: "See the round number in Acts 13:21."
Faith crisis averted. Whew!
So where does this leave me? Well, when I write the story, I'm going to say Saul reigned two years. I figure there's no reason to mess with the text, and it'll make the plot much quicker-paced.
Also, I'm going to take the time to translate the story from Hebrew myself.
Note: In writing this post, I got help from T.L. Hubeart.