摩西五经英译

• LRB (London Review of Books)
• 23 February 2006

At the tent flap sin crouches

James Wood

• The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter
  

In the beginning was not the word, or the deed, but the face. ‘Darkness was upon the face of the deep,’ runs the King James Version in the second verse of the opening of Genesis. ‘And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.’ Two uses of ‘face’ in one verse, and a third implied face, surely: God’s own, hovering over the face of his still uncreated world. The Almighty, looking into the face of his waters, might well be expected to see his face reflected: it is profoundly his world, still uncontaminated by rebellious man.

The committees of translators appointed by James I knew what they were doing. The face of God and the face of the world (or of mankind) will become a running entanglement throughout the five Books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). Man will fear to look upon God’s face, and God will frequently abhor the deeds of the people who live on the face of his world. Once Cain has killed Abel, and has been banished by God, he cries out: ‘Behold thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid.’ When the Almighty decides to flood his world, he pledges to destroy every living thing ‘from off the face of the earth’. After wrestling with a divine stranger all night, Jacob ‘called the name of the place Peniel: For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.’ Jacob dies happy that he has seen his son Joseph’s face, and Moses, of course, spoke to God ‘face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend’. The Book of Numbers contains the little prayer so beloved of the Christian liturgy: ‘The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.’ He casts his now kindly face upon ours. The Hebrew word for ‘face’ is the same in all these verses, so the 17th-century translators were being exact; but they were also perhaps telling us something about God’s circular ownership of his creation, his face above and his face below. Perhaps when they chose ‘the face of the waters’ they had in their ears John’s description of the Lord in Revelation: ‘and his voice as the sound of many waters’.

In his remarkable new translation of the Pentateuch, a monument of scholarship, Robert Alter eschews ‘face’ to describe the surface of the world at the start of Genesis, and I miss the cosmic implications, but his first two verses amply compensate with their own originality: ‘When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God’s breath hovering over the waters, God said: “Let there be light.” And there was light.’ The King James Version has ‘without form and void’ for Alter’s Anglo-Saxonish ‘welter and waste’, but Alter, as throughout this massive work, provides a diligent and alert footnote:

The Hebrew tohu wabohu occurs only here and in two later biblical texts that are clearly alluding to this one. The second word of the pair looks like a nonce term coined to rhyme with the first and to reinforce it, an effect I have tried to approximate in English by alliteration. Tohu by itself means ‘emptiness’ or ‘futility’, and in some contexts is associated with the trackless vacancy of the desert.

Alter brings this kind of sensitivity to bear on moment after moment of his translation, and the result greatly refreshes, sometimes productively estranges, words that may now be too familiar to those who grew up with the King James Bible. The Pentateuch, or Torah, contains the great narratives of our monotheistic infancy. It tells the stories of the creation; of Adam and Eve and their children, Cain and Abel; of the Flood and Noah’s escape and God’s promise never to destroy the earth again; of Abraham and God’s covenant with him and his people; of Isaac and his sons Esau and Jacob; of Jacob’s wrestle with God and God’s anointing of Jacob as Israel; the story of Joseph and his brothers; the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt and their exodus, led by Moses; the handing down of the law from the mountain at Sinai; the elaboration of the law or teaching (torah means ‘teaching’); and finally the death of Moses as his people are on the verge of the promised land.

Biblical style is famous for its stony reticence, for a mimesis that Erich Auerbach called ‘fraught with background’. This reticence is surely not as unique as Auerbach claimed – Herodotus is a great rationer of explanation, for example – but it achieves its best-known form in the family stories of Genesis. The paratactic verses with their repeated ‘and’ move like the hands of those large old railway station clocks that jolted visibly from minute to minute: time is beaten forward, not continuously pursued. Yet it is often the gaps between these verses, or sometimes between the clauses of a single verse, that constitute the text’s ‘realism’, a realism created as much by the needy reader as by the withholding writing itself. For example, after the Flood, Noah starts a new occupation: ‘And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.’ Noah is a lush. This is not without crooked humour of a kind, and the gap-filled rapidity of the narration is the reason for the smile it raises.

Likewise, though generating pathos rather than comedy, the laconic report of Joseph’s response to his brothers works by starving us of information. Joseph, installed by Pharaoh as his right-hand man in Egypt, receives in an official capacity his brothers, who have travelled from Canaan in search of food. He recognises them but disguises himself. Three times he weeps, twice turning away from them and a third time openly. The first time, ‘he turned himself about from them, and wept.’ The second time is more agitated: ‘And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there.’ Finally, after various ruses, he can stand it no longer, and asks his servants to leave him alone while he ‘made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard.’ The beauty is that the final episode, the apparent climax, is as terse as the first: secret weeping is no different in this account from public weeping, and revelation is as hidden as disguise. Joseph is no longer hidden from his brothers but he is still hidden from the reader: that surely is the thrust of the narration. And note, too, how our desire to witness this open crying, to bathe in authorial emotion, is reticently, and very movingly, transferred to another, less involved audience: ‘and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard.’

I quoted from the King James Version here, but Alter’s translation honours both the text’s grave simplicity and its almost novelistic attention to different literary registers. Abraham’s wife, Sarah, is for a long time barren, so she proposes that her maid Hagar sleep with Abraham to provide him with an heir. Hagar conceives, and when she sees that she is pregnant, ‘her mistress was despised in her eyes.’ It is one of those intensely human biblical moments: the servant, proud of her plump fertility, cannot but help look down on her withered mistress. But Alter improves on the King James Version’s ‘despised’: ‘And she saw that she had conceived and her mistress seemed slight in her eyes.’ That ‘slight’, for obvious reasons, is very subtle.

Or take the little adjustment Alter makes to the Jacob and Esau tale. Esau is so hungry for the lentils that his brother has that he sells his birthright for a mess of pottage: ‘And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage: for I am faint.’ Alter’s version is more literal, and more natural: ‘And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me gulp down some of this red red stuff, for I am famished.”’ In a footnote, he explains his choice:

Although the Hebrew of the dialogues in the Bible reflects the same level of normative literary language as the surrounding narration, here the writer comes close to assigning substandard Hebrew to the rude Esau. The famished brother cannot even come up with the ordinary Hebrew word for ‘stew’ (nazid) and instead points to the bubbling pot impatiently as (literally) ‘this red red’. The verb he uses for gulping down occurs nowhere else in the Bible, but in rabbinic Hebrew it is reserved for the feeding of animals.

There are many examples like this of choices deeply pondered and painstakingly explained; reading Alter’s scripture is a slow business only because one stops so often to put down into the well of one of his life-giving footnotes.

Though the King James Version is sometimes inaccurate, it is generally thought to be, of all English translations, the one that best captures the quiddity of the Hebrew. Early 17th-century English – and mid-16th-century English, since the KJV stands on the shoulders of Tyndale, Coverdale and Cranmer – was not afraid of anti-sentimental reticence (my favourite is perhaps Exodus 13.17, ‘And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword’); it followed the parataxis of the Hebrew narration, the ‘and’ that so often begins a new verse or clause; it understood, as a literary principle, that to repeat a word can be enrichment not exhaustion, and that repetition subtly changes the sense of the repeated word if not its sound (modern versions, like the flat Revised Standard Version, invariably flee from repetition); and it relished the pungent physicality of Hebrew, which often inheres in the verbs.

Alter’s translation brings delight because it follows the precepts of the committees of King James, but is founded on a greatly deeper conversance with Hebrew than the great 17th-century scholars could summon. (No Jew was involved in the King James committees.) And Alter, who has been at the forefront of the rise of what might be called literary biblical studies, and who has educated two or three generations of students and readers in the art of biblical appreciation, brings to his own English a scholarly comprehension of the capacities of literary usage. In his introduction he rightly says that among the great 20th-century English stylists like Joyce, Woolf, Nabokov, Faulkner – he might have added Lawrence, by far the most biblical writer of 20th-century English – ‘there is not one among them whose use of language, including the deployment of syntax, even vaguely resembles the workaday simplicity and patly consistent orderliness that recent translators of the Bible have posited as the norm of modern English.’ Thus Alter is happy to follow the precedent of the KJV when he feels that it cannot be bettered: his Adam also ‘knew’ Eve, and his Israelites also ‘murmured against’ Moses in the wilderness and lament that they have left behind ‘the fleshpots’ of Egypt. As ever, he usefully defends his reasons. About the ‘fleshpots’, he writes: ‘The Hebrew indicates something like a cauldron in which meat is cooked, but the King James Version’s rendering of “fleshpots” (“flesh” of course meaning “meat” in 17th-century English) has become proverbial in the language and deserves to be retained.’ Well, it became proverbial, but is it still? The word always makes me smile because when I was growing up, albeit in a highly scriptural household, my family used to talk of my grandparents’ house – where I was allowed unlimited sweets – as the ‘fleshpots of Egypt’.

Especially fine is the way Alter seems to dig into the earth of the Hebrew to recover, in English, its fearless tactility. When Pharaoh has his first dream, of seven good ears of corn and seven bad, ‘his heart pounded’, which, Alter informs us in a footnote, follows the Hebrew, whose literal meaning is ‘his spirit pounded.’ (The usually concrete KJV has the softer ‘his spirit was troubled.’) The dream comes to pass, and there are seven fat years and seven lean years. ‘During the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth abundantly,’ runs the Revised Standard Version, itself a wan starveling of the more robust and accurate KJV: ‘And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls.’ But Alter is more daring, and more literal: ‘And the land in the seven years of plenty made gatherings.’ A footnote girds the apparent oddity of ‘gatherings’:

The Hebrew qematsim elsewhere means ‘handfuls’, and there is scant evidence that it means ‘abundance’, as several modern versions have it. But qomets is a ‘handful’ because it is what the hand gathers in as it closes, and it is phonetically and semantically cognate with wayiqbots, ‘he collected’, the very next verb in the Hebrew text. The likely reference here, then, is not to small quantities (handfuls) but to the process of systematically gathering in the grain, as the next sentence spells out.

Or take the moment at the end of Chapter 2 of Exodus, where the Bible-writer tells us that God began to hear the groaning of the Israelites in their Egyptian bondage: ‘So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them,’ says the New International Version. The King James has: ‘And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.’ Alter has: ‘And God saw the Israelites, and God knew.’ Notice that the New International Version shies away from repeating the word ‘God’, something that fazes neither the KJV nor Alter. But Alter’s reading is at once elegantly emphatic – ‘and God knew’ – and accurate. He informs us that the Hebrew verb has no object, and that Greek translators mistakenly tried to ‘correct’ it. How majestic and indeed divine that objectless ‘knew’ is. And Alter’s version allows one to make new connections with biblical-sounding texts. Saul Bellow, who grew up reading the Hebrew Bible, and whose English was profoundly influenced by both the Tanakh and the King James Version, was very fond of that objectless verb ‘knew’. Tommy Wilhelm, the hero of Seize the Day, is haplessly surrounded by people he fears are the kinds of people who ‘know’ (as opposed to the confused hero): ‘Rubin was the kind of man who knew, and knew and knew,’ Tommy thinks to himself. Mr Sammler’s Planet ends with the eponymous hero reflecting that he has met the terms of his life-contract, those terms ‘that we all know, God, that we know, that we know, we know, we know’. This always sounded biblical to me, but Alter’s translation of the line in Exodus has given me chapter and verse.

…

ISSN 0260-9592 Copyright © LRB Ltd., 1997-2008

Genesis Commentary in Traditional Chinese Style/ 对《圣经•创世记》的金圣叹式评点

十年磨一剑。高峰枫在加州大学伯克利钻研圣经学，回国后在此文中“拿西方第一经典《圣经》‘动刀’”，作为“燔祭”献给我国传统文学批评方法，真是“快哉快哉”。关于动“刀”之文，还让我想起古人一篇短的：

聊斋志异•快刀

明末济属多盗，邑各置兵，捕得辄杀之。章丘盗尤多。有一兵佩刀甚利，杀辄导窾。一日捕盗十余名，押赴市曹。内一盗识兵，逡巡告曰：“闻君刀最快，斩首无二割。求杀我！”兵曰：“诺。其谨依我，无离也。”盗从之刑处，出刀挥之，豁然头落。数步之外犹圆转，而大赞曰：“好快刀！”

亚伯拉罕杀子的故事

高峰枫

《读书》2003.3

……

不知为什么，每当我读亚伯拉罕这段放事，总会不由自主地想到《水浒》，特别是被金圣叹批过的那部《水浒》。我总觉得用批《水浒》的方式来注解亚伯拉罕杀子故事，于义理和文章都可以兼顾。克尔凯郭尔曾说：“亚伯拉罕故事之奇绝处在于，不管人们对它的理解有多么充分，它永远是一段光辉的故事。”读到这样的话，我也就不用在乎自己的理解有多么的浅陋了。下面我将以评点的形式来批注《创世记》第二十二章前十六节。《圣经》中译文是通行的“和合本”，个别字句根据 Robert Alter 的最新英文译注本(诺顿，一九九五年)稍加改动。批语融合上述各家意见，也参照一些《旧约》学者的注释(人名和书目此处不一一列出)，笔法则着意模仿金圣叹。

采用我国古典小说批评来剖析希伯来经典，除了向金圣叹这位文学怪才致意之外，还有另一层含义。二十世纪八十年代以来，西方现代文学批评夹杂着吵闹声源源不断输入我国，这些舶来品当中哪些是精华，哪些是糟粕，我们现在应该看得稍稍清楚一些了。至于这些五花八门的理论对我国学术本身是否有什么积极的影响，前景似乎不容乐观。但是我们固有的传统文学批评除了专业学者之外，似乎无人问津。而下面的评点就是想来印证传统小说批评威力巨大。我们就是要拿西方第一经典《圣经》“动刀”，而且还是希伯来圣经的首卷，希望能有一些象征意义。以批《水浒》的鬼才来注《创世记》，我们可以看到小说评点不仅不输于其他光怪陆离的文论，而且完全可以吸收、消化、甚至改造西方的经书。

这些事以后，（将上文一笔代过。） 神要试验亚伯拉罕，（劈手写来。无半点征兆。没头没脑。妙。）就呼叫他说：（鹘突。不写何时何地，完全跳脱于时空之外。确是真神。）“亚伯拉罕!” 他说： （神从无何有之乡呼叫。亚伯拉罕亦是在无何有之乡应答。）“我在这里。”（此句全文凡三现。亚伯拉罕对神。以撒。天使无不应以此句。读者需留意。）神说： “你带着你的儿子，（哪个儿子。）就是你独生的、（独子。）你所爱的（爱子。）以撒（东说西说。最后方点出名姓。）往摩利亚地去，在我所要指示你的山上， 把他献为燔祭。”（骇人。）

亚伯拉罕清早起来，（神妙之笔。神不说破原因。亚伯拉罕亦不追问。一句清早起来。何等悠闲。又是何等动人心魄。）备上驴，（细。）带着两个小厮（细。）和他儿子以撒，（儿子字样反复出现。需留意。）也劈好了燔祭的柴，（点出有刀。）就起身往神所指示的地方去 了。（看他慢慢写来。全似无事人一个。）到了第三日，（于路程只字不提。真吓煞人也。）亚伯拉罕举目远远看见那地方。亚伯拉罕对他的小厮说：“你们和驴在此等候，我与童子往那里去拜一拜，就回到你们这里来。”（支开旁人。） 亚伯拉罕把燔祭的柴放在他儿子以撒身上，自己手里拿着火与刀，（自己拿着危险物事。借此可略窥亚伯拉罕心事。）于是二人同行。（一老一少。一个手持利刃。一背负柴薪。一个满腹心事。一个浑然不觉。父只要杀子。子只要听从。）以撒对他父亲亚伯拉罕说：（看他句句不离儿子。父亲。）“父亲哪!”（叫得亲切。）亚伯拉罕说：“我儿，（答得也亲切。）我在这里。”（又是这句。）以撒说：“请看，火与柴都有了，但燔祭的羊羔在哪里呢？”（小孩子家恁地精细。莫非已生疑。）亚伯拉罕说：“我儿，（又是一句我儿。令人泪下。）神必自己预备作燔祭的羊羔。”（语带玄机。）于是二人同行。（又一句二人同行。父要送子上黄泉路。）

他们到了神所指示的地方，（字字紧扣神。）亚伯拉罕在那里筑坛，把柴摆好，捆绑他的儿子以撒，放在坛的柴上。（筑坛。摆柴。捆子。有条不紊。笔法狠辣之极。）亚伯拉罕就伸手拿刀，（一切收拾停当。霍地抽出刀来。令人心惊肉跳。）要杀他的儿子。（局面至此。真真是回天乏术。野猪林中胖大和尚安在。）耶和华的使者从天上呼叫他说：（又是一声呼叫。）“亚伯拉罕!亚伯拉罕！”（连声呼叫。足见情势危急。）他说：“我在这里。”（不管天塌地陷。只是这句。）天使说；“你不可在这童子身上下手，一点不可害他。（两番制止。以见危急。）现在我知道你是敬畏神的了，因为你没有将你的儿子、就是你独生的儿子（回应最初的试探。）留下不给我。”亚伯拉罕举目观看，（前番举目观看。看到以撒的刑场。此番举目观看。看到替罪羊。两番举目观看。读者于此等处断不可轻轻放过。）不料，有一只公羊，两角扣在稠密的小树中，亚伯拉罕就取了那只公羊来，献为燔祭，代替他的儿子。（以儿子结此一段奇文。）