Thursday, March 19, 2009

Numbers 5: first try at a wordplay for wordplay translation

Below, I think you can just click on the image of a page to enlarge and read it. It's my first try at a wordplay for wordplay translation of Numbers 5. I'm working from both a Hebrew (masoret) text and a Hellene (Greek Septuagint) text, following the latter primarily.

The goal is to have an English text I can work with as I comment on "Numbers 5" over at Aristotle's Feminist Subject (another blog of mine). I started a series of commentary there but need a more focused reference. (The first post just mentioned a one-word wordplay that I'll come back to now - the post? "Like Waterboarding for Chocolate"). I've been looking at Julia Smith's and Robert Alter's more literal translations of the Hebrew and Lancelot Brenton's and Peter Flint's more or less literal translations of the Greek.

The only thing by way of commentary here I should note is that I've [CAPPED AND PUT IN BRACKETS] any translation of the wordplay of Hebrew. The rest is my translating of the Septuagint translators' translating of some Hebrew (whether it's the masoretic text show or some other).