Robert Alter makes the point that modern English translations of the Bible tend to abstract physical imagery and metaphor. There are a number of examples of this. For instance, the translating of the word “seed” as “offspring.” Or the phrase “hot of nose” being replaced with “wrath” or “hot anger” (see Ex. 32:19, Lam. 4:11 as a couple of examples among many). Or the phrase “he who pisses against the wall” being replaced with “male” (see 1 Sam. 25:22, 34 among other passages).
Alter writes,
One of the most salient characteristics of biblical Hebrew is extraordinary concreteness, manifested especially in a fondness for images rooted in the human body. The general predisposition of modern translators is to convert most of this concrete language into more abstract terms that have the purported advantage of clarity but turn the pungency of the original into stale paraphrases
Gerald Hammond tartly observes, ‘eschew anything which smacks of imagery or metaphor – based on the curious assumption, I guess, that modern English is an image-free language.’
– Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, pp. xix, xx
One of the reasons I’ve found myself over the years struggling with metaphor, imagery, and imagination is that so much theological literature is devoid of it. This issue is compounded if our Bible translators follow the pattern. But if you look at the teachings of Jesus, and of the Bible as a whole, they’re remarkably full of imagery and metaphor. James Harleman imagines someone talking about Jesus’s sermons:
Why is this guy talking about a farmer? I wanted esoteric spiritual truths!
What’s this crap about mustard seeds?
Where are my bullet point steps for getting in good graces with God?
Why doesn’t this Jesus guy just give us an acronym with the keys for successful living?
-James Harleman, Cinemagogue, pp. 71-72
Jesus didn’t use image-free language. We need to learn how to go “on the body” (as minimalists writers put it) in our speech and how to understand such language in our reading and listening. Or else we may really end up saying, “What’s all this crap about mustard seeds?”
