LOST/LASTING IN TRANSLATION:WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LAUGHING ISAAC (GENESIS 17-26)

KAROLIEN VERMEULEN

The Hebrew Bible – like every story, whether it is considered fiction, reality or something in-between – has protagonists. These leading figures bear names like “Adam” and “Eve”, “Cain” and “Abel”, “David” and “Jonathan”. In most languages these names sound almost the same as in Hebrew, except for some minor phonetic changes. However, a long tradition of Bible translations, with proper nouns as the unchanging constant in an always-evolving process, tends to make us forget about the role of the name in the original text. More than a way to denote a specific person in the story, names are linked to other words: their sound and visual form, and even their meaning, are played upon. Sometimes very explicit, it is often a rather subtle second voice.1 These name-games are not specific to the Bible, but constitute a broader device widespread and loved in the ancient Near Eastern world and in antiquity in general, and one can find similar examples in Akkadian, Egyptian, and Sumerian literature, as well as

 1 On name games in the Bible, their characteristics and functions, see Ian Eybers, “The Use of Proper Names as a Stylistic Device”, Semitics, 2 (1971-72); Johannes Fichtner, “Die Etymologische Ätiologie in den Namengebungen der Geschichtlichen Bücher des Alten Testaments”, Vetus Testamentum, VI/4 (1956), 372-96; Moshe Garsiel, Biblical Names: A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns, Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991; Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, New York: Basic Books, 1981; Richard S. Hess, “Issues in the Study of Personal Names in the Hebrew Bible”, Currents in Research: Biblical Studies, 6 (1998), 169- 92; Herbert Barry III and Jared Jackson, “Names in the Hebrew Bible”, Names: A Journal of Onomastics, LV/4 (December 2007), 372-78; Gary Rendsburg, “Word Play in Biblical Hebrew: An Eclectic Collection” and Scott Noegel, “Drinking Feasts and Deceptive Feats: Jacob and Laban’s Double Talk”, both in Puns and Pundits: Wordplay in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Literature, ed. Scott Noegel, Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2000. 166 Karolien Vermeulen in Greek and Latin sources.2 Their importance and function in literary works is the written exteriorization of a cultural phenomenon and belief that gave the name and all processes relating to it, such as name-giving, immense power.3 Nomen est omen was an everyday reality, not merely a Latin quote from a Roman writer of comedies.4 Therefore names in stories tended to be much more than names, and playing upon them was a serious matter of transmitting meaning, strengthening the internal cohesion of the plot, transgressing taboos, and expressing prophetic (or at least teleological) aspirations. This fundamental function of the proper name in the Hebrew Bible seems to be diametrically opposed to, and for that reason incompatible with, the usual attitude towards names in the translation process, which tends to transliterate, instead of translate, them.5 The immediate consequence of such an approach is the loss of all wordplay involving names, since the elements that take part in the play are not treated in the same way. Moreover, the device of wordplay itself – which combines language-specific elements such as form and sound with more universal elements, such as meaning – is considered a stumbling block in a translation process.6 This essay traces the play with names by focusing on the example of Isaac in biblical Hebrew, and compares  2 For examples in Greek or Latin, see Wytse H. Keulen, “Significant Names in Apuleius: A ‘Good Contriver’ and His Rival in the Cheese Trade (MET. 1, 5)”, Mnemosyne, LIII/3 (2000), 310-21; Frederick Ahl, Metaformations: Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985. More examples in ancient Near Eastern languages can be found in Puns and Pundits. 3 See Karen Radner, Die Macht des Namens: Altorientalische Strategien zur Selbsterhaltung (SANTAG: Arbeiten und Untersuchungen zur Keilschriftkunde, Volume VIII), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006; Puns and Pundits; and Garsiel, Biblical Names. 4 The comedy writer Titus Maccius was the first to use this expression in his play (3rd-2nd century BC): “Nomen atque omen quantivis iam est preti” (“the name and the omen are worth any price”), in Plautus, Comoediae II: , Mostellaria, Persa, , , Stichus, Trinymus, , Vidularia, Fragmenta, ed. Wallace Lindsay, Oxford: E Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1903, v. 625. 5 Peter Newmark, “Names as a Translation Problem”, in Translation: An International Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, eds Armin Paul Frank, Norbert Greiner, Theo Hermans et al., Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004, I, 527-30. 6 On translating wordplay, see Dirk Delabastita’s Traductio: Essays on Punning and Translation, Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 1997 and “Wordplay as a Translation Problem: A Linguistic Perspective”, in Translation, 600-606.