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Samuel David Luzzatto Open Theology 2016; 2: 476–493 Bible Translation Open Access Leonard J. Greenspoon* Between Text and Commentary: A Characteristic Feature of Jewish Bible Versions DOI 10.1515/opth-2016-0039 Received April 9, 2016; accepted April 29, 2016 Abstract: Jewish versions of the Bible frequently feature extensive commentaries in addition to translated text. In many instances these commentaries elicit as much attention as the translation itself—if not more. Typically combining grammatical and exegetical remarks, these commentaries accompany both freer and more literal renderings and may contain non-Jewish and non-traditional commentators along with substantial offerings from mainstream Jewish exegetes. The erudition displayed by these Jewish translators is extensive, often aimed at a more learned audience than the translated text itself. Overall, such Jewish versions may be seen as efforts to open up for non-Hebrew readers the intentionally ambiguous language of the original, where lexical and grammatical multivalence are characteristic features—features that are frequently lost when rendering words and expressions from one language to another. Keywords: Bible translation, Robert Alter, Saadiah Gaon, Moses Mendelssohn, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Samuel David Luzzatto In a prominent review of Robert Alter’s translation of the Pentateuch, distinguished American author John Updike complains of the “sheer amount of accompanying commentary and philological footnotes” that accompanied the translated text itself. In this regard (as well as in others) he compares Alter unfavorably to “the fifty-four churchmen and scholars” who supplied “English readers with a self-explanatory [English] text”; that is, the King James Version. Continuing with his observations, Updike speaks of what he terms the “overload of elucidation [that Alter] imposed upon the basic text.” For Updike, it is “Alter’s more academic and literary commission [that] allows him to luxuriate in the forked possibilities of the Hebrew text.”1 But here Updike is disingenuous at best, downright prejudiced at worst. As a well-known observer of and participant in Protestant America, Updike liked his Bible commentary-free. But Jewish translations, as Updike was bound to know, have almost always been accompanied by commentary; in fact, many were subservient to the commentary. This was true with Saadiah Gaon in Arabic, Moses Mendelssohn in German, Leopold Zunz and David Philippson in German, Samson Raphael Hirsch also in German, Samuel Cahen in French, Samuel David Luzzatto in Italian, and Richard Eliot Friedman in English, among many others. In fact, I sometimes think that the Aramaic text of the Targumim, as transmitted to us, is a result of commentary incorporated into the text rather than under or beside it. Be that as it may, this approach to Bible translating is, at it were, an answer to the reproach of those Talmudic rabbis who criticized the Septuagint or, more broadly, those who emphasized what translations 1 Updike, “The Great I Am.” *Corresponding author: Leonard J. Greenspoon, Creighton University, Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization, Omaha, Nebraska, USA; e-mail: [email protected] © 2016 Leonard J. Greenspoon, published by De Gruyter Open. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. Between Text and Commentary: A Characteristic Feature of Jewish Bible Versions 477 could never be, instead of acknowledging the unique value of this process. We will feature specific examples of such critiques in the closing paragraphs of this article. Saadiah Gaon: Bible Translation into Arabic Saadiah ben Yosef al-Fayyumi Gaon was born in 882 at a site in Lower Egypt. Few details are known of his upbringing and early life in Egypt. However, it appears that from a relatively young age he profited from an education that combined traditional Jewish learning with fields of study, such as philosophy and grammar, in which Islamic scholars excelled. It may even be that Saadiah began his first attempts at Bible translation while still living in Egypt. At some point, not later than 915, Saadiah moved to Palestine. While there, he sided with the Babylonian leadership in a significant calendrical dispute between them and the Palestinian authorities. This was one of the reasons, along with acknowledged erudition, why six years later he was welcomed into Babylonia. In 928 he was selected as gaon (that is, head) of the Sura academy, one of the two major centers of learning among Babylonian Jews. For political and family reasons, Saadiah was forced to step down as gaon in 932, only to be re-installed at a later period. It is generally agreed that the majority of Saadiah’s efforts at Bible translation took place during the always busy, often tumultuous years of his residence in Babylonia.2 He died in 942. For Saadiah, it was important that the three major intellectual emphases of his life—the Bible (Written and Oral), Rabbanite (as opposed to Karaite) exegesis and interpretation of the biblical text,3 and philosophy—stand together, such that the insights from one branch of learning would not contradict those obtained through the other two. Among the major goals of Saadiah’s Arabic version of the Bible, then, was the demonstration that, when properly understood, no passage of the Bible contradicted any other passage, any element of traditional exegesis, or any tenet of the philosophical system that Saadiah had constructed.4 Saadiah himself referred to his work with the Arabic term tafsir, which aligns more closely to our word “commentary” than to “translation.”5 And indeed Saadiah initially composed his “translation” as the starting point for his often extensive and digressive commentary. It appears that even during his lifetime, the “translation” part of his “commentary” began to appear separately (either in its original or in a revised form) for purposes of 2 In his influential work, Saadiah Gaon: His Life and Works, 141-142, Henry Malter states: “In all probability [Saadiah] began while he was still in Egypt, to make translations of Biblical books accompanied with commentaries and continued this work in the following periods of his vicissitudinous life, changing, correcting, and enlarging the exegetical portions as his knowledge increased.” In the view of Polliack (The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation, 77), “It is likely Saadiah began composing his Arabic Bible versions after leaving Egypt, possibly while residing in Tiberias.” 3 The term “Rabbanite,” virtually synonymous with the broader designation “rabbinic,” is often used to distinguish the mainstream of Jewish leadership and thought from the Karaites, a significant rival group during this time period. Karaites did not accept the authority or the interpretations of Rabbanite Judaism, preferring to rely on their understanding of the Hebrew Bible, an understanding based on the careful reading of the text by each individual. 4 Thus, L. E. Goodman (“Saadiah Gaon’s Interpretive Technique in Translating the Book of Job,” 55) speaks of “three assumptions [that] orient Saadiah’s exegetical method as a translator…(a) the ultimate coherence of the scriptural canon, (b) the significance and intelligibility of the text, and (c) the veracity of the text. All of these are corollaries of the divine inspiration of the Torah.”More expansively, David M. Freidenreich (“The Use of Islamic Sources in Saadiah Gaon’s Tafsir of the Torah,” 393) enumerates “the five objectives of Saadiah in writing the Tafsir: To provide an Arabic rendering of the ‘plain sense of Torah,’ to educate and guide the assimilated masses of his day, to provide a translation of the Torah in accord with reason, to provide a translation of the Torah in accord with rabbinic tradition, to refute heretical and Karaite beliefs.”On this, Polliack (The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation, 86) writes: “Saadiah’s translation methodology was bound up with his general scheme of scriptural interpretation. This scheme was meant to harmonize between the revealed text of Scripture and other sources of human knowledge. It enabled the Hebrew Bible to be presented as a text which withstands the test of logic, and so came to the defence of traditional Jewish faith whose precepts were being undermined at the time by members of other religions, agnostics and heretics. The need to draw rabbinic tradition into this interpretive system…was mostly a reaction against the Karaite adherence to Scripture alone as the only binding source for Jewish religious practice.” 5 Polliack, The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation, 86: “Saadiah’s awareness of the interpretive nature of his translation of the Pentateuch may explain its designation as tafsir, a term which better conveys this sense than the term tarjamah [which usually describes a simple, straightforward translation].” 478 L.J. Greenspoon popular consumption, inasmuch as the “translation” with “commentary” would have been a bulky work (both physically and intellectually). But, in fact, even the general reader had, probably unknowingly, considerable access to Saadiah’s exegetical prowess, since interpretive renderings—which indeed would have been explained in some detail in the formal commentary—found their way into the text itself. Thus, in Genesis 6:2 the “sons of God” become “sons of nobles”; their coupling, then, is not a matter of divine beings/angels and humans, but rather a mixture of human classes. Admittedly, the first verses of Genesis 6 in the Hebrew stimulate all sorts of speculation. For Saadiah, however, that speculation was not necessary. And readers of his text would likewise be spared such concerns—after all, the Arabic lacked the intentional ambiguity of the Hebrew.6 In like manner, Job’s adversary (not Adversary) was a mere mortal. See for example, his rendering of Job 1:6: “When it was the day that God’s beloved came and presented themselves before Him, Job’s adversary was present along with them.” This was in keeping with Saadiah’s view that all occurrences of the Hebrew term “satan” referred to a human.7 (Cf.
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