Imagine coming across an essay called On Translating God's Name. Could you ignore it and move on to something more conventional and less esoteric or would the subject matter intrigue you? If you’re seeking a challenge, pick up the article written by David Goldstein and be prepared to be perplexed and frustrated but certainly philosophically stretched. And entertained.The article starts with a description of the etymology of the word 'cabal' giving both the negative and positive uses of the word and its derivatives. It then moves to other examples of short phrases, images and two-word oxymorons that have multiple or convoluted meanings and these explanations are book-ended by snippets of facts that give the reader hope that information about translating God's name is possible. Not so fast.
The article is made up of two layers of explication that cannot be decoupled and discussed separately because the subject matter is non-linear and highly poetic: first, the Zohar is a series of commentaries on the foundational texts of an ancient religion, the words of which are multi-definitional and so can be made to refer to numerous ideas or situations or moral positions. Second, the author is suggesting that the translation of the original text and the subsequent commentaries (commentaries on the commentaries are still being written and are therefore in need of translation too) is subject to the near-impossible task of finding English words equivalent to the ancient Semitic ones.
I am not without bible fire-power myself. Matthew tells us that John the Baptist announces that while he is baptising people with water, someone is coming who 'shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire'. That would be Jesus Christ. And the fire could also be a premonition of the fires that martyrs will be facing once the pagan backlash begins in late empire Rome. And today the phrase means jumping into a new situation unprepared. So, non-Biblical experts who enjoy reading about the construction of religious ideas and those who like complex wordplay take heed but tackle the text — the universe described is worth trying to unpack but it will most assuredly be a baptism by fire.
On Translating God's Name by David Goldstein appears in The Translator's Art, Essays in Honour of Betty Radice, edited by William Radice and Barbara Reynolds
