This will be the first post in a series of meditations on religion. I had an idea for a short story (which I am incapable of actually writing) that expresses what I see as the paradox of religion. I think an obvious debt to Borges will probably be detected.
A scholar in ancient Alexandria is comissioned to translate a holy text from Hebrew to Greek. He is cloistered in his chamber for an indefinite period, laboring over the translation. We are introduced to his thoughts, and he is a very particular, passionate, fractious individual who is stewing over one perceived slight or another by king or priest, and whose theological leanings consequently do not tend toward the universal; perhaps he is even gradually shown to inhabit the ultimate privacy of madness. We would probably focus on one particular passage, and we would be shown the rationale for his translation, and taken through the succesive stages of the latter. He is a man with axes to grind, politically and theologically. Maybe his translation is primarily conceived as an act of revenge. On the other hand, maybe he is trying to surreptetiously introduce a certain antinomianism due to private theological preferences, or even social or sexual leanings.
After his translation is completed, he is summoned before Ptolemy along with the other scholars who, of course, are the 70 translators responsible for the Septuagint, and we see that all 70 translations are identical.
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4 comments:
Ok, I really didn't understand this entry. I think I am just to grounded in the "concrete" and "real". Or possibly just not all that bright. I did mention that Chris did not put either the Ramones or David Allen Coe in his favorite bands list. What is up with that, dawg?
Or perhaps, if you threw in a murdered nun or something, it could be the basis for an Umberto Ecco-esque novel.
Chris, your blog is now going to keep me from getting ANY work done.
I never said anything about "great."
Lukey,
The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew bible done in Alexandria sometime in the first or second century BC. The story goes that 70 (or 72?) scholars translated the entire Hebrew bible, sequestered from one another, and when they came together and compared notes, they had produced 70 (or 72?) identical translations.
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