The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the

The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible

A dazzling reconsideration of the original languages and texts of the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments, from the acclaimed scholar and translator of Classical literature (â€œThe best translation of the Aeneid, certainly the best of our timeâ€ â€”Ursula Le Guin; â€œThe first translation since Dryden that can be read as a great English poem in itselfâ€ â€”Garry Wills, The New York Review of Books) and author of Paul Among the People (â€œAstonishing . . . Superbâ€ â€”Booklist, starred review).Â

In The Face of Water, Sarah Ruden brilliantly and elegantly explains and celebrates the Bibleâ€™s writings. Singling out the most famous passages, such as the Genesis creation story, the Ten Commandments, the Lordâ€™s Prayer, and the Beatitudes, Ruden reexamines and retranslates from the Hebrew and Greek what has been obscured and misunderstood over time.Â

Making clear that she is not a Biblical scholar, cleric, theologian, or philosopher, Rudenâ€”a Quakerâ€”speaks plainly in this illuminating and inspiring book. She writes that while the Bible has always mattered profoundly, it is a book that in modern translations often lacks vitality, and she sets out here to make it less a thing of paper and glue and ink and more a live and loving text.Â

Ruden writes of the early evolution, literary beauty, and transcendent ideals of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament, exploring how the Jews came to establish the greatest, most enduring book on earth as their regional strategic weakness found a paradoxical moral and spiritual strength through their writings, and how the Christians inherited and adapted this remarkable literary tradition. She writes as well about the crucial purposes of translation, not only for availability of texts but also for accountability in public life and as a reflection of societyâ€™s current concerns.Â

She shows that it is the original texts that most clearly reveal our cherished values (both religious and secular), unlike the standard English translations of the Bible that mask even the yearning for freedom from slavery. The word â€œredemptionâ€ translated from Hebrew and Greek, meaning mercy for the exploited and oppressed, is more abstract than its original meaningâ€”to buy a person back from captivity or slavery or some other distress.Â

The Face of WaterÂ is as much a book about poetry, music, drama, raw humor, and passion as it is about the idealism of the Bible. Rudenâ€™s book gives us an unprecedented, nuanced understanding of what this extraordinary document was for its earliest readers and what it can still be for us today
Country USA
Manufacturer Vintage
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2017-03-28
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Vintage
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2017-03-28
Format	Kindle eBook

The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible

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