Mourning the Septuagint

Today (the eighth of Tevet) is the anniversary of the order by Ptolemy for a translation of the Hebrew Bible (and apocrypha) to be made into Greek, resulting in the Septuagint. According to legend, he took 70 or 72 Jewish translators and put them in separate rooms and, miraculously, they all produced the exact same translation. The Septuagint is important for scholarly biblical study and was used by many Jewish and Christian communities as scripture (and still is today in some Christian churches).

Yet this translation is regarded as a tragic event by the rabbis and is even commemorated in the selichot, or penitential liturgy, for the Tenth of Tevet, a fast day observed two days later, among other events being mourned. The prayer states, “A Greek king compelled me to translate the holy Law into Greek; the plowers plowed upon my back, they made long their furrows.” (The second half of the prayer is taken from Psalm 129.) Ironically, this is taken from an English translation of selichot from 1912, and there are certainly translations into the vernacular of the Torah put out by even the most Orthodox communities. Anything that increases people’s access to sacred scripture can only be seen as a blessing – even as anything that takes people away from the original text leads to a loss of understanding and access to that text.

Having studied Hebrew, I can attest that there are layers of meaning that are not accessible in other languages. Something is, indeed, lost in translation. Learning the original language is important to plumbing the depths of the text and understanding its riches. There are connections between words in Semitic languages such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic that are not readily apparent in other languages – there are even puns! The study of Hebrew is a very worthwhile pursuit for anyone wanting to read the Bible.

But I think the commemoration of the translation of the Septuagint as a tragedy points to something deeper – which is that the communication of Divine revelation must always be translated into language understandable by human beings, and there are depths of meaning and revelation that are inevitably lost. Even if one sees the Torah or other sacred scripture (regardless of one’s religious tradition – this applies to the scriptures of any and all religions) as being a perfect revelation, there is a translation that occurs by those who read it into their own life experiences – even by those who have a perfect understanding of the language. There is a gap between Divine revelation and human understanding – and even more between revelation and living out the commands we are given by that revelation. We have an obligation to understand and act in response to God’s communication to us to the best of our ability – even knowing that in this world, those will always be imperfect.

So may we rejoice in revelation wherever it is to be found – even as we mourn our imperfect understanding and response to that revelation.