Anglican church

[qatarperegrine]

Mum recently sent me this news article: Qatar Getting First Christian Church.

They really mean Qatar Getting First Christian Church Building, but oh well.

The only thing I know about the architecture is that the narthex will feature carvings of Psalm 100:4a ("Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise") in all the languages spoken by members of the congregation. Father Ian asked us to bring in translations a couple months ago.

Comments

Psalm 100 quote

[rabbi-t.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the correction that it should say church building. While we're being sensitive to words, is there any chance to use a different translation? One that is more gender sensitive?

By the way, the article about Qatar appeared on the religion page in today's paper, including a computer rendition of the building. It was below an article and picture of a beautiful mosque (building?) in Dearborn Mich

Re: Psalm 100 quote

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Gender-sensitive language has definitely NOT hit the Gulf.

Heck, ordaining women hasn't hit the Gulf yet...

I'm curious

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

How WOULD you prefer it translated? The only way I can see to make it gender neutral, without completely butchering the text, would be to substitute "his" with "G-d's". But there are those who would say that the word/name "G-d", is itself masculine. In any case, the "and" between the two expressions, is NOT present in the Hebrew text.

Re: I'm curious

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I won't speak for my Dad, but here's my preferred translation:

"Enter God's gates with thanksgiving, God's courts with praise."

Even your translation inserts the word "and." :-) That doesn't bug me much -- if I were doing a rigorous textual analysis of this passage I'd be reading it in Hebrew anyway, so it's OK with me if they change the grammar for the English to sound more, well, English.

"God" isn't a gendered word in the same way that, say, "Elohim" is. In English we have a gender-neutral option that isn't available in Hebrew, and I don't have any problem exercising that option. If there were a personal neuter pronoun, that would be better, but I don't think "Enter its gates" really works. :-D

I'm curious: would you prefer to preserve the gendered nature of all Hebrew words in English, or just ones referring to the Divine? Should we translate the verse "Enter his male-gates with female-thanksgiving, his male-courts with female-praise"?

Re: I'm curious

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

IMHO, this is more an issue of "language as a medium of culture" than "proper-translation" or anything else, so I understand why people prefer the references to G-d in the English translation of the Bible to be gender-neutral, and don't have any "problem" with this. In fact, I too, find it preferable in many ways, because of these cultural differences.

The cultural differences inherent in the language that I refer to, which (of course) some authorities (which I'm not) will dispute, is that while Hebrew does indeed assign "gender" value to practically ALL words and parts of speech, we are actually, much less "concerned" with gender, than English is. Men and women are different and thus do things differently (thus verbs and adjectives are affected by the gender of the subject). Nu, end of story. A wall {Kir} is [IIRC] female, while the rocks {Even} that compose it are male. Why this is so, and not vice versa, I have no idea, but I am certain this implies nothing to do with their general worth or comparative whatever.

In English, on the other hand, much "importance" [and "baggage"] is attached to gender, practically to the extent of obsession in modern times. So I would actually prefer references to the Divine be gender-neutral in English (or similar tongues), to counter the [stern] bearded old man image of G-d, that many [non-Jewish] authorities try to evoke.

"My" translation is that of the "JPS 1917 Edition", which is the one all Jewish sites use, due to more recent and more accurate ones, all being copyright protected. While the Jewish Publication Society may possibly be considered more main-stream these days, it was/is mostly affiliated with the Reform movement. As such, [this] their first translation is heavily based on the Christian KJV and ASB translations with certain problems in those version "fixed", rather than doing it from scratch, as an Orthodox body would have, and as they too later did.

In general, translating the "gendered nature of all Hebrew words" into English, would be just rather pointless, because all it would do, is make the text impossible to read, without adding anything actual to it. The Talmud tells us, that while it was admitted to be necessary due to exile induced ignorance, the [forced] translation of the Torah into Greek - the Septuagint, was a cause for great mourning.

The only change I would make to your preffered translation is to add the word "Come" at the beginning. In Hebrew, the word "enter" is implied in the "come" {Bo'uh}, while in English the opposite is the case - the "come" is implied in the "Enter". Because of this difference, I would prefer having both in the English text. To me at least, and this may be yet another of the language/cultural differences, the word "come" is much more welcoming then the more neutral "enter". The whole Psalm is dealing with the "togetherness" of the praise of G-d, as a group effort, hence the greater need for the emotion and in-drawing of welcome.

Re: Psalm 100 quote

[qatar.livejournal.com]

You know, I think a mosque really IS the building. It's a corruption of masjid, "place of prostration," which obviously refers to the building itself, not to the community (unlike εκκλησια).

I wonder if there is an Arabic word that corresponds to "congregation." You can talk about the ummah, the *whole* Muslim community, but I don't know a word that would mean the small community that worships together.