Our Daily Bread

...read the Bible as though it were something entirely unfamiliar, as though it had not been set before you ready-made...Face the book with a new attitude as something new...Let whatever may happen occur between yourself and it.  You do not know which of its sayings and images will overwhelm and mold you...But hold yourself open.  Do not believe anything a priori; do not disbelieve anything a prioi.  Read aloud the words written in the book in front of you; hear the word you utter and let it reach you.

--adapted from a lecture of Martin Buber, 1926

The Hebrew Bible, like most of the literature of antiquity, was meant to be read aloud.  Unfortunately, most modern translations are clunky, meant for the silent reader, not for the rhythm and sound of literature meant to be heard.  We have translated meaning, but not in way that poetry works, demanding an interactive and interpretative response from the reader.

Here is an example of what I mean:  In Chapters 32-33 of Genesis, Jacob is on his way back home after 20 years of running away from his very angry brother.  He does not know what kind of reception to expect from Esau, who was cheated out of his birthright and his father's blessing by his younger brother.  Jacob hears that Esau is on his way with four hundred men to meet his brother at the border.  Jacob begins to send ahead of him waves of peace-offerings in the form of gifts. 

The New English Bible presents Jacob's thoughts this way:

for he thought, "I will appease him with the present that I have sent on ahead, and afterwards, when I come into his presence, he will perhaps receive me kindly."  So Jacob's present went on ahead of him (vv. 21-22)

Okay, so we get the meaning.  But contrast this version that attempts to capture in English the sound of the Hebrew text based on variations of the word panim, whose basic meaning is "face:"

For he said to himself:

I will wipe the anger from his face

with the gift that goes ahead of my face;

afterward, when I see his face,

perhaps he will lift up my face!

The gift crossed over ahead of his face...

What the reader gains from this translation is significant.  First, the repetition of "face" carries implications, even in English, of "facing" or "confrontation," which occurs at crucial points in the entire book of Genesis, from the moment when God confronts Cain with these words:  Why are you so upset?  Why has your face fallen? (Gen. 4).  Later, after Cain kills his brother and again is confronted by God, he says, My iniquity is too great to be borne! Here, you drive me away from the face of the soil, and from your face I must conceal myself, I must be wavering and wandering on earth--now it must be that whoever comes upon me will kill me!

The repetition of "face"/ panim in Hebrew in the story of Jacob and Esau will call into play the story of Cain and Abel, intensifying for the reader the anxiety that Jacob must have felt in meeting again the brother he "killed" through his greed. 

Before Jacob "faces" Esau again, he must first face God.  The night before the fateful meeting, Jacob wrestles all night with an angel, who he will not release until he has received a blessing.  After his victory, the text reports: Yaakov called the name of the place Peniel/ Face of God, for I have seen God, face to face, and my life has been saved.

Once Jacob has met God "face to face," he is finally ready to face his brother and to ask forgiveness:  For I have, after all, seen your face, as one sees the face of God, and you have been gracious to me (33:10). 

What the reader gains from repetition of a keyword here is the opportunity to make connections for himself between parts of the text:  Jacob's meeting with God and the meeting with his brother.  Now, this is really food for thought, something we can chew on and digest -- our daily bread.  Clearly, there is a difference between translation what the Bible means and presenting what it says. 

A recent article by George Weigel in The Catholic Week describes his disappointment in Catholic approaches to the bible:  there is little beauty here, and the beauty of God's Word ought to be one of its most attractive attributes.  He deplores "the historical-critical method which has convinced Catholics that the bible is too complicated for ordinary people to understand, inept preaching, and reducing the Scripture to a psychology manual -- all turn-offs for Bible study."

I think Martin Buber's approach quoted at the beginning is the best one:  don't ask anything other than what we would ask from good poetry---don't begin at page one and try to plow through all the books; don't even begin at the beginning of any one book.  The Bible is not a "book;" it is a library of separate books by different authors at different times in different styles.  Even the one book of Isaiah was probably written by 3 different authors at different periods in time.  Rather, let the Bible be to you as a loaf of bread; cut off one small piece and let it nourish your soul!