[lit-ideas] Re: KJV God -- (Was: Shakespeare)
- From: "Torgeir Fjeld" <phatic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:41:45 +0100
A triumph!
Do go on. :)
Torgeir E. Fjeld
----- Original Message -----
From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] KJV God -- (Was: Shakespeare)
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:25:29 EDT
We were discussing whether it's by the grace of God that one never finds
one's accent 'ugly'. My theological argument rested on the premise that
it would make one's life miserable and God would not like that. Whereas
criticising the accent of others doesn't really make others' lives
miserable in the same sense. I thought this was a good argument for the
necessity of believing in the grace of God. Geary coments: "Dunno." and
then rambles in an interesting way:
"I wonder what accent God had when he talked to Adam and Eve? Or to
Moses? Or to Mohammed? Is God an omniaccentual being? Or does he sound
hopelessly Yiddish? Or Arabic with all those gutturals? -- yikes!" Well,
if you judge by the Old Tesament, he spoke Classical Hebrew. -- Classical
Hebrew Studies are becoming quite _a la mode_ in Yale, which is
predominantly Jewish anyway -- whereas I'm more of a Loeb-lover. Geary
continues: "I generally don't tell people this, but God has spoken to me
on occasion, but to no avail. I couldn't understand a single word He
said. It sounded a little bit like Hindi -- there were several Indian
fellows at Christian Brothers College -- they talked like they only had
two seconds to get everything said. Jesus! Who'd have guessed so many
syllables could fit into one sentence?" That's surprising. Sanskrit, from
which HINDI derives, is Indo-European, or as Loeb prefers, Indo-Aryan, or
Indo-Germanic (hence the "Indo-" prefix). But yes, they are fast
(speakers). One reason is that the avoid caesura and go straight to the
elision of what it's called "isomorphic allophones". So, "The airs are
arrogant" (being mainly a combination of 'a' sound and 'r's) becomes
"th'arsa gant" in Hindi. Most of Hindi discourse is understood _in
context_ and I grant that in your case you probably did not have the
context as to why God would talk to you anyway. Were you doing something
_wrong_? That would give us a clue. "Anyway, every time God tries to talk
to me, I tell Him: "English, damnit, English!" He leaves in a huff. I
ain't got time to go learn his language. If it's so damn important that I
[need to] know, then He'll just have to learn mine. Mike Geary speaker of
Shakespeare
in Memphis. Yes, I agree. Mind, we're not the only two. The 'queer' (I'm
not using this derogatorily but in the mere descriptive sense that he was
somewhat _odd_) King James V of Scotland (who became James I of England
-- was that an under-rate) thought it would be a good idea to translate
God's speech into English.
His version is called, to this day, KJV -- King James Version. I find the
monologues by God in it too "Shakespeare" for my taste, with a sprinkle
of Alexander Pope and John Milton. I prefer Wycliff's God. He speaks with
the roughness one expect from a Middle Eastern. In Buenos Aires, God
speaks in Latin. This is not the 'panacea', but it's something otherwise
illiterate and pretty rough pampas monks are somewhat familiar with.
Geary was complaining in "Sunday Polemic" about rules. What I would like
to have is the decalogue (ten commandments) in the Original God. I have
them in KJV -- and Latin, but I would like to see if they are written as
rules, orders, or what not. King James has them as "Thou shalt not..."
for negative prohibitions, and "Thou shalt..." for positive, as in "Thou
shalt Loeb your neighbour". But I'm less sure about Hebrew. "Thou" is
informal second person (and it presupposes a distintion with formal
second person and second person plural -- so if it's personal it's
something addressed to EACH addressee, not to the Jews as a lot. Then
there's the 'shalt'. This is an auxiliary. It has no meaning in itself.
Only when followed by a verb. But the term for this, in English grammar,
is "future intentional" (as opposed to 'wilt', future indicative). I have
a lot of respect for the future intentional, because God is like relying
the responsibility of the following of the command(ment) on the addressee
himself or herself.
What is not clear to me and I ascribe it to the wickedness of God in this
area is that he does not specify the results of one's NOT abiding with
the commands. I suppose there is an 'implicated' _apodosis_ to read, "If
not, thou wilt rot in Hell" -- It cannot be 'thou shalt rot in Hell'
because there's no agreement, or more importantly because if it's a
matter of will, God would be too benevolent. Geary knows more about
eschatology than I. Cheers,
J. L. Speranza, Esq.
Town:
Calle Arenales 2021, Piso 5, St. 8,
La Recoleta C1124AAE,
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Tel. 54 11 4824 4253
Fax 54 221 425 9205
Country:
St. Michael Hall,
Calle 58, No. 611,
La Plata B1900 BPY
Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Tel. 54 221 425 7817
Fax 54 221 425 9205
http://www.stmichaels.com.ar
jls@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
http://www.netverk/~jls.htm
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