Quoth Hardy

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There are days when the quote from an author is the best thing to happen to me.  You probably know those kinds of days—days when there’s nothing really to stay up for so you go to bed early.  Lengthy days when your Muse wins easily any game of hide-and-seek.  You see, I save most of my fiction reading for bedtime.  If I turn in soon enough I can read quite a bit before falling asleep.  Not to sell you a false bill of goods, but that’s not the source of the quote.  It actually came to me from an unrelated email about the Bible.  The quote, while lengthy, comes from Thomas Hardy:

By the will of God some men are born poetical. Of these some make themselves practical poets, other are made poets by lapse of time who were hardly recognized as such. Particularly has this been the case with the translators of the Bible. They translated into the language of their age; then the years began to corrupt that language as spoken, and to add grey lichen to the translation; until the moderns who use the corrupted tongue marvel at the poetry of the old words. When new they were not more than half so poetical. So that Coverdale, Tyndale, and the rest of them are as ghosts what they never were in the flesh.

This comes from a letter to Professor D. A. Robertson of the University of Chicago, dated to February 1918.  Hardy was a known critic of religion, but like most writers of his day he knew the Bible.  Now, I’d never generally put myself on the same page with Hardy, but something similar to this thought had occurred to me long before I saw this quote.  We treasure ancient writing simply because it has survived.  This should be a sobering thought to any of us who try to forge our thoughts into words.  We have no way of knowing if, at the time, an author was considered great.  Merely the passage of time can make writing unfashionable in its age appear brilliant.  Like rocks tumbling over each other at the base of a cataract, they find polish over time.

My particular context for receiving this emailed quote was the King James Version of the Bible.  Often considered sacred in that translation, it was not uniformly well received when first published.  There had been English Bibles before, and since the Good Book is the foundation of western literature, a new translation commanded attention.  It had its critics, but over the centuries the translation itself became holy, whether it deserved it or not.  Similarly, Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible helped to codify the German language.  We shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Scripture, not for its theology, but for its immense influence on western thought.  As Hardy noted, it may be the passage of time that makes writing great.  Even so we might be wise to pay attention.

Crimeless Victim?

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Anyone who’s spent much time with the Dead Sea Scrolls knows the name of Norman Golb. Long-term Oriental Institute professor at the University of Chicago, Golb has been active in research on the Scrolls for decades. Tuesday the New Jersey Star-Ledger ran a confusing article about the trial of Golb’s son for identity theft. After reading the piece several times it is still not clear what Raphael Golb has done that is either newsworthy or illegal. It does involve the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, and that is always enough to draw the attention of the Associated Press.

Is the truth in there?

The Dead Sea Scrolls continue to fire the imagination of the general public in a way that is somewhat baffling. The scrolls themselves are largely obscure and fragmentary, the information they contain is often arcane, and the published pieces raise excitement mostly in scholars rather than a general readership. The fact that it is not too difficult to fill a class on Ancient Near Eastern religions at Rutgers University seems to indicate that people are still avidly interested in the past, particularly in that conflicted part of the world where civilization began. While the media report the more sensational finds, interest quickly peters out while new and more exciting stories hit the wires. It’s fun to imagine what the field of studies would be like if sustained media interest told the public what to find fascinating in the ancient world.

This article, however, represents the unfortunate reality that scandal is often the drawing point for ancient studies. People are attracted to scholars behaving badly, intellectuals receiving their timely comeuppance. It is disappointing that the subject matter itself doesn’t receive more attention. The Ancient Near East is, after all, the source of what we continue to recognize as culture. Reading the article over again, the most disturbing element is not that Raphael Gold has allegedly committed identity theft. The most disturbing element is that a professional journalist describes him, apparently without a hint of irony, as “a brainiac.”