Matthew Edmonds, a Quaker who runs a station on the Underground Railway, tells the three men who are hunting an escaped slave:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
-copied from here.
This is Luke 4:18 and yet another Andersonian Biblical quotation. Poul Anderson's narrative moves into an indefinite future, taking the message of liberation with it.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I was interested enough to do a bit of checking up. In Luke 4.18-19 Christ was quoting from Isaias 61.1ff. Yes, besides the liberation from sin and death, and opening the way to God, the message Christ was preaching included principles undermining slavery and tyranny.
But I don't expect any permanent liberation in this life--because regressions, collapses, or resurgences of tyranny are also parts of human life and history. But the existence of Christianity and Judaism will always be challenges to folly, tyranny, slavery, etc. Which explains why both are so often hated or persecuted.
When it comes to reading the New Testament, I've come to prefer the 1941 Confraternity version. Because it seems to strike a reasonable balance in avoiding an excessively woodenly literal translation and to avoid the excessive "dynamism" of some modern versions.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
There is indeed a wide choice in Biblical translations.
I once came across a comment by someone who seemed not to understand the process of translation and indeed to think that all the different translations of the Bible constituted doctrinal disagreements as to which of them was the one true and accurate translation!
Misunderstandings on that scale make communication very difficult.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But doctrinal views can "color" how the Bible is translated. The NIV, for example, has been widely criticized both for being too free in translating and for the editors intruding their beliefs into that translation.
A moderately literal "formal equivalence" translation seems best.
Ad astra! Sean
That is a point.
The King James version is majestic, but the translations are often off. Eg., "poisoner" is often stranslated as "witch", because King James had a bee in his bonnet about witchcraft.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now I'm puzzled. I've asked people who might know if "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" actually should have "poisoner" instead. IIRC they insist the Hebrew word means "witch."
Ad astra! Sean
The Hebrew word Mekassepah can mean -both- "poisoner" and "witch". "Brewer of potions" is one way to translate it, as for example in Exodus 22:18.
It was often translated in the -Greek- bible (which was what King James' scholars mostly used) as "pharmakeia". And that Greek term occurs in Galatians 5:20 and Revelation 18:23.
Now, that Greek term means -primarily- someone who makes potions (including poisons) but can also refer to spells.
"Poisoner" and "witch" were related terms in the Classical world.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Many thanks! That clarifies an issue which has been niggling at me from time to time ever since I first read DIES THE FIRE. The confusion was caused by one of those words with multiple meanings. And I am inclined to believe "poisoner" should be used, with an annotation explaining it could also mean "witch."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: right. Remember that they had no idea why poisons -worked-, just that they did.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Hence the fear many kings and other rulers had for "subtle drinks," as Mithridates VI of Pontus called them THE GOLDEN SLAVE. And Mithridates tried to make himself immune to poisons by taking small doses of these poisons.
Ad astra! Sean
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