A previous librarian made a partial translation by comparison with known languages. The present librarian, having studied the text, is able to decipher parts of it.
It begins:
"Jerusalem hath grievously sinned..." (p. 98)
- and ends:
"But thou hast utterly rejected us -" (ibid.)
As a matter of fact, my Revised Standard Version gives Lamentations 5.22 as:
"Or hast thou utterly rejected us? Art thou exceedingly angry with us?"
- and the Good News Bible gives:
"Or have you rejected us forever? Is there no limit to your anger?"
But the King James ends Lamentations with a statement, not a question. The Lord, who is said to remain forever, is also said to "...forsake us forever..." (ibid.)
Imagine that you are a Hebrew prophet and that that is your last revelation: God is eternal but has ended the Covenant. You are on your own. What should you do? Serve other gods? Live as a free man without gods? Consider how much of the Law applies to human beings without reference to God? It is up to you.
5 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Yes, I remember the moving lamentation which Poul Anderson gave near the end of "The House of Sorrows." Your comments inspired me to look up how the Catholic Douai-Reims-Challoner version rendered the original text of Lamentations 5.22: "But thou hast utterly rejected us, thou art exceedingly angry against us." Flat, blunt STATEMENTS, not questions.
Lamentations 5.19-20 says: "But thou, O Lord, shalt remain forever, thy throne from generatiom to generation. Why wilt thou forget us forever? Why wilt thou forsake us for a long time?"
So, yes, Anderson did use the Book of Lamentations to help write "The House of Sorrows."
And I don't see any Jewish prophet who KNOWS only the One God exists serving false gods which do not and cannot exist. And if you KNOW God exists it would be impossible to live as a "free" man living as tho God is not real. In such an intolerable situation the only thing such a person could would be to remain faithful to his God even if he was the very last one to do so. And the natural law are the norms of ethics which can be discovered by logic and reason, and thus binding on all mankind.
Yes, "The House of Sorrows" is a very disturbing story, with its premise based on what kind of world we would see if God had rejected the Jews. In "Delenda est" we see Judaism simply disappearing with no implication of divine anger and punishment.
I don't recall what the Point of Departure for the alternate history of 'House of Sorrows' is. The 701 BC siege by the Assyrians?
https://luminarypodcasts.com/listen/daniele-bolelli/history-on-fire/episode-85-the-siege-that-changed-all-of-history/4ee7d605-dfa7-470b-b2d5-b389fb648f5b
Kaor, Jim!
No, not the fall of the Northern Kingdom around 722 BC, that point of departure for "The House of Sorrows" was the fall of Jerusalem and the Southern Kingdom of Judah to the Babylonians in 586 BC.
Ad astra! Sean
OK
It's just that I listened to that podcast fairly recently & the historian there thought that if Jerusalem had fallen to the Assyrians at that date then there would have been 12 lost tribes of Israel & Judah, & monotheistic Judaism would have died before being fully born.
Kaor, Jim!
That is one scenario, yes, but not one I believe was chosen by Anderson for "The House of Sorrows."
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment