Short Notes on Ernest Renan’s Translation of Job from Hebrew published in 1859

Ernest Renan, The Book of Job translated from the Hebrew. Originally 1859 in French but translated in 1893 by William M. Thompson. Online available for full download.

Renan thought the author of Job had no common sense

 “How did it happen that the author of this beautiful book did not possess common sense”. (Preface ix)

Answer to Renan: Moses just killed an Egyptian overseer and is a criminal fleeing because of manslaughter. His passions and emotions are disturbed. He lost everything in his life. Now he writes Job. Talking about sense? You try.

“The book of Job has, during the last century been productive of a whole library of dissertations.

From the day when the illustrious Albert Schultens there is not a verselet in the book of Job which has not given scope for long commentaries.

It maybe fearlessly asserted that the majority of those passages which in this precious text are still obscure will remain so. The new readings, except in cases where they are supported by some fact previously unknown, have, in a matter so elaborate, very little chance of being true.

I cannot recall a single passage where I have admitted a reading entirely new, and which has not been advanced by more than one philologist

Bibliography

Let one read the works of Schultens, Reiske, Rosenmiiller, Scharer, Umbreit, Lee, Stickel, Ewald, Arnheim, Hirzel, Hahn, Schlottmann, and of Cahen.

I have adopted to have always under their eyes the commentary of Hirzel.

Ancient Biblical Translations will not help

“the impossible position in which we are placed of comparing anterior manuscripts so as to fix definitely the received text.” (Preface ix).

Hapax?

“What are we to do when we only meet with a word once in the whole range of Hebrew literature, or when the two or three employments of it that one can adduce do not suffice to determine precisely its shade of meaning?”

Comparative Translation do not help either

“The testimony of the ancient translators, who had no other resources than we ourselves have with which to overcome these difficulties, nay who even had fewer, seeing that they lacked the aids of comparative philology, is then wholly insufficient”

Seemingly Error? Do not correct says Renan

“I am of opinion that the number of such passages is more considerable than one thinks; but I recognise at the same time that we must be on our guard in proceeding hence to propose bold corrections.”  [Charles Fensham complaint about the same].

Keep to the Masoretic Text Renan said

“Perhaps when Semitic palaeography is more advanced (and it is permissible to hope for considerable progress in this, in view of what has been accomplished in late years, thanks to the labours of M. le Due de Luynes and of several other learned antiquaries), it will be possible to advance, yet always with the utmost caution, in that perilous path. But at the present time the Masserotic text ought to be our guide.”

Renan followed the consensus

“It is to this text that my translation belongs, except in one or two places where everybody is all but agreed that it should be corrected.”

Chapter divisions are not natural in Job

(Preface xii)

Discourses were fit into a text in prose

“We know that the book of Job is composed of discourses in verse fitted into a text in prose; this distinction has been marked by the employment of a different character.”

Verse divisions of the author was kept

“The separation of the verselets and the verses, which is bien de fait of the author, has been maintained throughout.”

Rhythm consists of symmetrical recurrence of members of the phrase and translation should preserve this

Metre is a rhyme of thoughts

Difficulty to find the history and social background in Job

Persons are not Jews

Locality outside Palestine

Worship is of the Patriarchal Period

a.      Job is priest of the family

b.     Rites are not part of Mosaic customs

c.      Book is not of Hebrew origin (ideas)

d.     Language is not pure Hebrew

e.      It is a translation from another Semitic dialect

f.       He wished to give us a bit of Temanite wisdom

Blatant errors of Renan

---When he speaks of the Book of Daniel, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes his comments are very irresponsible. He may be an agnostic or rationalist who denies miracles? It was popular in his times.

---He denies the historicity of comments on the Patriarchs in Jesus ben Sirach, Philo and Josephus. It is not such a major issue since they are not canon of Revelation. But Daniel, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes he cannot be excused for. He complains about Titus Livius comments of ancient Rome as if not historical. And that also may be fine (Study XVI).

---Based on negativeness to their histories, he wants to drop his criticism transferred from them on Job.

---Talking about baggage of presuppositions and preconceived doubts. It is like telling yourself on the steps of a buffet restaurant “I hate this food but I am going in anyway”. Can you see him pulling his face as he treats the food as if it is dung! Welcome to Ernest Renan and Job.

Renan tries to pay tribute to Wellhausen’s allocations of different author for a different divine name theories

What utter nonsense. And people still cling to these fabricated dogmatisms.

When Job speaks about God, says Renan, he calls Him Jehovah but when the Idumeans spoke they call Him Eloah, El, El-Shaddai.

Renan doubts whether the prologue, poem and epilogue were written by the same hand.

Renan said that the author was not imagining things or imitating. He is too vigorous, vivid and strong in coloring.

Renan said that the oldest theory is that Job is very old literature.

As example he said the following: “The wholly gratuitous hypothesis, by which Moses himself was the author of the book of Job, hardly merits to be mentioned.”

But Renan denies that because he did not find any of Moses’ institutions in the book of Job.

What is the problem with Renan thinking? Moses wrote Job while in the Wilderness of Midiian in 1460 and the institutions that Renan is expecting, would not start until they arrived at Sinai in 1448 BC. Moses underwent a paradigm shift from a hiding criminal when Job was written in Midian to a law describer when the institutions of laws were received. It is not the author of Job that is misguided, it is Renan himself.

Ellen White said in Patriarch and Prophets that Moses wrote Job in Midian. If only Renan read Patriarch and Prophets.

It ascends to the Patriarchal age for they cannot find any trace of Mosaic Institutions in it

 “As we cannot find in it any trace of Mosaic institutions, it has been concluded hence that the book was anterior to Moses, and ascends as a composition to the patriarchal age.” Renan said

Language is artificial and laboured

Nothing of Mosaic Institutions

1.     Also Proverbs, Judges, First Kings.

---Renan knows very little about the history of Israel and he made very loose remarks about it.

“but either his precepts were not of a nature to penetrate life very profoundly, or the people of Israel at first paid little attention to them. We do not find that, until the period of reforms and of pietism signalised in the reign of Josiah, the history of Israel had been dominated by the complete body of the institutions, a pictured of which is presented to us in the Pentateuch.”

---Not all the time there were rebellion against the institutions of Moses. In fact many times the Israelites promised to keep all in the Torah and it is recorded in Numbers as well as the rebellions at times. Ellen White writes with more care than Renan who is her contemporary: he an award winning Semitic Philologist and she an uneducated writer guided by the Spirit. Every statement of Renan has to be rewritten or edited with the fact-check corrections.

---Renan said very well about Solomon and his writing of Proverbs: “Solomon, who cultivated it with so much success, was in intimate relations with the neighbouring countries to Palestine to such a degree that the purity of his character in the development of the Hebrew mind suffered much from it.” He is correct. Solomon became so worldly and secular that he almost painted his own experience in Proverbs hanging out with women from every nation around them. ---The way one lives affects the way one thinks and affects the methods one use to describe things and affect the outcome in the form of books, like Proverbs. Renan is correct here (Study XIX).

---Renan felt that Proverbs is a mirror of the profane wisdom of other nations.

---Not so. It is wisdom that affects our lives if it is not connected to God. If the SQ is not right the IQ and EQ will be in trouble. That is what the Book of Proverbs is telling us. Renan missed it.

---Renan felt that King Lemuel of Proverbs is maybe an Arabian person outside of Israel and that the origin of the Book must be searched there.

---We must remember that the young Hegelians who got their rationalism and pessimism from G. Hegel who died in 1833, were beer drinkers and in their alcoholic states at night, half-drunk, the consider theology, philosophy, sociology and politics as Karl Marx (President of the drinking club), Feuerbach, F. Engels, B. Bauer, a theologian, used to do in the streets of Berlin and Bonn. The birth of atheism started in 1844 and continued to find its lobbyists even in our own day.

---Renan talks as if he was a regular member of these clubs. But that is not proven. ---It is just that his mannerism of talking about Scriptures compares very well with these drinkers.

---Renan felt that the poem of Agur in Proverbs belongs not to Hebrews but outside of Hebrew culture. So he felt that the Book of Job is the same. Do not take him seriously.

---It is a book that will not have Mosaic Institutions because Moses was still in Midian hiding from Thutmosis III, the illegitimate child of the streetwomen Iset that Thutmosis II took one night much to the anguish of his wife Hathsepsut who was 18 at that time around 1518 BC.

---Thus in 1460 BC the book was written and only after 1448 BC the Mosaic Institutions originated. Did Ernest Renan not read his Bible? If Job was written in Midian, near the Copper Mines, near Teman, and Job was patriarchal in history, and Moses lived in a nomadic society hiding, then one should not look for the ‘Mosaic Institutions’ in Job that early. Right?

---Renan then seeks in the Book of Job a vintage of Syrian Philosophy that is not part of the Hebrew Culture. What utter nonsense. Egyptian culture and politics, philosophy and religion was prevalent in the Levant in those days that Moses wrote because they ruled the area in colonial style for nearly 400 years we are told.

---So the background of the thoughts of some of the friends of Job is not Syrian Philosophy but Egyptian Religion and ideas sometimes.

---I do not know if it is Yehuda, but there was a scholar that studied the Egyptianisms in the Hebrew Books and I think it is the right approach. In Job especially since Moses knew Middle Egyptian very well. So pull out your Gardner, Egyptian Grammar from the shelves. Your Middle Egyptian Dictionaries. Get E. Budge’s Egyptian Dictionary on hand. If the root is longer than three consonants you may run to Egyptian. Especially the hapax words of Job. Renan and others did not know it because they did not believe in the reality of the history of the Bible so they could not figure out that Moses was in Midian as an Egyptian learned scholar writing. They missed it due to their own superstitious agnostic cult of Rationalism and pessimism.

---Sometimes Renan experience Job in the right manner but he lays it in a metal confused way because he denies reality.