Torah in Translation: Rendering the Story of Joseph in English Prof. Everett Fox

A Torah scroll opened up to the story of Joseph. Photo credit Fabcom – Flicker cc 2.0
Torah in Translation: Rendering the Story of Joseph in English
Prof. Everett Fox
Translating the Torah from Hebrew into a different language is a huge challenge: What is the right balance between composing a text that reads smoothly while capturing the flavor of its original language? When I translated the Torah and the Early Prophets, I navigated this tension in favor of keeping the Hebrew flavor.
A Torah scroll opened up to the story of Joseph. Photo credit Fabcom – Flicker cc 2.0
On October 18th 2018, the British translator Anthea Bell, who brought the German works of Freud, Zweig, Kafka and many others into English, died. Her obituary quoted her:
All my professional life, I have felt that translators are in the business of spinning an illusion: the illusion that the reader is reading not a translation, but the real thing.[1]
This approach has had great resonance in the Christian translations of the Bible. If, after all, a major task of Christianity according to the climactic end of Matthew (28:19-20) is to spread the Word of God to far-flung lands and people, “teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (NRSV), the Bible must be rendered as clearly and directly as possible.[2] Thus, capturing the flavor or style of the original was not the norm for Christian Bible translations for much of Western history, beginning with ancient translations into Latin, Coptic, Armenian and other languages, and continuing with renditions into both European and Asian tongues.[3]
Jewish History of Bible Translation
The Jewish picture is more complex. From an early period, Jews came to pay close attention to the precise phraseology of biblical texts, making it tricky to try and reproduce them in another tongue.
The rabbis of the Roman era adopted a style of reading the text very closely, for both halakhic (legal) and homiletical purposes—in order to broaden the laws that would govern everyday Jewish life and to extract values and norms suggested by the text or by their own thinking. Many of these interpretations depend on the particular wording of the Hebrew as a springboard.
The first Jewish endeavor to translate the Bible[4] was the 3rd-century B.C.E. Old Greek version of the Torah known as the Septuagint that was targeted at the Greek-speaking Jews of Egypt.[5] This large Hellenized community desired access to their heritage; even such a distinguished Alexandrian Jew as the philosopher Philo was not well-versed in Hebrew.
In the process of translating from Hebrew to Greek, some concepts were necessarily transformed. The key word torah, for example, which means “teaching” or “instruction,” was rendered by the Greek nomos, “law,” which has unfortunately survived in English usage (including in Jewish writing) as “The Law.” But the Torah itself, of course, is much more than law.
Other ancient translations, such as the Targums in the everyday language of Aramaic, were not content to simply try and reproduce the meaning of the Hebrew text.[6] Some, such as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, added midrashic glosses, while even more literal translations, such as Onkelos, would occasionally adjust the text, such as using “the Word of the Lord,” either as a euphemism for God’s name or as an indication of the divine Logos, an extra-biblical concept that was not continued in the Rabbinic period.[7] Such changes tell us more about the world of the translators than about the Bible itself.
As Jews came to be ruled by host civilizations such as Islam, there arose a need for translations into Arabic, such as Saadiah Gaon’s Tafsir. And in late medieval Europe, particularly Germany, the Bible was rendered into Yiddish and ultimately into German, following the path that Jews trod in their long journey to square tradition with the desire to be accepted in European society.[8]
Approaches to Translation
Historically, Bible translation spans a spectrum of approaches designed to bridge the gap between source text and reader. As Bell noted, a translation can move the text toward the reader by simplifying the target language (e.g., English) so that it reads like a work written in the reader’s tongue. Such a translation might be characterized as “free.”
Another approach is to craft a rendition that is more literal, closer to the source language, in the case of the Bible, bending the target language to introduce the audience to the world of biblical expression. This particular strategy surfaced most notably in the German version by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig (1926-1962).
In this case, the translators put a decidedly Hebraic stamp on their German version. Their approach was based on the fact that the Bible has traditionally been read aloud, not least in synagogues, and that therefore, the translation should reflect that sound carries equal weight to sense.
In practice, this meant laying out the text in lines like free verse, even in narrative and law; maintaining the same German root when thematically important Hebrew root-based words recur in the text; retaining Hebrew pronunciations of proper names, along with indicators of their meaning within the text; and, in general, paying close attention to the rhetoric and structure of the text.[9]
My English Translation: Inspired by Buber-Rosenzweig
When I encountered this German translation fifty years ago, as a Brandeis undergraduate studying with Buber and Rosenzweig’s disciple Nahum Glatzer, I was stunned by its strangeness and freshness, and felt the need—as the translators had intended—to go back and reread the Hebrew.
My experience of the text was reinforced early on by a recording (no longer commercially available) of Abba Eban reading excerpts from the Psalms and Ecclesiastes in a manner that highlighted those grammatical features of biblical Hebrew that influence oral performance, such as long vowels and the doubling of letters. It was rather like a young actor hearing Charles Laughton or Orson Welles reading a familiar poem or script.
I began experimenting with English renditions of biblical texts that played off Buber-Rosenzweig, starting with the Akedah (Gen 22). As I expanded my translation into a new version of Genesis,[10] my motivations were twofold: to preserve, in a small way, something of Buber and Rosenzweig’s achievement, which had faded because of the destruction of German Jewry, and to provide a corrective to the plethora of smooth translations that, in their haste to be comprehensible, lost important aspects of the Hebrew.
In my published English translation of biblical texts such as The Five Books of Moses (1995) and The Early Prophets (2014), I have sought to give the reader the possibility of experiencing the biblical text anew, not weighed down by either the noble sonorities of the King James Bible or the easy fluency of modern English versions.[11]
A few examples from the story of Joseph in Genesis 44-47 will illustrate what can be gained by reading the Bible in this way. Parashat Vayigash, with its emotional tone struck by Judah’s desperate plea for Benjamin’s life, is a good place to begin.
Rhetoric
The rhetoric of Judah’s speech before Joseph is best brought out by setting out the text in lines meant for reading aloud (Gen. 44:20):
וַנֹּאמֶר אֶל אֲדֹנִי
And we said to my lord:
יֶשׁ לָנוּ אָב זָקֵן
We have an old father
וְיֶלֶד זְקֻנִים קָטָן
and a young child of his old age;      
וְאָחִיו מֵת
his brother is dead,
וַיִּוָּתֵר הוּא לְבַדּוֹ לְאִמּוֹ
so that he alone is left of his mother,
וְאָבִיו אֲהֵבוֹ
and his father loves him. 
The breathing space gives the reader the opportunity to absorb the emotional content of what is being said, and this holds throughout the speech, which runs from v. 18 all the way through v. 34.[12]
Another translation issue concerns particular syntactical forms lacking in English. A frequently used Hebrew construction called the prepositive infinitive absolute is found in 44:28, where Jacob painfully recalls the initial loss of Joseph. NJPS renders the Hebrew akh tarof toraf as “Alas, he was torn by a beast!”
I wanted to retain an echo of the doubled root, but to translate the verb literally would have resulted in something like “being torn he was torn.” In such cases I have opted for a creative compromise: “Surely he is torn, torn-to-pieces.” This also works in the initial story in 37:33, where another Buber-Rosenzweig practice, the use of Hebrew forms of names, yields an imitation of the sound of the text: “torn-to-pieces, torn-to-pieces is Yosef” (tarof toraf yosef).13
Leading Words (Leitwörter)
In his writings, Buber extensively described what he called the Leading-Word (Leitwort) style, where the Hebrew text repeats significant words or roots as thematic clues to what is happening in the narrative.[14] On a small scale, simple repetition can set the tone and direct the focus.
In Judah’s speech, for example, the words “your servant” and “father” figure prominently, suggesting both the brothers’ subordination to Joseph and the pathos of Jacob’s losses. This is quite easy to bring out in translation, even though most translations neglect to do so. More significant, however, is the way in which, throughout the entire story of Joseph (chapters 37-50), ר.ע.ע is an important root.
Jacob to his sons (44:29)
וְהוֹרַדְתֶּם אֶת שֵׂיבָתִי בְּרָעָה שְׁאֹלָה.
You will bring down my gray hair in ill-fortune to Sheol!
Judah to Joseph (44:34)
פֶּן אֶרְאֶה בָרָע אֲשֶׁר יִמְצָא אֶת אָבִי
Then I would see the ill-fortune that would come upon my father!”
Jacob to Pharaoh (47:9)
מְעַט וְרָעִים הָיוּ יְמֵי שְׁנֵי חַיַּי
Few and ill-fated have been the days and years of my life…[15]
This Leitwort brings out one of the significant themes of the Joseph cycle, beyond that of the threat to family continuity that occurs at strategic points in Genesis: Events that appear at first to be disasters—the murderous impulse of the brothers, selling Joseph into slavery, the accusation of adultery by Mrs. Potiphar, and Joseph’s imprisonment—in the end, turn into divine rescue.
As Joseph says to his brothers in the final story at the end of the book (50:20):
וְאַתֶּם חֲשַׁבְתֶּם עָלַי רָעָה
Now you, you planned ill against me,
אֱלֹהִים חֲשָׁבָהּ לְטֹבָה
[but] God planned-it-over for good,
לְמַעַן עֲשֹׂה כַּיּוֹם הַזֶּה
in order to do as is this very day—
לְהַחֲיֹת עַם רָב.
to keep many people alive.[16]
In other words, all the “ill-fortune” experienced by the characters in two generations was simply the result of God’s manipulation, so that Joseph would come to power in the one place where he could actually save his family and ensure the survival of the present and future “Children of Israel.”
Synonyms vs. Leitwörter
This kind of reading cannot be easily sustained in English translation. The NJPS, for instance, uses a wide variety of terms to reproduce ר.ע.ע in chapters 37–50:

“bad,” “savage,” “displeasing,” “wicked,” “downcast,” “ugly,” “ill,” “evil,” “wrong,” and “harshly.”
In context, the different renderings are justifiable, but in the larger picture, translation loses the meaningful connection between terms suggested by the Hebrew.[17]
In practice, it is not always possible, or desirable, to keep the same English word in rendering a Hebrew one, especially when a root recurs simply because there is no other choice in Hebrew. In other words, such repetition may at times be accidental.
It is only in those cases where focusing on a root expresses something vital or interesting in the text that I will attempt to bend the English a bit to preserve what I hear in the Hebrew. Hence such constructions as “ill-tempered,” “ill-humor,” “ill-fortune,” and “ill-fated.”
Ambiguity
Biblical Hebrew, even with its limited vocabulary, is quite suggestive, and the original text appears at times to lead in several directions at once. A striking example of ambiguity occurs in Genesis 44:22. In describing to Joseph (who has not yet revealed himself to his brothers) the unbreakable bond between Jacob and Benjamin, the remaining son of Jacob’s beloved Rachel, Judah says:
לֹא יוּכַל הַנַּעַר לַעֲזֹב אֶת אָבִיו
The lad cannot leave his father;
וְעָזַב אֶת אָבִיו וָמֵת.
were he to leave his father, he would die.
The vast majority of translations expand this to “…his father would die”—which is probably what the text is driving at. Yet this is not an open and shut case since the Hebrew uses a pronoun rather than a proper noun. It is possible that Judah is referring to Benjamin, as Rashi and Ramban (ad loc.) suggest. As a result, the reader is left to ponder the depth of this particular father-son relationship. Preserving these kinds of ambiguities in the translation, not just in notes, keeps possibilities open for understanding old midrashim and creating new ones. 
Unsolvable Translation Problems
Not all biblical expressions can be reflected in English. In Genesis 44:18, Judah says respectfully to Joseph, כִּי כָמוֹךָ כְּפַרְעֹה, a peculiar idiom which literally means “for like you is like Pharaoh.” I could not find a suitable translation, unless one accepts something like “for [to be] like you is [to be] like Pharaoh,” and thus I went with “for you are like Pharaoh.” Perhaps a middle ground can be found in such cases; but a regular feature of translation is that the translator must be prepared to accept “defeat” on occasion.
Attaining the “Spokenness” of the Biblical Word
When all is said and done, despite its problems, risks,[18] and unattainable goals, translation remains one of the valuable tools in the reader’s ongoing relationship with the Hebrew Bible—even for readers who know Hebrew well. It may be most useful to think of translation as performance, in the sense that it can awaken the audience to a new appreciation of the source.
Buber hoped that the German translation would help his audience “go straight through to the spokenness…of the [biblical] word” and to lay bare the great “dialogue between heaven and earth” which he perceived the Bible to be.[19] Those who work in English translation of the Bible may at least hope to facilitate this process. 
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fox everettProfessor Everett Fox is the Allen M. Glick professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He received his M. A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. Fox is the translator of The Five Books of Moses (Schocken Books, 1995), and The Early Prophets was published in (November of) 2014.
[1] Alex Marshall, “Anthea Bell, Translator of Freud, Kafka and Comics, Dies at 82,” The New York Times (Oct. 19, 2018).
[2] One of the core concepts of the Protestant Reformation was sola Scriptura—“the Scriptures alone”—the idea that the Bible is the sole source of authority for Christians. Hence, translation into common language became an important component of the faith.
[3] I should mention the strange coincidence that I happen to live a few hundred yards from where, in the seventeenth century, John Eliot used to preach to native Americans using his Bible translation into Algonquin. 
[5] Editor’s note: See discussion in Emanuel Tov, “The (Proto-)Masoretic Text: Part 8 – Other Biblical Text Traditions,” TheTorah.com (2018).
[6] Editor’s note: See discussion in Emanuel Tov, “The (Proto-)Masoretic Text: Part 10 – Editions and Translations of MT,” TheTorah.com (2018).
[7] See the comprehensive discussion in Daniel Boyarin, “The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John,” Harvard Theological Review 94.3 (2001): 243-284.
[8] Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) famously translated the Bible into elegant German using Hebrew/Yiddish characters, in order to further his people’s advancement into European culture. See the comprehensive and lucid discussion of German Jewish Bible translations in Abigail Gillman, A History of German Jewish Bible Translation (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018), or her brief discussion in, Abigail Gillman, “Moses Mendelssohn’s Biur: Translating the Torah in the Age of Enlightenment,” TheTorah.com (2017). Note too, the 1930 doctoral dissertation of Nechama Leibowitz (University of Marburg), Techniques in the Translations of German-Jewish Biblical Translations.   
[9] Ed Greenstein, professor emeritus of Bible at Bar Ilan University, has characterized this kind of translation as particularly Jewish since it points to aspects of the text that are particularly evident in Hebrew and opens up multiple interpretive possibilities from the rabbis onward; see Edward L. Greenstein, “Theories of Modern Bible Translation,” in Essays in Biblical Method and Translation (Brown Judaic Studies 22; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 99.
[10] This appeared first as a complete issue of Response (Spring 1972), revised later as In the Beginning (New York: Schocken Books, 1983).
[11] Robert Alter, whose commitment to the Hebrew matches my own, has opted for what he feels is a “cadenced English prose” that tries to catch some of the power of the Hebrew. In contrast to my work, which I regard as more attuned to reading aloud, he does not divide the text into lines, and he retains the Tyndale/King James practice of beginning most sentences with “And.”
[12] See Franz Rosenzweig, “Scripture and Word: The Bond of the Tongue Must Be Loosened by the Eye,” in Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, Scripture and Translation (trans. Lawrence Rosenwald with Everett Fox; Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994 [orig. German 1936]), 42.
[13] This is a revision of the translation in my The Five Books of Moses. Rethinking and revision are an integral part of the translation process, as is all performance. I should add that I have occasionally inserted a “yes” in these cases for rhythmical reasons, as in Gen. 2:17, where God’s warning to Adam comes out as “for on the day that you eat from it, you shall die, yes, die” (mot tamut).
[14] Buber’s classic explication of this approach can be found in “Leitwort Style in Pentateuch Narrative,” in Buber and Rosenzweig, Scripture etc., 114-128.
[15] Further examples include:
37:2
וַיָּבֵא יוֹסֵף אֶת דִּבָּתָם רָעָה אֶל אֲבִיהֶם
And Yosef brought report of them, an ill one, to their father
37:20, 33
חַיָּה רָעָה אֲכָלָתְהוּ 
An ill-tempered beast has devoured him! 
38:7
וַיְהִי עֵר בְּכוֹר יְהוּדָה רַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה
But Er, Yehuda’s firstborn, did ill in the eyes of YHWH…
39:9
וְאֵיךְ אֶעֱשֶׂה הָרָעָה הַגְּדֹלָה הַזֹּאת 
So how could I do this great ill?   
40:7
מַדּוּעַ פְּנֵיכֶם רָעִים הַיּוֹם
Why are your faces in such ill-humor today?
41:3, 4
רָעוֹת מַרְאֶה וְדַקּוֹת בָּשָׂר
Ill to look at and lean of flesh
41:19
דַּלּוֹת וְרָעוֹת תֹּאַר מְאֹד
Wretched and exceedingly ill of form
41:19
לֹא רָאִיתִי כָהֵנָּה בְּכָל אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לָרֹעַ
In all the land of Egypt I have never seen their like for ill-condition
41:20, 27
 הָרַקּוֹת וְהָרָע(וֹ)ת
Lank and ill-looking
41:21
וּמַרְאֵיהֶן רַע
They were as ill-looking
43:6
לָמָה הֲרֵעֹתֶם לִי
Why did you deal so ill with me…?
44:4
לָמָּה שִׁלַּמְתֶּם רָעָה תַּחַת טוֹבָה
Why have you paid back ill for good?
48:17
וַיֵּרַע בְּעֵינָיו
It sat ill in his eyes…
50:15
וְהָשֵׁב יָשִׁיב לָנוּ אֵת כָּל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר גָּמַלְנוּ אֹתוֹ
and repays, yes, repays us for all the ill that we caused him!
50:17
אָנָּא שָׂא נָא פֶּשַׁע אַחֶיךָ וְחַטָּאתָם כִּי רָעָה גְמָלוּךָ 
forgive your brothers’ offense and their sin, that they caused you ill!
[16] I use the bracket (here in the second line) to indicate a word that does not appear in the Hebrew.
[17] Another powerful theme word, “face” (פנים), prominent in the cycle of stories about Jacob (see chapters 32 and 33), reappears in the Joseph material. Upon seeing his son for the first time in many years, Jacob says in 46:30:
אָמוּתָה הַפָּעַם
Now I can die,
אַחֲרֵי רְאוֹתִי אֶת פָּנֶיךָ כִּי עוֹדְךָ חָי.
since I have seen your face, that you are still alive.
And he returns to this vocabulary on his deathbed in 48:11:
רְאֹה פָנֶיךָ לֹא פִלָּלְתִּי
I never thought to see your face [again],
וְהִנֵּה הֶרְאָה אֹתִי אֱלֹהִים גַּם אֶת זַרְעֶךָ.
and here, God has let me see your seed as well!
[18] William Tyndale, the father of English Bible translation who was the primary influence on the King James Version of 1611, was strangled and burned at the stake in 1536.
[19] Martin Buber, “People Today and the Jewish Bible,” in Buber and Rosenzweig, Scripture and Translation, 26.