Hovering on the Face of the Waters.
Review of the Pantheon Books hardcover edition (2017)

I enjoyed the readability and the plain modern day language of Sarah Ruden's recent translation of The Gospels (2021). That was enough for me to want to explore several of her other translation works of which I have now located several via the library. The Face of Water (2017) is one of her recent previous books among the now several Bible related translations and works. Her translation of St. Augustine of Hippo's Confessions (2017) was released around the same time. Otherwise, her translations have been mostly of classic Greco-Roman works such as The Aeneid, Satyricon, and Homeric Hymns etc.

In The Face of Water, Ruden examines about a dozen famous Bible passages in detail. For this she also learned classic Hebrew, a language that was new to her along her knowledge of classical common Greek and Latin, in order to study the original texts of the Old Testament. These are all covered in 3 sections, each with an overview, a context and then a detailed text. The book separates all of these into 3 parts of the text, so it is probably easier to jump ahead through all sections for a certain passage and then go on to the next one in order. The main passages are David & Bathsheba, the Genesis creation story, the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, etc.

Although much of this is often strictly grammarian and didactic, it is also very entertaining and educational. Ruden breaks the fourth wall frequently and addresses the reader personally, even asking them not to turn away:

"Don’t close this book, and turn on a PBS documentary about ferrets: what I’m about to tell you is way more interesting."

She also relates anecdotes from her personal life that relate to what she is translating.

I am approaching these books more out of an interest in learning about the context of translation and not as any sort of Christian scholar. I am finding all of Ruden's work to be fascinating for this reason.

Trivia and Links
Other Reviews:
The Word and Its Words at National Review, May 1, 2017.
No Version of the Bible is the Last Word at Kirkus Reviews, January 13, 2017. ( )

Really more like 3.5 stars. The author takes us on a very interesting highly personal journey through translating multiple Bible passages. It is worth reading, but left me wanting more concentration on a single more lengthy passage. ( )

How many Bible translations do we really need? As with millionaires with their millions, it seems, just one more. Not only does the English language change, making some usages obsolete and difficult for new readers to understand, but scholarship provides new ways of understanding the ancient Hebrew and Greek scriptures. Sometimes older manuscripts are discovered, and older is better when it comes to Bible translation because those who copied books of the Bible in ancient times (Christians more than Jews) had a way of changing them. Even many centuries ago there was something like political correctness.

And so the insights of Sarah Ruden in her book “The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible” (2017) make fascinating, if sometimes difficult, reading.

There are "large territories of meaning in a single word," she writes. Translators must try to choose the most likely meaning, while at the same time allowing other possible interpretations. The Hebrew language, in particular, can pack a lot into a single word. She cites an example of an Old Testament verse that has just 17 words in Hebrew but 33 in King James English.

Mostly what Ruden does is to discuss some of the most familiar passages in the Bible (the creation story, the 23rd Psalm, the Beatitudes, etc.), giving first the King James translation, then her own, with a variety of possible alternatives on just about every word.

My own conclusion is that the KJV, published in 1611, holds up remarkably well. Many of the changes she suggests do not really improve the text, even if they do slightly improve accuracy. Instead of the word Lamb in Revelation to refer to Jesus, she prefers "little lamb." But isn't a lamb, by definition, little? In the 23rd Psalm, she advocates "wagon-tracks of righteousness" instead of "paths of righteousness." I guess that's better than "ruts of righteousness," but there is something to be said for eloquence and grace in scripture, which is why the KJV remains the go-to translation for so many, especially when it comes to important and familiar Bible passages. Would you want "wagon-tracks of righteousness" read at your funeral?

One of her more intriguing suggestions is to translate the opening verse of John's gospel with the phrase "the Idea was with God and the Idea was God," rather than "the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The book's subtitle may be a trifle misleading. She has translated various books of classical literature, including Augustine's “Confessions,” but nowhere does it say she has actually worked as a Bible translator, other than for this book. Raised a Quaker, educated at Michigan, Johns Hopkins and Harvard, Ruden has had a lifelong devotion to the Bible, whatever the translation. “When someone gives me a Bible on the street, I take it and use it,” she writes. ( )