Bilingual Books and the Challenge of Lifelong Learning

More than a decade ago in a Paris bookstore I picked up French-Greek edition of The Gospel of John, Jean Evangile: traduit du grec, preface et annote par Bernard Pautrat.  I read it in 2017 after I took three semesters of Ancient Greek with undergraduates.  Most of the Christian scripture is easier to read than histories or philosophy in Ancient Greek and much easier than poetry or drama.

The Greek is a standard late 20th century international text. The French on the facing page is a contemporary translation.  Greek is the language in which the apostles wrote, but not the language Jesus spoke. So the gospels are a combination of narrative with quotes from Jesus (and any other dialogue) that are translations of Aramaic and Hebrew.   

When I began, I read the French first. I would read a sentence or paragraph then read the Greek. When I got stuck in both languages I would refer to David Bentley Hart's translation of the Christian scripture.  He has a lot of notes. Since it is a one-man translation, a committee is not deciding on word choice or the flow of a passage. I like that better.

As I went along the Greek I took two decades ago started to come back. I know a lot of Greek grammar. As I read more, I  remembered more vocabulary.  By halfway, I was reading a Greek sentence first, then the French.  By the end, Greek paragraph or two before switching to French.   

In fact, since the Greek in John's gospel is so uncomplicated, I was more likely to puzzle over the French grammar by the end.  

As a method of learning languages, I can only recommend this method to those who want to read. I know that if I really wanted fluency, I would have to immerse myself in one language until I was fluent.  It would have been better if I started my immersion before the first grade. But reading keeps languages in my head and lets me experience a little of  what a native reader of a language enjoys all the time. 

Also, I have tried reading a dual-language text in which one of the languages is English. It is difficult not to lean on the English.  

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The Text Itself 

Of the apostles who wrote the gospels and letters of the Christian scriptures only Luke was a native speaker of Greek.  His gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, which he wrote, are much better Greek than the rest of the book.  Which also means more difficult Greek. 

Between my two readings of Jean Evangile, I joined a synagogue for the first time in my life and became a somewhat practicing Jew.  This made the end of the gospel much more vivid and disturbing.  John makes very clear the plots and intrigues of the Jewish leaders are why Jesus was crucified.  

In the words of Jesus, it is very clear that Christianity should not have and money, power, buildings, or any connection to this world except to point people to the Kingdom of God.  So the Jewish leaders represent any religious leader that has money and power.  

But for the kind of person who thinks they can read a 2000-year-old twice translated book literally (Jesus spoke Aramaic and Hebrew, John translated his words in Greek, then the Greek got translated into English.) he would not look for the universal meaning of the actions of the Jewish leaders. The literal reading looks bad.  

Book 15 of 2016: Homer's Iliad--One of the First and Great War Stories

The Iliad of Homer one of the first and one of the best War Stories of Western Literature.  It opens with "The Anger of Achilles" and ends with funeral of Hector, the great hero of Troy. Hector was killed by Achilles in the last of many fight scenes.

In this reading, I was struck by how much the combatants "talk smack" to each other. They insult and provoke each other like professional wrestlers before cutting each other to pieces with sword and spear.  Hundreds and hundreds of men die in this story, many of them falling to the ground and "biting the earth" as they writhe and gasp on the way to Death and Hades.  

The meaning of "biting the dust" is just the same for us as when Homer sang his poem 3,000 years ago: fall headlong in the dust, and bite the earth [πολέες δ᾽ ἀμφ᾽ αὐτὸν ἑταῖροι//πρηνέες ἐν κονίῃσιν ὀδὰξ λαζοίατο γαῖαν].

Dozens of times as I read "he fell headlong in the dust and bites the earth" I heard the refrain from "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen.  

With spears, swords, arrows and not a few big rocks, the combatants smash skulls, tear out eyes, rip open bellies, tear flesh and break bones. The poem glorifies combat and bravery.  There is no doubt Homer's audience thought that to die bravely in combat was the best death.

The war that leads to so many deaths of brave men, the 10-years war between the Greeks and Trojans, was unnecessary.  It was the wounded pride of King Agamemnon of the Greeks that started the war.  In the Iliad, "...the face that launch'd a thousand ships" was the bearded face of King Agamemnon, not the lovely face of Helen of Troy. Christopher Marlowe's play Dr. Faustus in 1604 is the first reference to Helen causing the war and the source of the quote in the line above.

The song "If" by Bread in 1971 made the Marlowe's view part of pop culture and echoed in my head as I read Iliad.

Of course, it was her kidnap/elopement by Paris that was given as a reason to fight, but Helen, as all women of the time, was property.  Thousands of men in a thousand ships went to war following a proud and angry king.

The Trojan War is tragedy and loss even in victory.  Agamemnon is betrayed and killed when he returns home.  Achilles dies in Troy.  Ulysses wanders another ten years before his return.  That story is the "Odyssey."

I last read Iliad in the 90s and at the time liked he Odyssey better.  Now that I have served in an ill-conceived unnecessary war myself, I like Iliad better.  All those brave deaths, all that "biting the earth" for no reason in a losing cause is now part of my life.