Afterlives of the Bible

Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation

Naomi Seidman

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780226745077
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Faithful Renderings reads translation history through the lens of Jewish–Christian difference and, conversely, views Jewish–Christian difference as an effect of translation. Subjecting translation to a theological-political analysis, Seidman asks how the charged Jewish–Christian relationship—and more particularly the dependence of Christianity on the texts and translations of a rival religion—has haunted the theory and practice of translation in the West. Bringing together central issues in translation studies with episodes in Jewish–Christian history, Naomi Seidman considers a range of texts, from the Bible to Elie Wiesel's Night, delving into such controversies as the accuracy of various Bible translations, the medieval use of converts from Judaism to Christianity as translators, the censorship of anti-Christian references in Jewish texts, and the translation of Holocaust testimony. Faithful Renderings ultimately reveals that translation is not a marginal phenomenon but rather a crucial issue for understanding the relations between Jews and Christians and indeed the development of each religious community.
 

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction • The Translator as Double Agent
• Chapter One • Immaculate Translation
• Chapter Two • “The Beauty of Greece in the Tents of Shem”
• Chapter Three • False Friends
• Chapter Four • A Translator Culture
• Chapter Five • The Holocaust in Every Tongue
• Chapter Six • Translation and Assimilation
• Epilogue • Endecktes Judenthum?
• Notes
• Index