There is No Remembrance (Qoheleth 1:11)
Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 6:26 am
Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) 1:11
Is there anything more terribly beautiful, or beautifully terrible, in any scripture?
I have usually read Ecclesiastes in the KJV. As with apparently most modern Christian translations, it blunts the force of this line considerably:
The RSV is much the same. So I was surprised that it would be the NRSV that would produce such a beautiful and striking translation. There was, apparently, a decision to be more precise about what “things” exactly are not remembered, i.e., people, ancestors, generations. (Of course it is people that one wants to remember, not “things” in general.) The older JPS translation agrees with the NRSV:
I don’t have the more recent JPS translation, but I’m curious what it says.
If the original was close to the MT, then the LXX seems to have been the first translation to water it down:
Of which one online translation produces this incoherent mess:
Strangely, Robert Alter’s recent and much acclaimed translation of the Tanakh appears closer to the LXX than to the Masoretic text, as far as the latter is parsed online (I don’t know Hebrew):
“There is no remembrance of the last things that will be.” This makes no sense.
So, does the LXX’s τοῖς ἐσχάτοις γενομένοις and εἰς τὴν ἐσχάτην reflect anything in the MT Hebrew?
The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.
NRSV
NRSV
Is there anything more terribly beautiful, or beautifully terrible, in any scripture?
I have usually read Ecclesiastes in the KJV. As with apparently most modern Christian translations, it blunts the force of this line considerably:
There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
KJV
KJV
The RSV is much the same. So I was surprised that it would be the NRSV that would produce such a beautiful and striking translation. There was, apparently, a decision to be more precise about what “things” exactly are not remembered, i.e., people, ancestors, generations. (Of course it is people that one wants to remember, not “things” in general.) The older JPS translation agrees with the NRSV:
There is no remembrance of them of former times; neither shall there be any remembrance of them of latter times that are to come, among those that shall come after.
JPS Tanakh 1917
JPS Tanakh 1917
I don’t have the more recent JPS translation, but I’m curious what it says.
If the original was close to the MT, then the LXX seems to have been the first translation to water it down:
οὐκ ἔστιν μνήμη τοῖς πρώτοις, καί γε τοῖς ἐσχάτοις γενομένοις· οὐκ ἔσται αὐτῶν μνήμη μετὰ τῶν γενησομένων εἰς τὴν ἐσχάτην.
Of which one online translation produces this incoherent mess:
There is no memorial to the first things; neither to the things that have been last shall their memorial be with them that shall at the last
Strangely, Robert Alter’s recent and much acclaimed translation of the Tanakh appears closer to the LXX than to the Masoretic text, as far as the latter is parsed online (I don’t know Hebrew):
There is no remembrance of the first things nor of the last things that will be. They will have no remembrance with those who will be in the latter time.
“There is no remembrance of the last things that will be.” This makes no sense.
So, does the LXX’s τοῖς ἐσχάτοις γενομένοις and εἰς τὴν ἐσχάτην reflect anything in the MT Hebrew?