[MS: Robert Alter has a lifelong commitment to acting as a public intellectual and an advocate - in addition to the greatest translator of our era. From the outset of his career. some 50 years ago, he wrote in many legendary publications like Commentary or the New Republic and gave lectures in every forum dissecting the top issues of the day. In one incomplete survey, there are well over 100 articles - in addition to his books, essays and Bible notes. See on Sefaria the Robert Alter MS Sheets Collection.]
Robert Alter - Forward - MAGA Bible - Trump wants prayer in the schools - Misuse of the Bible - Link
"But the gravest problem, of course, of this mingling of the devotional with the educational is its likely effect on students who do not belong to the Christian majority. If we are to begin turning into a more decisively Christian nation — something closer to a monotheist, not polytheist, one — will non-Christian students be coerced into feeling they are somehow not fully American?
A good many decades ago, when I was growing up in Albany, New York, we regularly sang Christmas carols in class during the weeks leading up to Dec. 25. The music of many of the carols was beautiful, and I think I enjoyed it. The words were something else. As a 10-year-old, I was obviously giving no thought to theology, but when I came to lines like “Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day,” I balked. I knew that Christ was their savior and not mine, and like many of the Jewish kids in the class, I mouthed the words rather than sang them.
If religion is to become part of public education, it is bound to make many children feel they have to behave like latter-day Marranos, going through the motions but secretly adhering to another faith, or no faith at all, in the United Christian States of America. This is an abhorrent prospect, one that should be resisted legally, politically and morally. It is unfortunately one of many realms in which American democracy now could be compromised."
[MS: Emphasis and editing supplied. Copyright article.}
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Robert Alter: Trump and Christian Nationalism
Forward July 2024 -Link
"English translations of the Bible, moreover, reflect a Christological bias in rendering the Hebrew — that is, a bias toward finding in it intimations of Christ — from which modern versions, supposedly based on sound scholarship, have not entirely freed themselves.
Let me offer a single example from one of the best known of all biblical texts. In the 23rd psalm, the King James Version — the standard bearer in terms of English Bible translations — reads “Thou anointest my head with oil,” an expression of the speaker’s trust in God’s caring for him. All the modern versions use the same verb — even, shockingly, the Jewish Publication Society.
But all those versions are based on a mistranslation — one that suggests a sacral act or even something messianic rather than enjoyment of the good life here and now.
There is only one verb in biblical Hebrew for anointing, a verb cognate with mashiach, “messiah.” That is not the verb used in the 23rd Psalm; instead, the verb is dashen, which means “to make luxuriant,” and unlike the word for anointing, has nothing to do with messiahs or the consecration of kings and priests.
It’s easy to imagine, in such an enormous text, how many more examples there are like this one — tiny translation choices that add up to a significant skewing of the English Bible toward reverence of Christ, and away from the rich diversity of its original Hebrew meaning. Putting an English Bible in every classroom, without the correct secular framing, will inevitably lead to acquainting students with a Bible that in certain respects can be misleading or actually tendentious — a goal designed not to improve education, but to advance a hardline conservative agenda."
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[MS: Robert Alter - The Obligation to Advocate - To Speak Up and Shout Out - Wars and Global Jew hating
The wars in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran, and in Israel go on. Though the IDF has made military history in these wars - and appears to have saved Israel - the casualties are daily and the ongoing tragedy of some hostages left behind or murdered in Hamas captivity is a fact of these times. May we all advocate for Israel and for all of the Jewish people.]
Revised November 22, 2024
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