D
djeter
Guest
"Walt Whitman wrote that in order for there to be great books there must be great readers.
For a book to remain powerful throughout generations it cannot have a single meaning. Scripture, like great poetry, is not reducible to other words; that is, one cannot paraphrase it and capture the totality of its meaning. “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil” simply does not mean the same thing as “even if I come close to dying I am not worried that something bad will happen.” The words, particularly in their original Hebrew, contain nuances and resonance that go beyond any attempt to simplify them.
T. S. Eliot was once asked by a woman the meaning of the following line in his poem ‘Ash Wednesday”: “Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree.” Eliot’s response was “Madame, what the line means is ‘Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree.” Eliot must have known that any explanation of meaning would make the line less than it was, so he resisted all explanation. Interpreters of scripture, understanding the infinitude of meanings, take the opposite approach from Eliot. Instead of refusing to interpret, they never stop."
Rabbi Wolpe takes on the atheists and those who read the Bible as “literature” to show how faith illumines the meaning of passages and that meaning is not accessible to those who approach it from the standpoint of literature.
It’s a wonderful little essay. Enjoy it here, if you are interested. His book, Why Faith Matters is even better,
payingattentiontothesky.com/2010/01/26/rabbi-david-wolpe-on-reading-the-bible/
dj
For a book to remain powerful throughout generations it cannot have a single meaning. Scripture, like great poetry, is not reducible to other words; that is, one cannot paraphrase it and capture the totality of its meaning. “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil” simply does not mean the same thing as “even if I come close to dying I am not worried that something bad will happen.” The words, particularly in their original Hebrew, contain nuances and resonance that go beyond any attempt to simplify them.
T. S. Eliot was once asked by a woman the meaning of the following line in his poem ‘Ash Wednesday”: “Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree.” Eliot’s response was “Madame, what the line means is ‘Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree.” Eliot must have known that any explanation of meaning would make the line less than it was, so he resisted all explanation. Interpreters of scripture, understanding the infinitude of meanings, take the opposite approach from Eliot. Instead of refusing to interpret, they never stop."
Rabbi Wolpe takes on the atheists and those who read the Bible as “literature” to show how faith illumines the meaning of passages and that meaning is not accessible to those who approach it from the standpoint of literature.
It’s a wonderful little essay. Enjoy it here, if you are interested. His book, Why Faith Matters is even better,
payingattentiontothesky.com/2010/01/26/rabbi-david-wolpe-on-reading-the-bible/
dj