From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon May 06 2002 - 20:08:50 MDT
On Monday, May 6, 2002, at 12:33 pm, Michael M. Butler wrote:
> http://www.secularislam.org/books/luxenberg.htm
>
> You just _know_ this author is in for a death fatwah.
This may not be as interesting as it first appears. The author seems to
deliberately be looking for things that might be mistranslated. Other
translators find no problems in the passages Luxenberg tries to fix. He
replaces common words with close words that are uncommon in other
langugages that produce a more contorted reading. There is no reason to
take the more contrived translations over the direct simple ones in
these examples. While some mistranslation in all religious texts does
occur, Luxenberg seems to be going out of his way to contrive possible
mistranslations where there is no evidence of any problem to begin with.
The example of the virgins (or young maidens) does not involve unusual
words or awkward translation. The scene clearly and simply describes
these young maidens coming with bowls of food and refreshments to reward
the righteous in the afterlife. Luxenberg seems to decide that since
all the other rewards listed are foods, that the virgins must not be the
rewards. He searched for an alternate translation for the maidens that
would describe a food. The word he found is in an alternate language,
not spelled the same, and would means something like "white raisins of
crystal clarity", so it doesn't even make literal sense. (None of the
other rewards are metephorical or spiritual.) Worse yet, even when
translated this way, the scene still clearly describes young maidens
serving the food. Luxenberg's translation does not eliminate the
maidens, since they are clearly still there. He is adding new parts of
the story to support his new translation, instead of simplifying the
story and the linguistic translation.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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