"How to answer a fool" : The wisdom of rhetoric and the rhetoric of wisdom in Proverbs 26:1-12, with special reference to Bible translation
Date
2002
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Old Testament Society of South Africa
Abstract
There is a twofold challenge connected with the hermeneutics of the wisdom literature in Scripture. The first is to correctly interpret any given text and genre within its specific ANE literary, religious, and sociocultural context. The second is to convey the import of such sapiential discourse to a contemporary audience in their local environment. In this paper I discuss some crucial aspects of this complex enterprise from a translational perspective. After an initial overview of rhetoric in relation to proverbial literature, I examine its particular manifestation in the structure and style of Proverbs 26:1- 12, with a special focus on the paradoxical pair of verses 4-5. There are more textual organization and communicative significance here than meets the ear of the hearer in terms of form, content, and emotive intent. This added rhetorical dimension greatly increases the difficulty of re-presenting such passages adequately (appropriately as well as acceptably) within a different linguistic, literary (oral), and social setting. Several critical issues of relevance will be discussed and illustrated with reference to a creative translation of this passage into the language and poetic tradition of the Chewa people living in Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique.
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CITATION: Wendland, E. R.2002. "How to answer a fool" : The wisdom of rhetoric and the rhetoric of wisdom in Proverbs 26:1-12, with special reference to Bible translation. Old Testament Essays,15(2).
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Citation
Wendland, E. R.2002. "How to answer a fool" : The wisdom of rhetoric and the rhetoric of wisdom in Proverbs 26:1-12, with special reference to Bible translation. Old Testament Essays,15(2).