Hi, folks!
I've just recently joined the group and am sure I'll learn a lot from you all.
I hope this post isn't off-topic or simply boring! I finished reading a book
called "The Uncensored Bible", written by Steven Mckenzie, John Kaltner and
Joel Kirlpatrick, and it seems the first two authors are respected biblical
scholars. It's an interesting book which purports to assess the merits of
controversial scholarly interpretations of a few difficult passages in the
Hebrew Bible. Not surprisingly, most of the discussion in the book revolves
around issues of translation.
Though the book is - IMHO - written in a very annoying style, with the authors
going out of their ways to sound 'cool' and 'funny', some of the issues raised
by them seemed to me to be of some interest.
In one of the chapters, the authors argue, for instance, that many times the
Bible uses the term "basar" (flesh) in order to euphemistically refer to the
male intimate parts (and here am I adopting another euphemism!), citing as
examples the following passages: Ezekiel 44:7, 9; Exodus 28:42; 20; Leviticus
15:2–3; Ezekiel 16:26; Ezekiel 23:20.
The last two passages from Ezekiel are especially disturbing because they seem
to imply a very crude - perhaps even gross, to modern sensitivies - kind of
racial stereotyping. This made me think about the role of euphemism as a
language device in the Hebrew Bible as a whole and the way racial stereotyping
may manifest itself through the biblical language.
I'd love to know what do you think about this. Do you think euphemism plays an
important role in the Hebrew Bible as a literary device? Do you think it's
possible to map the ancient Israelites' mindset and sensitivities through the
analysis of euphemistic language/speech? Can you think of passages where the
biblical authors employs language or even tropoi which may imply some kind of
racial stereotyping?
Sorry for the long post and thanks for having me in the group!
Best Regards,
Norman Cohn
São Paulo - Brazil
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