When an intermediary figure gives us way too much information
1 Enoch 60:2-3
'And the Antecedent of Time was sitting on the throne of his glory surrounded by the angels and the righteous ones. And a great trembling and fear seized me and my loins and kidneys lost control'
I really didn't want to know that, Enoch; it almost put me off my cup of tea. Nearly as bad as Philo.
posted by Chris Tilling @ 5:46 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I don't know, this one might be worse than Philo. Philo's quote could be blamed on the translator.
In this case, it would seem that the translator has attempted to soften the blow for us.
Somehow I think the translator should have opted for a more humourous idiom in the receptor language here... We still would have spilt our cups of tea when reading it, but for comedic rather than nauseous reasons...
Hi Mike,
"Philo's quote could be blamed on the translator"
I would refer you to Byron Smiths comment to the Philo post: "Methinks Philo knew all about allegorical, literal, spiritual and all others kinds of readings and multiple meanings. The dirty old man meant every word!"
:-))
Matthew,
EXACTLY. What a missed oppurtunity - "I peed my pants", or almost anything else would have caused a necessary smile - certainly before hitting the calendrical stuff after the Similitudes of Enoch.
Here's another for your series, and I think it may be the worst of them all:
“In the Hereafter Abraham will sit at the entrance to Gehenna, and permit no circumcised Israelite to descend therein.” Genesis Rabba 48:8
I can only think of one way for Abraham to check if an Israelite is circumcised or not...that means that Abraham--the great father of our faith--gets to sit at the gates of Gehenna and look at penises!
What the hell!?! (literally)
I'm not sure what kind of "reward" this is, but certainly TMI. I can think of many other HB figures to whom this task should fall.
Post a Comment
<< Home