Off We Go!
I'm a few days late, but today I got started with the "Let's Read The Bible... Together" 2024 challenge.
First, I searched Audible and bought a superb narration of the KJV by Christopher Glyn. I've just been listening to him narrating the first four chapters of Genesis on my phone while I read along on Biblehub on my computer.
Christopher Glyn brings out the poetic richness of the translation and smoothly traverses several puzzling cruxes, one of which I want to look at in this post, namely
thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Genesis 3:16
Genesis 3:16 "Desire... to thy husband"?
Call me cynical but I feel there is something odd about "desire" being the most prevalent emotion directed from wives towards their husbands, and indeed, my KJV with marginal readings offers an alternative translation:
and thou shalt be subject to thy husband.
Ah yes, that's more like it!
The Revised Standard Edition offered a clever gloss by inserting the word "yet," which is pure invention, not being found in the original Hebrew.
in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband"
(Who are you kidding?)
While the KJV translators translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek, they also consulted other English translations, including the (Roman Catholic) Douay-Rheims translation of the the Vulgate Latin, as well as the Vulgate itself. Here is the Vulgate translation:
conceptus tuos in dolore paries filios et sub viri potestate eris et ipse dominabitur tui
In other words:
and thou shalt be under thy husband's power
Douay-Rheims
The translators were also closely following the English of the Bishop's Bible, translated in 1568, which translates the second half of verse 16 like this:
In sorowe shalt thou bring foorth children: thy desire shalbe to thy husbande, and he shall haue the rule of thee.
I am not sure whether that is the first instance of the use of the word "desire," but it almost certainly had a strong influence on the KJV translators.
Tyndale's Translation
Finally, I have to give you the wonderful translation by the Protestant martyr, William Tyndale, whose English translation predates the Bishop's Bible. Perhaps it is this translation that leads later English translators to go with "desire" here:
And vnto the woman he sayd: I will suerly encrease thy sorow ad make the oft with child and with payne shalt thou be deleverd: And thy lustes shall pertayne vnto thy husbond and he shall rule the.
He he, to whom do your lusts pertain, dear reader?
If anybody has any insight into the original Hebrew, do let us know in the comments. In the meantime, I shall continue to suspect that Jerome's Latin translation, and those later English translations that followed his lead, are closer to the mark when they speak of relations of "power" rather than of "desire."
Thanks.
David Hurley
#InspiredFocus (?)
Sources
Image: The temptation of Adam & Eve. Pedestal of the statue of Madonna with Child, western portal, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temptation_Adam_Eva.jpg
Vulgate: https://vulgate.org/ot/genesis_3.htm
Douay-Rheims: https://www.drbo.org/chapter/01003.htm
Bishop's Bible: https://textusreceptusbibles.com/Bishops/1/3
Tyndale's Translation: https://www.biblestudytools.com/tyn/genesis/3.html