Megillah 9 is in translation
The irony is not lost on me that this is talking about translation changes to make things more palatable to outsiders, and is presented with an English translation that contains a lot of extra stuff on a site that is fully aware of audience and, I imagine, has to have had a lot of internal discussions regarding the issues involved with that.
וּמִשּׁוּם מַעֲשֶׂה דְּתַלְמַי הַמֶּלֶךְ. דְּתַנְיָא: מַעֲשֶׂה בְּתַלְמַי הַמֶּלֶךְ שֶׁכִּינֵּס שִׁבְעִים וּשְׁנַיִם זְקֵנִים וְהִכְנִיסָן בְּשִׁבְעִים וּשְׁנַיִם בָּתִּים וְלֹא גִּילָּה לָהֶם עַל מָה כִּינְסָן. וְנִכְנַס אֵצֶל כׇּל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד, וְאָמַר לָהֶם: כִּתְבוּ לִי תּוֹרַת מֹשֶׁה רַבְּכֶם. נָתַן הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בְּלֵב כׇּל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד עֵצָה וְהִסְכִּימוּ כּוּלָּן לְדַעַת אַחַת.
The Gemara continues: And this was due to the incident of King Ptolemy, as it is taught in a baraita: There was an incident involving King Ptolemy of Egypt, who assembled seventy-two Elders from the Sages of Israel, and put them into seventy-two separate rooms, and did not reveal to them for what purpose he assembled them, so that they would not coordinate their responses. He entered and approached each and every one, and said to each of them: Write for me a translation of the Torah of Moses your teacher. The Holy One, Blessed be He, placed wisdom in the heart of each and every one, and they all agreed to one common understanding. Not only did they all translate the text correctly, they all introduced the same changes into the translated text.
וְכָתְבוּ לוֹ: ״אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא בְּרֵאשִׁית״. ״אֶעֱשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצֶלֶם וּבִדְמוּת״.
And they wrote for him: God created in the beginning [bereshit], reversing the order of the words in the first phrase in the Torah that could be misinterpreted as: “Bereshit created God” (Genesis 1:1). They did so to negate those who believe in the preexistence of the world and those who maintain that there are two powers in the world: One is Bereshit, who created the second, God. And they wrote: I shall make man in image and in likeness, rather than: “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26), as from there too one could mistakenly conclude that there are multiple powers and that God has human form.
״וַיְכַל בְּיוֹם הַשִּׁשִּׁי וַיִּשְׁבּוֹת בְּיוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי״. ״זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בְּרָאוֹ״, וְלֹא כָּתְבוּ ״בְּרָאָם״.
Instead of: “And on the seventh day God concluded His work” (Genesis 2:2), which could have been understood as though some of His work was completed on Shabbat itself, they wrote: And on the sixth day He concluded His work, and He rested on the seventh day. They also wrote: Male and female He created him, and they did not write as it is written in the Torah: “Male and female He created them” (Genesis 5:2), to avoid the impression that there is a contradiction between this verse and the verse: “And God created man” (Genesis 1:27), which indicates that God created one person.
״הָבָה אֵרְדָה וְאָבְלָה שָׁם שְׂפָתָם״. ״וַתִּצְחַק שָׂרָה בִּקְרוֹבֶיהָ״.
Instead of: “Come, let us go down, and there confound their language” (Genesis 11:7), which indicates multiple authorities, they wrote in the singular: Come, let me go down, and there confound their language. In addition, they replaced the verse: “And Sarah laughed within herself [bekirba]” (Genesis 18:12), with: And Sarah laughed among her relatives [bikroveha]. They made this change to distinguish between Sarah’s laughter, which God criticized, and Abraham’s laughter, to which no reaction is recorded. Based on the change, Sarah’s laughter was offensive because she voiced it to others.
״כִּי בְאַפָּם הָרְגוּ שׁוֹר וּבִרְצוֹנָם עִקְּרוּ אֵבוּס״. ״וַיִּקַּח מֹשֶׁה אֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ וְאֶת בָּנָיו וַיַּרְכִּיבֵם עַל נוֹשֵׂא בְּנֵי אָדָם״.
They also altered the verse: “For in their anger they slew a man and in their self-will they slaughtered an ox” (Genesis 49:6), to read: For in their anger they slew an ox and in their self-will they uprooted a trough, to avoid the charge that Jacob’s sons were murderers. Instead of: “And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon a donkey” (Exodus 4:20), they wrote: And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon a carrier of people, which could be understood as referring to a horse or a camel rather than the lowly donkey.
״וּמוֹשַׁב בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר יָשְׁבוּ בְּמִצְרָיִם וּבִשְׁאָר אֲרָצוֹת אַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה״. ״וַיִּשְׁלַח אֶת זַאֲטוּטֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל״. ״וְאֶל זַאֲטוּטֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא שָׁלַח יָדוֹ״.
Instead of: “And the residence of the children of Israel, who resided in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years” (Exodus 12:40), which when read literally is imprecise, for they did not dwell in Egypt that long, they wrote: And the residence of the children of Israel, who resided in Egypt and in other lands, was four hundred years. Instead of: “And he sent the youth of the children of Israel, who brought burnt-offerings” (Exodus 24:5), which evokes the question of why young men were sent to perform that service, they wrote: And he sent the elect [za’atutei] of the children of Israel. The same term was substituted again several verses later, rendering the verse: “And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid not His hand” (Exodus 24:11), as: And upon the elect of the children of Israel He laid not His hand.
״לֹא חֶמֶד אֶחָד מֵהֶם נָשָׂאתִי״. ״אֲשֶׁר חָלַק ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֹתָם לְהָאִיר לְכׇל הָעַמִּים״.
Instead of Moses’ assertion: “I have not taken one donkey [ḥamor] from them” (Numbers 16:15), they wrote in more general terms: “I have not taken one item of value [ḥemed] from them,” to prevent the impression that Moses took other items. To the verse that discusses the worship of the sun and the moon, about which it is written: “Which the Lord your God has allotted to all the nations” (Deuteronomy 4:19), they added a word to make it read: “Which the Lord your God has allotted to give light to all the nations,” to prevent the potential misinterpretation that the heavenly bodies were given to the gentiles so that they may worship them.
״וַיֵּלֶךְ וַיַּעֲבוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא צִוִּיתִי לְעוֹבְדָם״.
The verse: “And has gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded” (Deuteronomy 17:3), could be understood as indicating that God did not command their existence, i.e., these entities created themselves. Therefore, when these Elders translated the verse they added a word to the end of the verse to make it read: Which I have not commanded to serve them.
וְכָתְבוּ לוֹ: ״אֶת צְעִירַת הָרַגְלַיִם״, וְלֹא כָּתְבוּ לוֹ ״אֶת הָאַרְנֶבֶת״, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁאִשְׁתּוֹ שֶׁל תַּלְמַי אַרְנֶבֶת שְׁמָהּ, שֶׁלֹּא יֹאמַר שָׂחֲקוּ בִּי הַיְּהוּדִים וְהֵטִילוּ שֵׁם אִשְׁתִּי בַּתּוֹרָה.
And in the list of unclean animals they wrote for him: The short-legged beast [tze’irat haraglayim]. And they did not write for him: “And the hare [arnevet]” (Leviticus 11:6), since the name of Ptolemy’s wife was Arnevet, so that he would not say: The Jews have mocked me and inserted my wife’s name in the Torah. Therefore, they did not refer to the hare by name, but by one of its characteristic features.
-Megillah 9a-9b
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1233835.html.