Murmuring Books
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Now that I have more-or-less consistent internet access the semester is about to start.Believe me, I am annoyed. When I pay for something I like it to work. (At this rate I should simply rent space on a bulletin board and change it every two weeks.)
I was having a conversation with a colleague today on how to get students to recognize the difference between what they read and what they think they read. When most people read a book with care they read every word: with some very familiar things they read on the page what they expect to see.
Getting students to recognize the difference is a classic problem in my field, and perhaps in others, as well. Some readers of Revelations have the Gospels murmuring in their ear, some readers of Paul's letters have Acts, it is very difficult to read one of the Evangelists without the sussurus of the other three — people familiar with Biblical stories from art, films, verbal retellings sometimes read those instead of the page in front of them. Students familiar with particular translations or internal traditions do not translate when they study a Biblical language, they recite. (Anything is easier than confronting the sometimes unclear and often ambiguous original language — or worse, the disagreements among ancient manuscripts.) I sypathize, there are days I would rather do anything than the real work of translation.) And I have known scholars who were so devoted to a theory that they read every text through it.
We did not come up with any new solutions but I always remember, every September, that the first class I took on the Bible began a discussion of that very problem.
-Kushana
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