Cheeky bugger, you even quoted my previous post while making your unfounded claim of originality.

Absolutely not!!! You claimed that the English translations "maintained the same level of word-play", whereas in a stroke of pure originality, I said that they took it an extra step and were even better than the French original. (And better than the other language translations, too.) All of which is deeply relevant to attitudes toward Muslims in far-flung parts of the Roman Empire.

Mine got three thanks, yours got none.

That's relevant to everything.

Perhaps we have digressed a tad

But before we return to the subject, here is a passage from an interview with Anthea Bell, who worked with Derek Hockeridge on all the Asterix translations (from www.connexionfrance.com):

http://www.connexionfrance.com/aster...s-article.html

How long would it take you and Derek to do a typical album?

There is no answer to that. The jokes would sometimes come overnight. You puzzle away thinking of references and allusions - and you’ve got to fit the length of the speech bubbles and it must fit the expressions on the characters’ faces and if there is a pun or an extended passage of wordplay it’s no good doing it literally because then it’s not funny anymore.

Some of the later ones by Goscinny have long passages of extended literary allusions. In Le Cadeau de César [Caesar’s Gift] Asterix duels with a Roman soldier and he does it in the character of Cyrano de Bergerac, it’s wonderful, it goes on for almost a page. I sat looking at that and thought “the most famous swordfight in English literature is probably Hamlet and Laertes,” and the whole thing was done with quotations from Hamlet in the end.

When you make a change because the British won’t understand a cultural allusion, are the French publishers OK with it?

Yes, we don’t do anything without permission from the French. Uderzo only speaks French, so he has the books checked by a lovely Englishwoman who lives in Paris. Her mind and mine work very much alike.

What happens when you are going to do a new translation - do you get a script?

In the latter ones, it’s been a script or lately a CD, labelled “confidential.”

Translating the character names must have been a challenge

Yes - there are 400 of them now. The druid Panoramix could have been kept as Panoramix in English, but the name Getafix presented itself as if on a plate. Some people say they are shocked, but I have a perfectly good explanation, which is that there is a theory that the ancient peoples used standing stones as an astronomical observatory to “get a fix” on the stars. In a way I regretted losing the dog’s name Idéfix [idée fixe - an obsession], which could have been understood in some circles in England, but not universally and there again Dogmatix presented itself on a plate. There are many English words ending in “ous” and those come in handy for the Romans - we had two soldiers called Sendervictorius and Appianglorius.

Apropos not much, nowhere in the Bible are the scriptures referred to as "The word of God". The NT makes it plain that Jesus is the Word of God. In the OT, the phrase is used to indicate when God spoke to Moses, the prophets or whoever. This word of God comes to believers through Jesus and the scriptures. http://barth.ptsem.edu/karl-barth/theology

Depending which religion you believe in, anyway. I've certainly spoken to pastors of various orthodoxies who espoused that every word in the bible is the literal word of God, merely recorded (infallibly) by men. Never understood how that impacted the translations into English, myself, but didn't care enough to pursue it; my only point is that some Christians believe that the bible is the literal Truth (including creationism, to my horror).

But I think this thread is about the Koran - we probably ought to move the bible discussions to a new one lest our moderators step in.

But it is difficult to physically separate the Koran and the Bible.
They are both the "Word of the same God" and have a lot of similar texts; for example, the lofty status of Abraham is one shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike.

About "every word in the bible is the literal word of God, merely recorded (infallibly) by men." Well when you consider it was originally written in an early form of Hebrew then translated into Greek, then Latin and finally (for us) English then this is a fine example of the phrase "something got lost in the translation"!

Must be a weird hobby to talk with pastors....



Too much time on your hands, really.

they shut down one of the Christmas Markets in our city this evening after a bomb threat and related arrest. the entire city of Brussels is on lockdown. they've canceled multiple international football friendlies after threats.

I can't help thinking that Brussels is probably one of the safest places to be at the moment.
If I were a terrorist planning a major attack on a city I wouldn't choose one which was on high alert and crawling with army and police even if that was what my original plan had been.

This thread is already the off-topic spawn of another thread. It's not just about the Koran, though; it's about Muslims generally. Well, see the thread subject name for full details.

There was more to it than some prank caller... at least in the Germany-Netherlands case. The threat must have been rather concrete and specific, as the cancellation was a major shock for the public. I'm pretty sure the cops did not do this without good reason or "just in case"...

The Koran is much shorter and contains far less detail than the Bible. Less than 80'000 words as compared to over 800'000. There are ~50 events related in both books, but some have significant variations. E.g. Jesus didn't die on the cross, according to the Koran. It's really not that difficult to separate them.
I really don't know where these myths arise. Even the KJV (OT) was based primarily on the Hebrew text. Modern English translations refer back directly to Hebrew sources (including the Dead Sea Scrolls); where the Septuagint (an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) has significant variations, these are included as notes. The NT is translated from (mostly) Nestlé-Aland - a greek text composed from the most ancient NT manuscripts. Rigourous scholarship goes into these translations. It's not done my amateur well-meaning believers. There is no "lost in translation", and Latin certainly doesn't come into it.

The source documents may suffer from transmission errors from the originals, but the oldest OT sources are over 2000 years old, and the various sources of the NT date from 150-350AD. What is amazing is the consistency between the documents, but of course we cannot be sure that any are the original.

__________________
Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

I supposed nobody in the congegration ate porc or shellfish then?

Islamic terror in Japan ?
Never heard of it. In fact it seems that flats or houses in Japan are not rented to Muslims. The japanese don't hire Muslims and universities don't teach Arabic. A land with 127 Million People, with hardly any muslim embassy. Citizenship to Muslims does not exist. No mosques. No teaching of Islam.
Temporary residence to Mulims only if they practice their religion at home, and they have speak fluent japanese.
Racism ? The japanese don't care. That's the law in their country.

Two minutes browsing google on my phone shows that this is a load of bollocks.

Arabic course at a Japanese university: http://www.tufs.ac.jp/english/educat...es/arabic.html

One of several Japanese mosques:


(Can't be bothered to check the rest)

I have a question about the books...

Assuming that God exists and that both the Qu'ran and the Bible are true (perhaps there are multiple realities and dimensions and universes; both could be true at the same time!

Why do believers trust the word of some long-dead humans? How do we know the humans that wrote the books didn't make some of it up? Genuine question, and I'm not questioning faith in religion or faith in God. I'm questioning faith in other humans. Humans wrote the books... Humans are liars...we all lie to varying extent... Can't people just believe in their God(s) without the books? Sure the books have cool stories and lessons in them but why do people just accept that these writers had direct contact with God to write them? If someone says in the 21st century that they've literally had direct contact with God nobody believes them

The Koran was supposedly dictated by an angel to Mohammed. After a time of verbal transmission, it was written down. One book. The scope for lies would be in the history and the laws that God gave.

The Bible comprises 66 or so books of varying nature that are in some way supposedly inspired by God. I.e. people were under the inspiration of God when they wrote the books. The scope for lies would similarly be in the history and the laws. However, not all the books are history or laws and therefore they cannot all be "made up". A poem about the human condition is a poem. A proverb is a proverb. There's no scope for lying.

In the case of Christianity, the books and letters arose after the religion began as a record of what had happened, and useful teachings some people had written to various other believers. These were later compiled into the New Testament from the stories and letters that believer groups were already finding useful and sharing with one another.

Books are useful because they allow the ruling in and ruling out of doctrine. Hence the suppression of gnostic texts.

Plenty of people who say they've had direct contact with God are believed in the modern age. And plenty of Christians (an people of other faiths) believe that they have direct contact with God - that's what praying is!

__________________
Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

Check your facts.