A small Wroot Press project. Verbum — Latin for the word. The Hebrew of Scripture is thick with play the English cannot carry: the human (ʾadam) drawn from the ground (ʾadamah), Babel that babbles, an Isaac who is laughter. Translate faithfully and the sense survives but the sound dies, and with it half of what the writer was doing. This lens does one thing — it sets the original words beside the text and gives the ones that play against each other a shared color, so the pun becomes something you can see and, sounding it out, hear. Sibling to Topographia Sacra (organized by where), Annales Sacra (by when), Voces (by who speaks), and Catena (by how the texts connect).
The Editions
GENESIS
What the Hebrew is doing · Hebrew
The book of beginnings is a book of puns. The human from the humus, the woman from the man, Babel that babbles, an Isaac who is laughter — Genesis names the world by the way its words sound against each other. This edition sets the Hebrew beside the text and keys the echo.
AMOS
The pun as verdict · Hebrew
In Amos the wordplay is the judgment. A basket of summer fruit (qayits) means the end (qets); Gilgal will go galoh into exile; the house of God becomes a house of nothing. The prophet condemns Israel in the echo of its own words.
Scripture: World English Bible · Public Domain · Wroot Press