(no subject)

[mamculuna]

So before I was a Buddhist, I had to study the Bible in a fairly fundamentalist college, not the kind of religion I'd been raised in. I haven't really looked back much at the Bible since then, but recently I've been reading R Crumb's Genesis. I'm probably more familiar with that book than with most of the rest of the Old Testament, but have to say I'm learning all kinds of things from it--like what a warrior Abraham was, and how much interaction went on with Egypt and Sodom than just the famous parts. Crumb even makes the begats make sense--page after page of wonderful drawings of generations of people, living their lives. Sexy, cruel, loving, human, divine lives. I hope he'll do the whole Bible--and wish he'd do some other scriptures, also, but one thing I already learned from the book is that 120 years is really the limit for most of us.

Comments

[anita-margarita.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'd want any more than 120 years. I mean, I'm 53 and I'm very conscious that I'm not in my 20's any more. How much more of that kind of awareness of aging would come with being, say, 150?

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Oh, I definitely think 90 will be plenty for me--but I'd like a talent like Crumb's to go on for a while.

Also Leonard Cohen--I'd be very happy if he kept writing songs until after I'm gone.

[anomster.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! My brother & sister-in-law gave me a copy for my birthday. It's interesting how the expressions he puts on people's faces & other choices he makes about how to represent things show his interpretation of what's going on. I'd heard about it on NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113842476), & then I had it! At this point I've caught up w/what we're reading in shul, & I'm hoping to keep pace w/the current Torah portions through the rest of the book.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about giving it to my son--it's a great present, I think!

I've often wondered how close the King James, etc., versions of the Old Testament in Christian Bibles are to the Torah. I don't know what Crumb used as his source, but the parts I know in detail (like the multiple versions of the creation story) seem to be exactly what I'd read.

One way it seems true to the way I've read it is that the "big" events, like the sacrifice of Isaac, are just slipped into the flow of the narrative, not set up as big climatic events.

[anomster.livejournal.com]

Oh, he says in the Introduction he used Robert Alter's translation, along w/credit to Betsy Sandlin, a friend of Crumb's, for help w/interpretation. Alter is a well-known Bible scholar (hey, even I've heard of him!)--in trying to find the name of 1 of his books, I ran across this interview (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/09/02/qa_with_robert_alter/) w/him about his translations. I was an adult when I got to the point where I knew enough Hebrew to read the Bible in the original--it was a revelation (no pun intended, for once!). The Torah is full of wordplay; for example, in the transition from the humans' being naked & not ashamed to the serpent story, the Hebrew roots for "naked" & "cunning" (describing the serpent) are the same, although probably not from the same source. Everett Fox did a translation that tries to convey this.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Very interesting! Of course I went right to the pictures and didn't read the introduction--will have to go back and take a look. I like the way that Crumb explains some of the wordplay in names.

[himmapaan.livejournal.com]

I'd always been interested in the bible as literature - naturally, since so much of Western art has drawn inspiration from it for centuries.

This looks like a wonderful illustrated version. I must look further into it. :D

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

The art is very different from yours! But very interesting.

[himmapaan.livejournal.com]

Hehe, yes; I know a little of R. Crumb's work. It's certainly interesting to see his take on something like the Bible. :D

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I think Crumb has said that he doesn't intend to go any further because of how much work and effort Genesis was.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I can believe it. I didn't read it side by side with the Bible text, but it looks like he illustrated every verse, and each illustration is full of detail.

[altaego.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the review. I'd like to check it out.

I once tried to read a huge book about Bereshit (the Hebrew name for Genesis) that my rabbi recommended. I was daunted by how much the author had to say.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

See note above from Anom--she's Orthodox, so I was interested to hear that she likes it, since Crumb himself is not religious (at least not in the conventional sense). Crumb says it all in pictures!

[anomster.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not! I'm observant, but I'm Conservative (pretty much, kinda got a toe over the line on each side). And I have a long history as a comic book reader, so this present appealed to both aspects in me. Oh, & about the wordplay notes, they might be the translator's rather than Crumb's. I've seen similar notes in standard translations.

And to altaego, if a picture is worth 1,000 words, Crumb may have as much to say as the author of that book--but less dauntingly.