21They marched for three days from Nineveh to the plain of Bectileth and camped opposite Bectileth near the mountain that is to the north of Upper Cilicia.
The cardinal directions “east” and “west” are easy to translate into Maan here since the language uses “where the sun comes up” and “where the sun goes down.” For “north” the translator had “facing toward the sun rising to the left,” and for “south” she had “facing toward the sun rising to the right.” So the listener had to think hard before knowing what direction was in view when translating “to the north and south, to the east and west.” So, in case all four directions are mentioned, it was shortened by saying simply “all directions.” Manya uses a similar nomenclature for the cardinal directions. (Source: Don Slager)
Likewise, Yakan has “from the four corners of the earth” (source: Yakan back-translation) or Western Bukidnon Manobo “from the four directions here on the earth” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo back-translation).
Kankanaey is “from the coming-out and the going-away of the sun and the north and the south” (source: Kankanaey back-translation), Northern Emberá “from where the sun comes up, from where it falls, from the looking [left] hand, from the real [right] hand” (source: Charles Mortensen), Amele “from the direction of the sun going up, from the direction of the sun going down, from the north and from the south” (source: John Roberts), Ejamat “look up to see the side where the sun comes from, and the side where it sets, and look on your right side, and on your left” (source: David Frank in this blog post ).
In Lamba, only umutulesuŵa, “where the sun rises” and imbonsi, “where the sun sets” were available as cardinal directions that were not tied to the local area of language speakers (“north” is kumausi — “to the Aushi country” — and “south” kumalenje — “to the Lenje country”). So “north” and “south” were introduced as loanwords, nofu and saufu respectively. The whole phrase is kunofu nakusaufu nakumutulesuŵa nakumbonsi. (Source C. M. Doke in The Bible Translator 1958, p. 57ff. )
“West” is translated in Tzeltal as “where the sun pours-out” and in Kele as “down-river” (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel).
In Morelos Nahuatl, “north” is translated as “from above” and “south” as “from below.” (Source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
In Matumbi cardinal directions are defined as in relation to another place. “East” for instance typically is “toward the beach” since the coast is in the eastern direction in Matumbi-speaking areas. “North” and “south” can be defined as above or below another place. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
The Hebrew text that gives instructions where to place items in the tabernacle with the help of cardinal directions (north and south) had to be approached in the Bambam translation specific to spacial concepts of that culture.
Phil Campbell explains: “There are no words in Bambam for north and south. In Exodus 26:35, God instructs that the table is to be placed on the north side and the lamp on the south side inside the tabernacle. The team wants to use right and left to tell where the lamp and table are located. In many languages we would say that the table is on the right and the lampstand is on the left based on the view of someone entering the tabernacle. However, that is not how Bambam people view it. They view the placement of things and rooms in a building according to the orientation of someone standing inside the building facing the front of the building. So that means the table is on the left side and the lampstand is on the right side.”
Verses 21-28 describe the course of Holofernes’ western campaign, tracing his destructive progress from Nineveh to Palestine, so it will be helpful to begin a new paragraph here. It is hard to take the bewildering geography seriously, but some, Moore especially, make brave attempts both to identify unknown places and to explain the incongruities This gives the author credit for more geographical knowledge than is evident in the confused Greek text before us. In The Macmillan Bible Atlas, there is a map that shows the military deployments and movements in the book of Judith. While tentative, it is helpful, and the only such map to be found easily. Many of the place names in these verses are given in different forms in the manuscripts, but we will not belabor those points here. Other interpreters think the author was simply poorly informed about the geography of the area he had to cover. Interpreters on both sides will probably agree, however, that geography is not the author’s point, so it is surely not the point translators need to major on. What the author is doing in this half chapter is creating an effect. Holofernes, in obedience to his “lord” zigzags across the map in an unstoppable destructive march. He wastes no time getting to Cilicia, where he begins his bloody march southward. He roughly follows the outline given of the rebellious states in 1.7-10. He fights in the mountains, on the plains, and on the seacoast. He levels fortified cities and destroys agricultural areas. He is carrying out the terrible wrath of his god Nebuchadnezzar (compare Isa 2.12-17). He goes to prepare the way of his “lord.”
They marched for three days from Nineveh to the plain of Bectileth … to the north of Upper Cilicia: The plain of Bectileth is an unknown site, but Cilicia was a country in southeastern Asia Minor (Turkey). Upper Cilicia refers to the northern part of the country; therefore north of Upper Cilicia and “north of Cilicia” mean the same thing. From Nineveh that’s quite a march. It is over 300 miles in three days. Both New American Bible and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible try to alleviate this by separating Bectileth from Cilicia. They say Holofernes’ army marches three days toward Bectileth, and from Bectileth sets out toward a second encampment in the mountains north of Cilicia. It is not a convincing attempt. It relies too much on interpreting the sense of some prepositions used here; further, nothing in the Greek really says that Cilicia was the army’s “next” encampment. Translators should follow Revised Standard Version or Good News Translation‘s interpretation. The plain of Bectileth may also be rendered “the flat area around the city of Bectileth.”
Camped opposite Bectileth …: Camped means “set up camp” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version) or “set up their tents.”
An alternative translation model for this verse is:
• They left Nineveh, and after they had marched three days, they reached the plains surrounding the city of Bectileth. They set up their tents across from the city, near the mountains north of Cilicia.
Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Judith. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.
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