(“sacred texts and human contexts” conference 2013,
hickey center for interfaith studies and dialogue,
nazareth college, rochester, ny)
If you mention the name of Natân André Chouraqui (1917-2007) today, even in fairly literate
company, you are likely to encounter puzzled or blank looks. Six years after Chouraqui’s
death in Jerusalem in July 2007—and, in fact, for many years before that—the name of this
remarkable Algerian-French-Israeli Renaissance man, scholar, politician and interfaith
pioneer had already begun to fade into forgetfulness on a popular level, and he was often not
remembered, even by those who were the most direct beneficiaries of his life’s work. All of
which is, I believe, a profound injustice, not merely to a man who was one of the great
luminaries and thinkers of the twentieth century, but to someone whose ideas today seem to
be, more than ever, timely, relevant, ground-breaking and helpful. André Chouraqui is, I
would argue, one of the figures whose contributions and life speak with a unique
appropriateness to the theme of this conference, and to the challenging situation of
interreligious engagement and dialogue in our modern world. Chouraqui was a man deeply
rooted in both sacred texts and human contexts, and he dedicated his life to trying to enable
those two realities to speak to one another in life-giving, creative and transformative ways.
André Chouraqui was many things. He was, at various moments in his life, a lawyer and
judge, a globe-trotting ambassador for Europe’s post-war Jewish leadership, a member of the
French Resistance, a gifted literary translator, a playwright, editor and author, a member of
the cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, twice deputy mayor of Jerusalem, an
acclaimed Biblical scholar and translator, an outspoken advocate for interreligious and intercultural dialogue, and a respected commentator on political and religious life, both in Israel
and abroad. He was a man whose life spanned, and intersected with, remarkable historical
events, including the Second World War and the birth of the State of Israel, the Second
Vatican Council, the wars fought by Israel in 1967 and 1973, the Camp David Accords, and
the eventual diplomatic recognition of the State of Israel on the part of the Vatican. Not only
did he live through them and witness them, but he was, in many cases, an active protagonist
in them. He had a front row seat on key aspects of twentieth-century history, and it shaped
him, and his vision, profoundly.
Chouraqui was born in 1917 into a devout Sephardic Jewish family that had lived in North
Africa for more than 500 years, and that boasted of a long and distinguished pedigree of
Jewish community leaders and scholars. Although his first language at home was Arabic, the
Chouraqui household was multilingual; his father and grandfather were deeply rooted in the
Hebrew prayer-life of their synagogue, in the classic rabbinic texts in Aramaic, and in the
ancient Ladino songs of their long-since-expelled Spanish ancestors. His family were
translation for transformation : 2
merchants, and most of their employees were local Muslims—and the young André started
off attending Catholic schools, and later French republican schools, in which French was the
language of instruction. The fact of growing up as a Jew in a French colonial setting in
Algeria meant that, necessarily, André’s earliest experiences were of religious, cultural and
linguistic pluralism, with the corresponding need to build bridges of understanding, whether
that meant translating from one language into another, or moving daily between those
various worlds, which could be, at times, intensely religious, and at others, strictly secular
and almost anti-religious. It was a heady blend for a young boy, and Chouraqui recalled how,
even in his childhood, his parents encouraged in him a respect and esteem for those of other
faiths, and a linguistic and theological curiosity that would mark the rest of his 90 years of
life1.
After years of a strictly secular (and somewhat anti-religious) education in Algeria and
France, Chouraqui had largely abandoned the faith of his youth2 when, in the mid-1930s, and
having graduated in law from the Sorbonne, he enrolled in Paris’s rabbinic seminary. Like
many of Europe’s Jews, he was alarmed by the anti-Semitic mood developing in Hitler’s
Germany, and its increasingly ominous threats against Jews. Although he had no intention of
becoming a rabbi, nevertheless André experienced a renewed sense of solidarity with his
Jewish people, and a desire to understand who and what he was as a Jewish man. As
Chouraqui later recalled, “It took … the trauma of the Hitlerian persecution, to pull me back
to my Jewish well-springs. Since Hitler wanted to take my life because I was Jewish, at least
I wanted to die with my eyes open, knowing what it meant to be Jewish”3. He was three
years into his studies at the rabbinic seminary when the Nazis closed it and scattered its
faculty and students. Even throughout the war years, however, Chouraqui made use of his
time in the Resistance to gather other Jewish students—and Jewish professors—together for
late-night study sessions in the woods by firelight, which he and his friends called “L’École
1
“Dans l’Algérie de ses pères, André Chouraqui a puisé son génie des langues et son rêve insensé de paix entre les
trois religions monothéistes. Né à Aïn Temouchent, d’un père viticulteur et négociant, d’ancêtres venus d’Espagne et
arabisants, il parle arabe avec ses amis musulmans, français en famille, hébreu à la synagogue. Son rabbin lui
apprend la Torah par cœur et en hébreu. Ses camarades de jeu sont musulmans et, quand il lève la tête, il entend les
cloches de l’église d’Aïn Temouchent appeler les chrétiens à l’office. « Trois langues, trois textes sacrés, trois
religions, trois cultures trottaient en permanence dans ma tête », aimait-il à dire à propos de son enfance.” (Henri
Tincq,
“André
Chouraqui,”
Le
Monde,
July
11,
2007,
accessed
April
25,
2013,
http://www.lemonde.fr/imprimer/article/2007/07/11/934280.html)
2
“J’étais prêt à envoyer Abderahman, Donnat et Mahdad accompagner mes pauvres rabbins dans les oubliettes
religieuses et sémitiques, auxquelles la République genereuse m’arrachait pour me permettre de m’épanouir au
grand soleil des ideaux revolutionnaires … [Je me mis] … à ne plus penser à l’univers de la Bible, à oublier les
Psaumes et Isaïe, à délaisser toute pratique religieuse, sauf à ne pas manger de pain à Pâques et à jeûner pieusement
le jour de Kippur. Oui, j’avais insensiblement changé de peuple élu, passant de mon Orient originel à cet Occident
dont la France paraissait être la lumière et l’espérance.” (André Chouraqui, L’Amour fort comme la mort. Paris:
Robert Laffont, 1990, 122).
“… I was not far from Toynbee’s opinion that the Jew was an archæological survival, a fossil. As for me, I had
become, thanks to the secular and republican culture, a son of the French Revolution, a free citizen of a country
whose motto, which had become mine, was Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.” (André Chouraqui, A Man in Three
Worlds. Transl. by Kenton Kilmer of Ce que je crois. Paris: Grasset & Fasquelle, 1979. Lanham, MD: University
Press of America, 1984, 76).
3
Chouraqui, A Man, 75.
translation for transformation : 3
des prophètes” [The School of the Prophets]4. When the war ended, Chouraqui was shattered
and disillusioned by his experience of anti-Jewish hatred, and yet inspired by the brotherhood
he had experienced in the Resistance, where political or religious allegiances were largely
ignored. Could not such a camaraderie exist apart from wartime? And what steps would it
take, to help Christians begin to think differently—very differently—about Jews, to sap antiSemitism and anti-Judaism of their centuries-old theological power?
Others were asking similar questions, chief among them the French Jewish historian Jules
Isaac (1877-1963), with whom Chouraqui had already been in correspondence during the
final years of the war5. Isaac was one of the organizers of the ground-breaking 1947
conference of Christian and Jewish leaders in Seelisberg, Switzerland, dedicated to uprooting
anti-Jewish sentiment from Christian teaching and liturgy. Less than a year later, Chouraqui
was, together with Isaac, one of the founders of France’s first Amitié judéo-chrétienne, or
Jewish-Christian Friendship Society. That commitment to promoting mutually respectful
interreligious relations, informed by the best available thinking, would guide Chouraqui’s life
for the next five decades.
As someone fascinated by the nuances of languages, who lived comfortably in a plurilingual
world, Chouraqui had never been satisfied with the French Biblical and liturgical translations
he had grown up with in the synagogue, none of which seemed to him to capture adequately
the semantic richness—and literary playfulness—of the Semitic languages as he knew them
firsthand. Already in the early 1950s, André had published award-winning French
translations of the Song of Songs and the book of Psalms6, and several colleagues had urged
him to make good on his ambition to prepare a wholesale translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures. Chouraqui, however, was a busy political and cultural figure with a young family,
and so the project was postponed until a quieter time in his life—a time that would come
twenty years later, when, having stepped down definitively from elected office, he decided to
take up once more a project that had intrigued and inspired him since his youth: a one-man
translation of the Jewish Bible into French—but a translation that would be very different
from every other available translation, and that would respond to very different goals.
It was 1972 when Chouraqui embarked on his most ambitious and, arguably, his most
significant cultural and theological undertaking: a translation, published book by individual
book, of the Scriptures of Israel. It would not, however, be guided by the canons of
traditional French literary translation, which tended to privilege a text characterized by
literary elegance, and flowing smoothly. No: Chouraqui’s inspiration would actually come
from modern German scholarship, and, more specifically, from the unorthodox Bible
4
“… un genre de ‘yeshiva’ comme nous disons, une sorte d’école rabbinique, d’école de penseurs, qui a fonctionné
depuis le printemps 1943 jusqu’à la Libération et encore deux mois après la Libération. Le chef spiritual de cette
école était le philosophe Jacob Gordin …” (Pierre Bolle, ed., Le Plateau Vivarais-Lignon: Accueil et résistance,
1939-1946: Actes du colloque du Chambon-sur-Lignon. Chambon-sur-Lignon: Société d’histoire de la montagne,
1992, 444).
5
On this correspondence, see: André Chouraqui, Le destin d’Israël: Correspondances avec Jules Isaac, Jacques
Ellul, Jacques Maritain et Marc Chagall; Entretiens avec Paul Claudel (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2007).
6
Le Cantique des Cantiques: Nouvelle traduction française par André Chouraqui (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer,
1953); Les Psaumes, traduits et présentés par André Chouraqui (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1956).
translation for transformation : 4
translation work of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig who, beginning in the 1920s, had
set out to create an alternative German version that would rival the classic German
translation of Martin Luther. Unlike previous translators, who had emphasized readability in
the vernacular, their approach consciously highlighted the “otherness” of the text, and
attempted to reproduce, as far as possible, the structure and flavor of the Hebrew, for readers
largely unacquainted with the Jewish Scriptures in their original language, losing as little of
the semantic weight of words and expressions as possible—even if this resulted in a kind of
artificial “hybrid” German, which was “bent” to conform to Hebrew idioms and a very
different worldview7.
This was the model that captured Chouraqui’s imagination and, from the outset, he
established several guiding principles for his work:
1) that, to the maximum degree possible, the same Hebrew word would be translated
consistently throughout, to enable non-Hebrew-speakers to discern patterns of word
usage that are often important to the Biblical authors’ purposes, but can be muddied
by many translators’ preference for varying their word choices according to context;
2) that he would tend to avoid terms that had become “theologically sanctified” (or
“ossified”), since they often implicitly included a veneer of theological orthodoxy,
which narrowed down the range of possible interpretations and sometimes smoothed
over irregularities or awkward aspects of the text8;
3) that he would not hesitate to mine the whole history of the French language for his
vocabulary, often drawing on rarefied, technical or obscure terms and nuances, which
he believed more closely approximated the meaning of the Hebrew9. Similarly, he
would not be afraid to coin new, derivative terms, when standard French seemed
unable to express some important aspect of the original text;
4) that he would try to communicate, in French, key aspects of the etymology of
important Hebrew words, and to capture at least something of the word-games and
linguistic playfulness that often mark Biblical narrative, but which are generally
extremely difficult to reproduce adequately in any other language;
5) to prefer more concrete renderings to more abstract ones, in keeping with his
understanding of the distinctive character of Hebraic versus Greek modes of thought.
The process, which began in 1972, would take him more than three years of intense work,
during which he frequently retreated to the contemplative stillness of the Catholic Trappist
7
On the Buber-Rosenzweig version, see: Mara H. Benjamin, Rosenzweig’s Bible: Reinventing Scripture for Jewish
Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), and Alan T. Levenson, The Making of the Modern
Jewish Bible: How Scholars in Germany, Israel, and America Transformed an Ancient Text. (Plymouth, UK:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2011).
8
Prophets thus become “les inspirés,” the Psalms become “les Louanges,” angels are “messagers,” etc.
9
In his New Testament translation, Chouraqui translates “tax-collector” with the Old French term gabelou, referring
to those who collected the gabelle, a particularly hated medieval tax on food and drink.
translation for transformation : 5
monastery of Latroun, north-west of Jerusalem. The first of his volumes came off the press in
January 1974, and by 1977, the first edition of his entire 26-volume translation was available
in print. Almost immediately, it sparked both admiration and detraction. Until his death,
Chouraqui continued to re-work and improve his translation, publishing several subsequent
revised versions. Until his death, he was a lightning-rod for critics, who panned his
admittedly unusual style, and a source of inspiration for those who found a rugged and
attractive new freshness in those ancient texts that spoke to them with a more vigorous and
compelling voice.
It is possible to get a small taste of Chouraqui’s general method by examining just a few
verses of his translation, beginning with the very first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:1. What
immediately strikes the French reader is its first word: Entête, a term which does not exist (in
that form) in French. In French, the expression means, literally, “at the head”—Chouraqui’s
attempt to reproduce the fact that the original Hebrew expression Bereishit is derived from
the Hebrew noun ro’sh, “head”. Whereas others would choose the more colloquial “In the
beginning” or “At the start,” Chouraqui wanted French readers to realize that, in Hebrew, the
term ro’sh has a much broader semantic field than in English or French, and is used, in some
form or another, nearly 850 times in the Tanakh10. Inasmuch as Hebrew has a predilection for
using body parts in a more extended way than English or French, Chouraqui wished to
highlight that difference for his readership.
A second thing that strikes the French reader is Chouraqui’s use of the plural “ciels” (with an
s) in that same verse. The more normal colloquial term in French is either “ciel” (singular) or
the plural “cieux”. However, here (as in many other places in his translation), Chouraqui is
trying to signal to his reader that there is some linguistic or theological anomaly in the
Hebrew which he feels deserves to be grappled with—in this case, the fact that the Hebrew
term for heaven, shamayim [] ָשׁ ַמיִ ם, is, in fact, a Hebrew dual form, a fact that has spurred
linguistic and rabbinic commentary for centuries11. Why should there be a hint of two
heavens? Chouraqui doesn’t want to impose a particular interpretation, but he does want his
readers to be aware of the issue, and be able to wrestle with possible answers for themselves.
Similarly, throughout the text, Chouraqui will use the Hebrew term Elohîms (with an s) for
God, to enable his audience to realize that there is something unusual in the fact that the
Hebrew term is plural. Whether one wishes to attribute that to a “plural of majesty” or a
10
By comparison, the NRSV uses the English “head” only 447 times in the Old Testament, and the French Bible de
Jérusalem uses “tête” only 407 times.
11
Jewish and Christian commentaries have traditionally explained this is a reference to the “earthly/present” city of
Jerusalem (Yerushalayim shel mattah), and the “heavenly/future” city of Jerusalem (Yerushalayim shel ma‘alah)—
the Holy City in its eschatological perfection, in the presence of God: “You find that Jerusalem on high is situated
directly opposite the earthly Jerusalem. It was because the earthly Jerusalem was exceedingly precious to Him that
He fashioned another one on high, as it is said: Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls
are continually before me (Isa. 49:16) …[The city that the Lord built was] on high, directly opposite the one on
earth, and concerning which He vowed that His Shekhinah would not enter the city above until the earthly Jerusalem
was erected. How beloved was Israel in the sight of the Holy One, blessed be He!" (Samuel A. Berman, Midrash
Tanhuma-Yelammedenu: An English Translation of Genesis and Exodus from the Printed Version of TanhumaYelammedenu with an Introduction, Notes and Indexes. Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1995, 648). See also Galatians 4:26 and
Hebrews 12:22-23, which develop this dichotomy theologically.
translation for transformation : 6
“plural of intensity”—or whether one sees it as a remnant of an early Hebrew worldview,
predating monotheism—Chouraqui aims not to hide difficulties in the text, but to expose
them so that they can be honestly addressed and reflected on.
When, in verse 2, the universe is said to be a formless void, Chouraqui takes advantage of a
felicitous French borrowing from the Hebrew to bridge the two cultures. The earth was
“tohu-et-bohu,” he says, a particularly brilliant choice, since the French term, meaning
“chaos, confusion or commotion,” transliterates and directly reproduces the Hebrew
expression [ ]תֹהוּ וָ בֹהוּused here12. Chouraqui’s sensitivity to various literary registers of
French frequently enables him to choose what the French call “le mot juste”—just the perfect
word needed in a particular context.
I could provide dozens of examples of the unique and striking ways in which André
Chouraqui translates the Tanakh. For our purposes, however, these are only a stepping-stone
to our larger purpose, which is to explore how Chouraqui’s work is a tool to build bridges
and make connections between various faith groups—because that is, explicitly and
undeniably, a key contributing factor to his overall project, which is actually larger than
merely an innovative and thought-provoking Old Testament translation.
Having completed his translation of the books of the Tanakh, Chouraqui did not stop there.
Instead, he took the revolutionary step of continuing on, initially with a translation of the
Christian Scriptures13 and, eventually, in 1990, his own French translation of the entire
Qur’an. Having spent more than forty years working in interreligious dialogue, in Europe, in
Israel and elsewhere, Chouraqui was convinced of a fundamental linguistic unity—rooted in
a theological unity—linking the three Abrahamic Scriptures, and he believed that the only
way to really develop a sensitive and sympathetic grasp of the holy books of Christianity and
Islam was to grapple with them “from the inside”—that is, by translating them himself. He
is, therefore, quite likely the only person in history to have single-handedly translated the
Jewish, Christian and Muslim Scriptures from their original languages, and this fact offered
him a uniquely global perspective on what unites—and divides—the various families of
Abraham’s children.
12
“Tohu-bohu: Nom que les livres hébraïques donnent au Chaos primitif, à l’état confus des éléments qui précéda la
création. Il se dit figurément et familièrement d’une Grande confusion, d’un grand tumulte ou d’un bruyant conflit
d’opinions, de paroles.” (Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 8th ed. [1932-35], “Dictionnaires d’autrefois”
project, accessed April 22, 2013; http://artflx.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/dicos//pubdico1look.pl?strippedhw=tohu-bohu
This Hebrew expression is a particularly challenging one, and has been various understood by translators,
commentators and scholars: Robert Alter (Genesis, 1997) suggests “welter and waste”; Everett Fox (The Five Books
of Moses, ) has “wild and waste”; the NRSV has “a formless void”; the New English Translation as “without shape
and empty,” and the French Bible de Jérusalem has “vide et vague”.
13
This made Chouraqui one of a very small handful of Jews in history to have translated all or part of the Christian
Scriptures. On this, see: Murray Watson, Translation for Transformation: André Chouraqui and His Translation of
the Gospels. Ph.D. diss. Trinity College, Dublin, 2010, especially Chapter 3, “Chouraqui’s Intellectual Antecedents:
Hebrew and ‘Hebraized” Versions of the New Testament”.
translation for transformation : 7
I am, unfortunately, entirely illiterate as regards Arabic, and therefore unable to comment on
the strengths and weaknesses of Chouraqui’s French version of the Qur’an14. Although I will
mention one or two relevant aspects of his Qur’anic translation, I will primarily limit my
comments to the way in which his translation of the Christian Scriptures—the New
Testament—intends to foster a deeper, more respectful relationship between Judaism and
Christianity. For one of Chouraqui’s stated goals was to help Christians re-discover just how
Jewish their New Testament was, and to enable modern Jews to realize just how Jewish the
New Testament was, so that it could conceivably become a bridge for conversation and
enlightenment between those faiths, rather than the barrier (or polemical “club”) it had
traditionally been15. Chouraqui was one of a number of twentieth-century scholars (many of
them Jewish) who sought to re-insert Jesus into the history of first-century Judaism16.
The same basic principles and goals undergird Chouraqui’s New Testament as did his work
with the Hebrew Scriptures, and many of the same methods and wordings are applied.
Fundamental to Chouraqui’s work—especially on the Gospels—is his firm belief that Jesus
was Jewish, and that early Christianity can only be properly understood within its Jewish
matrix. He draws here on several decades of work by Jewish and Christian scholars of the
historical Jesus, and his own extensive study of ancient Judaism and Christianity. Today, that
instinct is largely considered axiomatic in New Testament study17, but for an Israeli Jewish
14
One of the Amazon.fr reviews of Chouraqui’s Qur’an translation states: “The translator is one of those rare people
who makes use of his profound knowledge of Semitic roots, which generally are identical, or very similar, in both
Arabic and Hebrew. Furthermore, his translation shows that Mr. Chouraqui is not only familiar with the tafsir (the
external commentary) but also the ta’wil (the internal commentary) of the sacred books. For example, in the first
Sura, he correctly translates ‘alamin’ (plural!) with the French plural (‘des univers’), allowing the profound ‘vertical’
meaning to shine through. He translates ‘Er-Rahman’ as ‘le Matriciant’ and ‘Er-Rahim’ as ‘le Matriciel,’ highlighting
the feminine quality of these Names, derived from the root Ra-Ha-Mim, a complement to ‘Rabb’. For those who are
interested and capable of understanding the multiple layers of meaning in such a text, this is an excellent translation.
This translation is less well-suited for those who adhere to the theological dogmas of Kalam, or to the literal schools
of thought, as in other traditions.” (My translation from the French original, online at:
http://www.amazon.fr/review/RQI7I9YKNE38L/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=2221069641&linkCode=&
nodeID=&tag= )
For significant reviews of Chouraqui’s Qur’anic translation, see:
Abdallah Cheikh-Moussa, “De l’hébraïsation moderne du Coran: À propos de la traduction du Coran par A.
Chouraqui,” Arabica 42 (1995), 107-26;
Jacques Gilliot, “Le Coran: Trois traductions récentes,” Studia Islamica 75 (1992), 159-77.
15
“Ma grâce, si vous voulez, c’est d’avoir exprimé un double mouvement, celui du retour de l’Église à ses sources
hébraïques et, du côté des juifs, celui de l’insertion dans l’histoire du people juif de l’histoire de Jésus. La
convergence de ces deux courants de pensée, qui sont centraux, d’une part chez les juifs, d’autre part chez les
chrétiens, par leur confluence a provoqué ma traduction du Nouveau Testament.” (André Chouraqui, Retour aux
racines: Entretiens avec Jacques Deschanel. Paris: Centurion, 1981, 131).
16
See, for example, the comments of Rabbi Lewis Browne, in his collection of Jewish literature, The Wisdom of
Israel: “The New Testament has a place in this anthology because it obviously contains much wisdom, and this
wisdom is unmistakably Hebraic. Those who uttered it were all born in Israel, and so were virtually all those who
recorded it. The fact that they were generally regarded as dissidents, and that their teachings were eventually
branded heresies, does not in the least reflect on the essential Jewishness of the spirit animating their lives and
words.” (New York: Random House, 1945; Modern Library edition, 1956, 147). See also: Donald A. Hagner, The
Jewish Reclamation of Jesus: An Analysis and Critique of Modern Jewish Study of Jesus (Eugene, OR: Wipf &
Stock, 1997).
17
“I would suggest that one definite gain that must be incorporated [from the Third Quest for the historical Jesus] is
… the true and thorough Jewishness of Jesus. From the Council of Chalcedon onwards, the touchstone of genuine
translation for transformation : 8
scholar in the 1970s, this was still a fairly novel approach, which raised eyebrows on the part
of his scholarly colleagues.
To help make this point, Chouraqui’s method relies heavily on his project to “re-Semiticize”
the Scriptures of the Abrahamic faiths, highlighting in various ways their linguistic, cultural
and geographic rootedness in the Middle East, which is—in Chouraqui’s view—one of the
fundamental underlying commonalities among Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but one who
has sometimes been neglected in the past, and needs to be recovered, if these three faiths are
to understand themselves as essentially connected. The Hebrew, Christian and Muslim
Scriptures draw upon, and presuppose, a worldview that they largely share in common, and
which can—if appreciated—serve as a basis for dialogue and mutual enrichment18.
How does he accomplish this? In a number of ways.
He chooses, for example, to re-Semiticize the personal names of key New Testament figures.
Jesus is now Iéshoua‘, much closer to the original Hebrew than “Jesus,” a Latinized form of
a Greek translation of an originally Hebrew name (Yeshua‘ Iêsous Iesus Jesus).
Similarly, John the Baptist becomes Yochanan the Immerser, Simon Peter is Shim‘on Pétros,
James son of Zebedee is Ia‘acob ben Zabdi, the Virgin Mary is Miriam, Elijah is Éliyahou
and Solomon is Shelomo. A parallel process has been applied to place-names, rendering
Bethlehem once more as Beit-Lèhèm, Samaria as Shromrôn, Galilee as the Galil and
Magdala as Migdal19. The very strangeness of the names when a Christian first encounters
them in Chouraqui’s version is a salutary reminder that these events took place in a very
Christian faith in Christ has been the formula ‘truly divine and truly human’. Yet it is not too much of an
exaggeration to say that, in defense of the ‘truly divine,’ the ‘truly human’ has sometimes been obscured or
swallowed up in a sort of crypto-monophysitism. What the third quest can supply as an aid to regaining the
Chalcedonian balance is the firm basso continuo of ‘truly Jewish’ as the concrete, historical expression and
underpinning of the theological ‘truly human’. To speak in Johannine terms: when the Word became flesh, the Word
did not simply take on an all-purpose, generic, one-size-fits-all human nature. Such a view would not take seriously
the radical historicity of both human existence and divine revelation. The Word became truly flesh insofar as the
Word became truly Jewish. No true Jewishness, no true humanity. Hence, contrary to the charge that the high
christology of orthodox Christianity necessarily leads to a covert theological anti-Semitism, I think that a proper
understanding of the Chalcedonian formula, illuminated by the third quest, necessarily leads to a ringing affirmation
of the Jewishness of the flesh the Word assumed. Even if the third quest has no other impact on contemporary
christology, the emphatic reaffirmation of the Jewishness of Jesus will make the whole enterprise worthwhile.
Something lasting will have been gained.” (John P. Meier, “The Present State of the ‘Third Quest’ for the Historical
Jesus: Loss and Gain,” Biblica 80 [1999], 486).
18
“Toute lecture du Nouveau Testament, y compris du corpus paulinien, souligne bien l’unité de l’univers spirituel
et culturel des Hébreux, efface des frontières que les rivalités religieuses, aggravées par les grandes tragédies de
l’histoire, avaient édifiées entre le monde juif et le monde chrétien. Restitué à son contexte historique et à son
substrat sémitique, le Nouveau Testament, sans rien prendre de sa substance théologique, prend tout le relief d’une
irrésistible authenticité.” (André Chouraqui, Un pacte neuf, 1979, Préface ; http://nachouraqui.tripod.com/id61.htm)
One of the obvious challenges to Chouraqui’s approach is that the texts he is treating cover more than 2500 years of
history; to what degree can one really posit a largely identical social or cultural situation over such an enormous
timespan, and in such different contexts? Is this “unity” not a largely artificial (and somewhat idealized) construct,
not necessarily reflecting the historical realities involved?
19
The Sadducees and the Pharisees are, likewise, returned to their more Hebraic names, as the Sadouqîm and
Peroushîm. Perhaps by using these forms, Chouraqui hoped to sidestep some of the opprobrium these names had
acquired in the minds of many Christians, for whom “Sadducees and Pharisees” is often understood as shorthand for
“the enemies of Jesus”.
translation for transformation : 9
different cultural and religious world, where we as moderns are largely strangers, and where
we may need to adjust our sensitivities and expectations to avoid imposing a modern Western
worldview on what was, essentially, an Oriental world 2000 years ago. It also challenges us
to think more deeply about the meaning behind those names, which is often obscured in
traditional English and French translations, but which is often significant in the biblical
tradition and subsequent interpretations. Chouraqui wants his readers to root themselves in a
shared historical and cultural space, and these names will obviously sound very familiar to
Jewish readers, especially in Israel. It is a way of subtly but effectively breaking down
psychological barriers—and it draws on solid modern scholarship to make important
historical and theological points.
Chouraqui seeks to thoroughly root his Gospels in their time and place, and this sometimes
leads to jarring translations for those familiar with more traditional Biblical versions. For
example, the usual “the lilies of the field” [τὰ κρίνα τοῦ ἀγροῦ] in Matthew 6:28 is
rendered by Chouraqui as “les amaryllis des champs” (the amaryllises of the field). This
reflects both his knowledge (as a longtime Israeli citizen) that lilies, at least those flowers
classified botanically as lilies, simply do not grow wild in Israel, but are found only in
cultivated gardens, and his awareness that many modern translators have chosen a less-thanspecific term—perhaps “flowers of the field”—to translate the Greek krinon, because of the
obvious difficulty in equating modern flora with 2000-year-old allusions20.
Chouraqui is well aware of a longstanding scholarly struggle with the Gospels: the fact that
they have been preserved for us only in Greek, but that Jesus and most of his earliest
followers would have spoken a Semitic language (probably both Hebrew and Aramaic, with
Chouraqui presuming Hebrew as the more predominant language). Hence, to the degree that
the Greek accurately records the ipsissima verba Iesu (the very words of the historical Jesus),
it is helpful (and sometimes necessary) to speculate on what Semitic concept, word or phrase
undergirds the Greek text. Since the New Testament draws heavily on the language and
thought-world of the Old (both the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint), it is often easy to
discover a fairly precise equation between the Greek and Hebrew, and Chouraqui exploits
these equations to unify the vocabulary of his translation. In other places, he is content, on
the basis of his in-depth knowledge of Semitic languages, to speculate about what the Greek
might mean, if retroverted into Hebrew.
Two revealing examples of these principles at work can be found in Chouraqui’s translation
of the Beatitudes, and in his rendering of references to God’s mercy and compassion.
Traditionally, each line of the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke has begun with a phrase such
as “Blessed are the poor” or “Happy are the poor”—in French, “Bienheureux les pauvres” or
20
“What flower (or flowers) κρίνα denotes (κρίνον occurs over twenty times in the LXX, most often for šošanna;
for the rabbinic qĕrinon, a loanword, see Jastrow, s.v.) is uncertain … If it is the purple anemone, the image of
Solomon’s purple robes could be in mind … Other possibilities include the gladiolus, the crocus, some variety of
poppy, the white Madonna lily, or Galilean flowers in general. This last option is now widely favoured; Jesus was
speaking not of one particular flower, but of the several beautiful flowers which bloom in abundance between
January and May.” (W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel
According to Saint Matthew, ICC. Vol. 1, 654).
translation for transformation : 10
“Heureux les pauvres”21. Chouraqui recognizes the structure as a perfectly good Hebrew
phrase, “Happy the one who…” or “Happy those who…”, based on the Hebrew macarism
Ashrei ha-ish asher… Chouraqui, with his distinctive (and almost obsessive) focus on
Semitic etymology, argues that the expression Ashrei is itself derived from the Hebrew root
yashar, implying an unobstructed movement straight ahead, toward a fixed goal22. It is,
Chouraqui suggests, not so much a promise as it is a term of congratulations and
encouragement, implying that those described in the Beatitudes are “on the right track,” and
are to be supported in their often difficult journey toward God’s reign. Chouraqui’s
translation of ashrei is “En marche!”—roughly the equivalent of our colloquial English “Up
and at ‘em!” or “Keep moving!” The Greek-American literary and theological scholar
Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis says:
The Hebrew “subtext” of the Gospel … adds a valuable dimension to the meaning of
μακάριος. The Jewish translator of the New Testament André Chouraqui suggests that
( ַא ְשׁ ֵריashrei) indicates the thrill of the wayfarer who is about to
the Hebrew equivalent
reach his goal, in other words, the joy of the pilgrim who never halts in his movement
toward the sanctuary of the heavenly homeland where God his Father awaits him.
Chouraqui therefore translates μακάριος as “underway” or “forward”, thus keynoting
movement toward the good goal and the rejoicing that fills the pilgrim at being sure that
he will reach God by this road and no other.23
As another French author puts it: “These are the ones that Jesus addresses first and foremost
… to assure them that … the trials that these beaten-down brothers are experiencing can be
transformed into … real victories … It is possible not to resign oneself [to a situation], but to
get back up and set out again on the journey.”24
As such, Chouraqui would argue that it is a consoling and dynamic expression, to a much
greater degree than Christians have often assumed and taught, and his translation has
captured the imagination of many French readers and Biblical commentators in the last four
decades25. While “en marche” has by no means become a mainstream French translation,
nevertheless it has provoked many readers to consider other possible nuances of those most
familiar New Testament lines—and that is precisely as Chouraqui would want it.
21
In Greek:
Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί
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25
See, for example: Louis Schweitzer, Les béatitudes ou l’hymne à la joie: Carême protestant 2004 sur France
Culture (Lyon: Les Bergers et les Mages, 2004, 17).
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translation for transformation : 11
One of the more interesting of Chouraqui’s translations—and one which carries over into his
Qur’anic translation, is his manner of capturing the idea of the mercy or compassion of God,
a central theme in all three Abrahamic Scriptures.
As every beginning Hebrew student comes to realize, the term in Hebrew for that mercy or
compassion is rachamim, a plural form derived from the Hebrew noun rechem, for a
mother’s womb—and thus, crudely put, the “wombliness” of God. Mercy and compassion
are expressed by means of a strikingly feminine and maternal image, which can provide a
valuable counterbalance to more “masculine” images and titles. Chouraqui was certainly not
oblivious to that linkage, which he sought to communicate as something important, striking
and distinctively Semitic.
In French, the more common terms for the womb are “ventre” or “entrailles”. But Chouraqui
has chosen a rarer, more unusual term: matrices, which captures masterfully both the idea of
the “matrix” out of which human life emerges, but also subtly conjures up the maternal
connection through its incorporation of much of the Latin mater, “mother”. However, to
provide the necessary range of parts of speech, Chouraqui needed to create derivative
neologisms, convinced that the Greek semantic clusters beginning with οἰκτίρ- and
σπλαγχν- are rendering the Hebrew rachamim and its cognates (rachum, rachamani, etc).
He thus crafts a new French verb, matricier (=to act with compassion and mercy), and a
corresponding adjective, matriciel (=characterized by compassion and mercy). And so the
Beatitude blessing the merciful, who shall obtain mercy, is, for Chouraqui, “En marche, les
matriciels! Oui, ils seront matriciés!” and the command to be merciful to others, as God has
been merciful to oneself (Luke 6:36) is “Be matriciels, just as your father is matriciel”. It is
no coincidence that, in Chouraqui’s translation of the divine self-revelation in Exodus 34:6,
the compassionate God is there described as “Él matriciel”. For him, Jesus is clearly
speaking out of the faith-experience of his own Jewish people, who had known God’s mercy
and compassion throughout their long history. The Greek concept is merely a translation of
the same Hebrew concept, and so deserves to be translated in the same way, to highlight that
the content of Jesus’ central teachings is often just a re-statement, nuancing or expansion of
what is already implicit in the Tanakh. There is newness, certainly, but there is also a great
deal of continuity and similarity, and improving Jewish-Christian relations demands that this
be acknowledged.
And it is also here that Chouraqui’s three-part interfaith project is most clearly visible in his
rendering of the Muslim Scriptures. The Bismillah, invoking God as the Merciful and
Compassionate One, occurs at the beginning of every sura of the Qur’an except the ninth. In
the Arabic, God is spoken of as er-Rachman and er-Rachim, two terms both rooted—like the
Hebrew—in the word for “womb” (in Arabic, racham). English translations of the Qur’an
translate those names variously:
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful (Khalifa26, Yusuf Ali27)
26
Rashad Khalifa, Quran: The Final Scripture (Authorized English Version). Tucson, AZ: Islamic Productions,
1981; http://www.quranbrowser.org
27
Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’ān: Text, Translation and Commentary. London: Islamic Computing Centre;
http://www.quranbrowser.org
translation for transformation : 12
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful (Pickthall28, Shakir29)
In the name of God, Merciful to all, Compassionate to each! (Khalidi30)
None of these translations, however, seems to make an effort to capture the undeniable
etymological connection between the two words Rachman and Rachim. Chouraqui, using the
same translation he had previously used for his Old and New Testament versions, says “Au
nom d’Allah, le Matriciant, le Matriciel”—that is, God, who actively has compassion on
humanity, and who is himself characterized by compassion, or, arguably, who is Compassion
itself. Chouraqui’s keen sensitivity to the linguistic roots of Semitic expressions yields a
translation that is novel and thought-provoking—and that perhaps opens up layers of
meaning inherent in the original terms, that have often not been exploited or considered
because of the limits imposed by more “orthodox” readings. In a similar vein, he chooses to
title his version of the Islamic Scriptures, not simply “The Qur’an,” but “L’Appel”—“The
Call,” since in many Semitic languages, the root letters q-r-’ express the idea of calling out to
someone (almost shouting!)—in this case, God passionately calling out to humanity, to
communicate the final and definitive revelation of God’s will, according to which humanity
will be judged. While L’Appel is an intriguing suggestion, it has not escaped criticism from
other scholars, who argue that the root q-r-’ does not have this specific sense in Arabic31.
Chouraqui’s methodology has won many devotees, both among scholars and the French
reading public, who have found in his wordings a powerful newness in ancient texts that
many religious people believed they already essentially understood. He has shaken up
traditional readings and interpretations, and has opened up the biblical and qur’anic texts in a
way that is simultaneously inviting and perplexing. His approach, perhaps best described by
the French adjective déroutant (unsettling, puzzling, disconcerting), has been variously
described by its critics as naïve, eccentric, clunky, inelegant, unreadable, and obsessive to the
point of losing scholarly objectivity. There is no doubt that he frequently causes his readers
28
Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Quran. London: Islamic Computing Centre;
http://www.quranbrowser.org
29
M.H. Shakir, The Quran. Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc., 1995; http://www.quranbrowser.org
30
Tarif Khalidi, The Qur’an: A New Translation. New York: Viking, 2008.
31
For example, Arij Roest Croellius has written: “The very first words of the Qur’ān, as received by Muḥammad,
are—after the bismallāh —:
Recite in the name of your Lord who created,
Created man from a blood-clot,
Recite, and your Lord is the Most Generous. (96,1-3).
The correct interpretation of this imperative iqra’ is … important for the understanding of the development of the
qur’ānic representation of revelation.
The original meaning of the root QR’, in Semitic languages, is ‘to call.’ This sense, which still exists in Hebraic and
Aramaic, is not known in Arabic. ‘To call’ or ‘to proclaim,’ therefore, cannot be the right translation of qara’a. This
interpretation, proposed by Hirschfeld, and of late again by Blachère, has been sufficiently criticised by Noldeke.
With the apparition of scripture in the ancient Near-Eastern cultures, the verb acquired a new meaning: the reading
or recitation from a written text. In the cultual language, the words qeryāna (Aramaic) and miqrā’ and qerī’ā
(Hebrew) were used with the technical meaning of ‘Scripture reading,’ indicating not only the act of reading, but
also the part of Scripture to be read. This usage certainly has influenced the qur’ānic language … Qara’a, therefore,
in the qur’ānic language, means ‘to recite according to a given exemplar,’ ‘to reproduce in spoken words an original
text.’ This exemplar can be words heard and kept by memory, or words preserved in writing. Thus the meaning ‘to
read’ is included, and also—exceptionally—found in the Qur’ān.” (Arij A. Roest Croellius, The Word in the
Experience of Revelation in Qur’an and Hindu Scriptures. Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1974, 144-46).
translation for transformation : 13
to “stumble,” to stop and ponder why he has chosen a particular (and often unexpected)
term32. What they discover is that there is nothing arbitrary or capricious about what he has
done; on the contrary, there is almost always a deep logic and consistency which reflect
Chouraqui’s overall philosophy about the interconnectedness of the Abrahamic religions, and
his distinctive translational methodology and purpose.
While individual aspects of Chouraqui’s overall project, and his concrete choices, can all be
criticized, what is beyond denying is the brilliance and breadth of the man himself, and the
vision that could inspire an individual to embark on an undertaking as daunting as the
translation of three faiths’ foundational texts, in three very different languages. It is a corpus
that yields remarkable intellectual, linguistic and religious insights to the patient seeker, and
that cannot fail to astonish, inform and inspire those who make the effort to follow where
Chouraqui leads. While his translations may be more challenging than would be appropriate
in a bedside Bible, his work makes a stimulating point of comparison, when set alongside
more mainstream French versions, such as the Traduction œcuménique de la Bible [TOB],
the Bible de Jérusalem, or the Bible en français courant. Nearly forty years of use has
highlighted some areas where revision or correction might be appropriate, in the light of
more recent scholarship, but Chouraqui’s version is in no sense “dated”; on the contrary, the
growing dialogue between Christians and Jews, and the trialogue between Jews, Christians
and Muslims (especially in France), have demonstrated how far ahead of his time Chouraqui
was, and what lasting value there is in his contributions. English readers who have become
enamored with the work of biblical translators like Robert Alter or Everett Fox have some
sense of why Chouraqui’s ruggedly literal translation is important, as an alternative (some
would say “fringe”) version that unmasks aspects of the beauty and richness of the biblical
languages for those who do not personally have access to them33. And, despite all of the
criticisms made of Chouraqui for excessive literalism, for questionable retroversions and for
a slavishly “Semitic” approach, there is no denying the growing scholarly interest in his
work, in terms of colloquia and papers, and the recently formed “Friends of André
Chouraqui” is working diligently to share his work with new audiences who have not
previously been familiar with it.
Chouraqui’s translations are monumental, both in themselves but also because of the larger
vision which inspired them: a conscious attempt to bring together Abraham’s sons and
daughters in shared reflection and study of the books they look to as inspired. Chouraqui,
who had witnessed first-hand some of the more horrific and violent events of the twentieth
century, was not ignorant of the challenges his enterprise faced. He chose, however, not to be
32
Some editions of Chouraqui’s translations have included explanatory notes or glosses, the most extensive being
the commentary found in his 10-volume L’Univers de la Bible (Paris: Éditions Lidis, 1982-85).
33
“Tout le monde ne peut pas profiter de la version de Chouraqui, réservée à une élite intellectuelle et culturelle.”
(Laurent Gagnebin, Le Secret. Paris: Van Dieren, 2007, 71). Jean Bacon speaks of “... la Bible de A. Chouraqui, dont
les écarts de traduction sont peu familiers aux lecteurs occidentaux plus enclins à la raison que
portés par l’imaginaire et l’imagerie proche-orientale.” (Les cultures à la rescousse de la foi : Traité de
l’inculturation. Montréal : Médiaspaul, 2001, 148).
For a good review of why Fox’s (and, by extension, Chouraqui’s) translation is helpful and worthwhile, see:
Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Getting the message,” The Jerusalem Report. March 21, 1996, accessed May 1, 2013,
https://www.lib.uwo.ca/cgi-bin/ezpauthn.cgi/docview/218741581?accountid=15115
translation for transformation : 14
a prisoner of them, and to use his considerable scholarly, political and personal gifts to work,
slowly but surely, for a greater rapprochement among the three faiths which serve a single
God, and which claim Abraham as their common patriarch. His translations are open to
legitimate critique, and his hopes may be judged naïve, unrealistic or Pollyanna-ish. Our
changing world, however, has demonstrated that there is no real alternative to dialogue,
unless we wish to resign ourselves to an unending “clash of civilizations,” to use Samuel
Huntington’s term. André Chouraqui fervently believed that sacred texts could provide a
necessary bridge to understanding, discovery and conversation … could highlight
commonality rather than difference … could lead their readers incrementally closer to the
shalom or salaam or eirēnē that they proclaim as God’s will. Today, as interfaith
conversations multiply with each passing year, Chouraqui’s landmark editions of the Tanakh,
the New Testament and the Qur’an hold, I believe, significant potential to help overcome
stereotypes and prejudice, to promote renewed interest in religious texts, and to inspire a
younger generation of translators and religious scholars who can appreciate and learn from
his legacy, and can perhaps attempt something similar in an English context.
Rarely have biblical translators also been interfaith activists. Rarely have editions of the
Scriptures been deliberately imagined as a point of positive contact between faiths, and a
source of reconciliation and renewal. To that degree, André Chouraqui accomplished
something new and almost revolutionary in his decades working with the Abrahamic holy
books, and marked out a challenging and provocative path for the adherents of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam. Six years after his death, André Chouraqui continues to challenge us
to translate differently, to communicate differently, and to think differently. His life was a
unique confluence of history, culture, politics and religion, coming together at just the right
time, in just the right circumstances. It was a life of passionate commitment—as a scholar
and as a human being—to peace, unity, friendship and dialogue. And it is thus a life from
which we have much to be inspired by, and much to learn.
translation for transformation : 15
REFERENCES
“Andre Chouraqui,” The Times, August 8, 2007, 48;
http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/lnacui2api/api/version1/getDocCui?lni=4P
CG-D7Y0-TX38S3N8&csi=10939&hl=t&hv=t&hnsd=f&hns=t&hgn=t&oc=00240&perma=true
Aslanov, Cyril, Pour comprendre la Bible: la leçon d’André Chouraqui. Monaco: Éditions du
Rocher, 1999.
Chouraqui, André. La Bible Chouraqui. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2003.
__________. L’Univers de la Bible. 10 vols. Paris: Éditions Lidis, 1982-85.
Chouraqui, Emmanuel, “André Chouraqui: l’écriture des Écritures” (Video documentary, 2010);
http://www.ktotv.com/videos-chretiennes/emissions/nouveautes/documentaire-andrechouraqui,-l-ecriture-des-ecritures/00044287
Gergely, Thomas, “La version d’André Chouraqui: une traduction-calque de la Bible.” Le
français moderne 48 (1980), 336-45.
Kaufmann, Francine, “De la traduction juive de quelques noms propres hébraïques du livre de la
Genèse,” in Traductio: Essays on Punning and Translation. Ed. Dirk Delabastita.
Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 1997, 95-135.
__________. “Traduire la Bible à Jérusalem: André Chouraqui,” Meta: Journal des traducteurs
43:1 (1998), 142-56 ; tp://www.erudit.org/revue/meta/1998/v43/n1/003294ar.pdf
(includes an extensive bibliography of work by and about Chouraqui)
Lurquin, Georges, “Deux traductions récentes de la Bible,” Le langage et l’homme 52 (May
1983), 30-39.
Pons, Jacques, “De Chouraqui à la Bible en français,” Études théologiques et religieuses 61
(1986): 415-19.
Tincq, Henri, “André Chouraqui,” Le Monde, July 11, 2007 ;
http://www.lemonde.fr/imprimer/article/2007/07/11/934280.html
Watson, Murray. Translation for Transformation: André Chouraqui and His Translation of the
Gospels. Ph.D. diss. Dublin: Trinity College 2010.
http://www.andrechouraqui.com/
“La Bible et la Coran d’André Chouraqui en ligne” : http://nachouraqui.tripod.com/