Ashe County Public Library will host Dr. Walter Ziffer at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, July 17 in the ACPL auditorium for his presentation “Lost in Translation: When Holy Writ Becomes Wholly Wrong.”
“Translating biblical texts is a difficult undertaking. Differences in the translation of sacred texts help to shape and reshape their meanings for us. Errors that have occurred in this process range from the sublime to the ridiculous,” said Ziffer. “When an ancient Hebrew idiom is no longer understood and is translated verbatim into English, this results in a passage we would rather not read in a worship service.”
In 2011, Ziffer recounted his four years in Nazi concentration camps during World War II at a packed house at the Ashe County Public Library. Ziffer became one of 300,000 European Jews who brought their stories to the United States after the war; he settled in Nashville, Tenn., in 1949. With courage befitting a man who had stared down death, Ziffer finished high school in less than a year, and later graduated with a degree in engineering from Vanderbilt University.
He has taught in theological seminaries in France, Belgium and Washington, D.C., at the University of Maine in Orono and, UNC-Asheville, and Mars Hill College.
For more information, contact the Ashe County Public Library at 336-846-2041.
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