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Evil (Not) Then and Evil Now: A Test Case in ‘Translating’ Cultural Notions

By Thomas G Palaima

My seminar paper has its genesis in examining in Hesiod and the book of Genesis ancient Greek notions of the creation of the world and the place of human beings within it. Comparison of the Hebrew and early Greek accounts of the ‘loss of paradeisos, Eden, the Golden Age’ through collaboration with a scholar of ancient Semitic texts, dialects and religion and understanding how the Hebrew creation account is translated into Greek in the Septuagint and later into Latin in the Vulgate began a long exploration of the concept of ‘evil’ that is still in progress.

Just Some Evil Scheme: Translating ‘Badness’ in the Plays of Euripides

By Diane Arnson Svarlien

I will explore in fuller detail than I outline here the nature of evil in Greek literature through the reverse lens of the English word ‘evil’ as it appears in my translations and in translations by other translators. When I was asked for my translator’s take on evil, I had completed translations of nine plays of Euripides never thinking that I would later be asked to consider the concept represented by the English word ‘evil’. I prepare my translations with lexical discipline and constant use of Allen and Italie’s Concordance to Euripides.

In Search of the Root of All Evil: Is There a Concept of ‘Evil’ in the Hebrew Bible?

By Aren Max Wilson-Wright

The Hebrew Bible has long figured prominently in discussions about the nature and origin of evil. Biblical scholars, philosophers, and cultural critics alike trace the modern, Western concept of evil, defined as something like ‘intentional, superlative wickedness’, back to the Hebrew Bible. In particular, Biblical scholars usually treat the Hebrew word raˤ as the translational and conceptual equivalent of English ‘evil’ (see inter alia the entries in the main Biblical Hebrew dictionaries BDB 948; HALOT 1250; see also Westermann 1994: 242–251).