Religion ohne Jenseits? (German Edition)

Götter ohne Pass. Religiöse Vielfalt und neue Migration in Deutschland

---

It was he who formulated one of the earliest maxims of translation theory: In his discussion of translation De optimo genere oratorum , he ranks translating according to sense higher than a word-for-word rendering "Non ut interpres … sed ut orator" 6 , unleashing a discussion that was to dominate translation theory for nearly two thousand years.

This approach emerges especially clearly in the work of Eusebius Sophronicus Hieronymus — [ ] , the patron saint of translators and the author of the Vulgate. In a letter No. During the 9th and 10th centuries a constellation of a completely different kind emerged in Baghdad in the form of a translation chamber under the direction of the Christian physician and scholar Hunayn ibn Ishaq — , known in the West as Johannitius. In the 12th century, these texts were themselves translated into Latin by scholars in the Spanish city of Toledo , the main focus being on the philosophical and scientific achievements of the Greek and Arab world, especially in the fields of medicine, mathematics, astronomy and astrology.

Through the constant exchange of ideas and experiences these translators were able to create a treasure trove of knowledge which was to enrich Western culture across language barriers. The "School of Toledo" stands for a peak period of translation in Spain and for cultural and scientific interaction in the 12th and 13th centuries in Europe. The transition from the Middle Ages to modern times was marked by a decisive event that was also to revolutionize translation: In medieval times it had been the privilege of scholars to write down and discuss the results of their scholarship, but in the Age of the Renaissance with all its new ideas and discoveries and the revival of interest in Classical Antiquity , such knowledge was made accessible to all those who were able to read.

Texts were not only in Latin as the lingua franca of the elite, but increasing use was made of the vernaculars.

Ebook torrent sites download!

Thus arose a new golden age of translation, which on the European continent had its origins in Italy. It was not unusual for printers to work as translators and translators as printers. The first book to be printed in English, which appeared in in Bruges with the title Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy , was a translation from French by William Caxton — , who in opened England's first printing press in Westminster.

In the Preface to his Spiegel der Sitten he comes out in favour of Jerome's translation strategy when he writes:. Women were also productive translators; of especial interest are two ladies from the higher nobility without whose achievements the German prose novel of the 15th century would have been inconceivable. The rulers of the time soon realized that the Church's monopoly of knowledge was jeopardized by printing and translation, and they tried to control this by censorship.

One of the first of these edicts was issued on 22nd March by the Archbishop of Mainz Berthold von Henneberg — , who described his views on translations from Greek and Latin into German as follows:. In France it was Jacques Amyot — who was to have a great influence on the emergence of the French national language, especially with his Vies des hommes illustres, an idiomatic and meticulously annotated French version of the biographies of outstanding personalities of Classical Antiquity by Plutarch ca.

It is even claimed that translation made a considerable contribution to the development of a national identity. This is only one example of the linguistic and cultural exchange of this age, which has been summarized as follows:. The two great movements dominating the 16th century were humanism, 30 centring round the great cosmopolitan and prolific translator Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam — , 31 and the Reformation.

His rejection of word-for-word translation finally cost him his life: Because of a few words added in his French translation of one of Plato's Dialogues, he was sentenced to death by the Theological Faculty of the Sorbonne. Through the words "rien du tout" "nothing at all" with reference to life after death, which in the opinion of the court were not recognizable in the original, he supposedly questioned the immortality of the soul and was therefore a heretica. On the 3rd August , he was tortured and burned at the stake on the Place Maubert in Paris — and with him were burned his translations and editions.

The same applied to other countries in Europe, and in the view of many historians translations played a decisive part in the development and impact of the Reformation. Particularly tragic was the fate of the English Bible translator William Tyndale — After his translations had been banned in England, he was forced to flee to the European Continent his English version of the New Testament was published in Cologne and Worms. He was eventually arrested in Antwerp , tortured and burned at the stake. His influence is even noticeable in the King James Bible of , also known as the "Authorized Version": The founder and main figure of the Reformation was undoubtedly Martin Luther — , who was to share the problems of his contemporary translators.

His life, his work as translator of the Bible his September Testament was the first direct translation from the original languages Greek and Hebrew into a modern language 41 and his importance for the development of the German standard language are so well-known that they need not be described in detail here.

Luther's parallels to Tyndale in this regard are however so striking that we must briefly mention his writings, particularly the words he addressed to the conservative ecclesiastics of the time, defending his translation strategies to refute accusations that he had falsified the Holy Scriptures. His most celebrated passage is found in his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen With his translations, Luther was to provide a model for rendering the Bible in other vernaculars such as Dutch, Danish, Slovene and Finnish 43 as well as the Swedish Gustav Vasa Bible.

Not only vernaculars and standard languages were influenced in their development by translation, the same goes for the emergence of national literatures. An outstanding example is Joost van den Vondel — , the major poet, playwright and translator of the Dutch Golden Age, who can be regarded as a typical vernacular writer of the later Renaissance. Using the languages and models of Classical Antiquity, he created works and texts of a new literary culture.

He was immensely productive both as a creative writer and as a translator, with impressive knowledge of various languages and cultures: He translated from Latin and Greek, but also from French and Italian. He also made two complete versions of Virgil, first in prose and then in verse , encouraging others to do the same: Between and , a number of Dutch versions of the Aeneid were published by other translators.

The dominant country in European politics, scholarship and art of the 17th century was, however, France, and this also applied to translation. With the self-assertiveness typical of those in a position of power, French people thought that translations should conform to the rules, conventions and even the morals of their own literature. The most important representative of this trend was Nicholas Perrot d'Ablancourt — , who mainly translated historical texts, among others works by Cornelius Tacitus ca. Top priority was given to elegance of expression and ease of style in the French target text, according to contemporary tastes.

This tendency to "adaptation" continued well into the 18th century.

Introduction

One of the outstanding themes in the history of translation is the translation of the plays of Shakespeare. This truly European phenomenon spans the time from Classical Antiquity to the Elizabethan Renaissance and on to the German Romantics, thereby highlighting problems of language, literature and culture that arise when texts are rendered in different national languages. It is also interesting that a key role in the reception of Shakespeare's dramas on the European continent was played by France. There, drama was rediscovered during the 18th century as a literary and transcultural theatrical art form; and it was from France that the interest was to spread further:.

One of the best known of these translators was Voltaire Francois-Marie Arouet, — [ ] , who translated Hamlet — but also vilified it as a play — and was instrumental in spreading English philosophy and literature in France, which led on to the infatuation with the Gothic novel at the end of the century.

Dictionary Navigation

In France there also developed a lively debate between two schools of thought: On the one hand, there were those who admired the new literary features in Shakespeare's plays, which they found lacking in French literature, and on the other, the defenders of French classicism who thought him "barbaric". In this context, two translators are significant: Le Tourneur enjoyed considerable influence at the court of Louis XVI — , and in France his translations had great success for almost fifty years.

The representatives of great traditions in translation can be divided into four groups: Pioneers of the German-speaking tradition were the scholars of the 18th century, particularly those working in the spirit of the Enlightenment: The masters, who worked in the field of translation in the later 18th and early 19th century, were Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — [ ] , Friedrich Schleiermacher — [ ] , Wilhelm von Humboldt — as well as the early Romantic poet Novalis Friedrich von Hardenberg, — and the translator of Shakespeare August Wilhelm Schlegel — The leading "disciples" include Walter Benjamin — and Franz Rosenzweig — One could point out that this article deals with the history of translation and not the history of translation theory.

In the context of the history of translation in Germany, it is hardly possible to make a clear separation between theory and practice. Was it not necessary in the end for men to sacrifice everything comforting, holy, healing, all hope, all faith in hidden harmonies, in future blessedness and justice? Was it not necessary to sacrifice God himself, and out of cruelty against themselves to worship stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, nothingness?

To sacrifice God for nothingness — this paradoxical mystery of the ultimate cruelty has been reserved for the generation now arising: Anyone who, like me, with any enigmatic desire has sought for a long time to get to the bottom of the question of pessimism and to redeem it from the half-Christian, half-German narrowness and simplicity with which he has most recently presented itself this century, namely, in the form of Schopenhauer's philosophy; anyone who, at one point has truly looked with an Asiatic and super-Asiatic eye inside and underneath the most world-renouncing of all possible ways of thinking — beyond good and evil, and no longer under the spell and delusion of morality, like Buddha and Schopenhauer —, whoever has done this, has perhaps just by that, without really intending it, opened his eyes to the opposite ideal: And wouldn't this be — God as a vicious circle?

The distance, and, so to speak, the space around man grows with the strength of his intellectual gaze and insight: Perhaps the most solemn concepts that have caused the most fighting and suffering, the concepts "God" and "sin," will one day seem to us of no more importance than a child's plaything or a pain of childhood seems to an old man, — and perhaps "the old man," still child enough, an eternal child! Has anyone noticed to what extent outward leisure, or half-leisure, is necessary to a true religious life which includes its favorite labor of microscopic of self-examination, along with that state of gentle calm called "prayer," the state of perpetual readiness for the "coming of God" , I mean the idleness with a good conscience, the idleness of ancestral times and of blood [inherited] , which is not altogether unfamiliar with the aristocratic concept that work degrades — namely, that it vulgarizes body and soul?

And that consequently the modern, noisy, time-consuming, conceited, foolishly proud industriousness trains and prepares for "unbelief" more than anything else?

Editorial Reviews

Among these, for instance, who are at present living apart from religion in Germany, I find "free-thinkers" of various kinds and backgrounds, but above all a majority of those in whom industriousness, from generation to generation, has extinguished the religious instincts: They are by no means hostile to religious customs; should certain circumstances, State affairs perhaps, require their participation in such customs, they do what is required, as so many things are done —, with a patient and unassuming seriousness, and without much curiosity or discomfort: This sort of indifferent people makes up the majority of middle-class German Protestants nowadays, especially in the great industrious centers of trade and commerce; including most of the hard-working scholars, and the whole University personnel with the exception of the theologians, whose existence and feasibility there always gives psychologists new and more subtle puzzles to solve.

It is only with the help of history not through his own personal experience, therefore that the scholar succeeds in bringing himself to a respectful seriousness, and to a certain timid deference in presence of religions; but even if he has elevated his sentiments towards them to point of gratitude, he has not personally advanced one step nearer to what still exists as church or piety: The practical indifference to religious matters in which he was born and brought up, usually sublimates itself in him into circumspection and cleanliness, which shuns contact with religious men and things; and it may be precisely the depth of his tolerance and humanity which prompts him to avoid the subtle distress which tolerance itself brings with it.

Whoever has looked deeply into the world has doubtless discovered what wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their instinct of preservation which teaches them to be cursory, light, and false. Here and there one finds a passionate and exaggerated worship of "pure forms," among philosophers as well as among artists: Perhaps there is even an order of rank with respect to these burnt children, the born artists, who find the enjoyment of life only in trying to falsify its image as if taking protracted revenge against it — , one could tell to what degree life has disgusted them, by the extent to which they wish to see its image falsified, diluted, made transcendental, and deified, — one could include among the artists the religious men , as their highest class.

It is the profound, suspicious fear of an incurable pessimism that has compelled people for whole millennia to sink their teeth into [to cling to] a religious interpretation of existence: To love mankind for the sake of God — that has been the noblest and most far-fetched feeling achieved by human beings so far. That the love of mankind without any sanctifying ulterior motive is one additional stupidity and animality, that the propensity for this love of humanity has first to find its proportion, its refinement, its grain of salt and sprinkling of ambergris from some even higher inclination: The philosopher, as we free spirits understand him —, as the man of the most all-encompassing responsibility, who has the conscience for the collective development of mankind: For those who are strong and independent, predestined and trained to command, who embody the intellect and the skill of a ruling race, religion is an additional means for overcoming resistance, in order to be able to rule: That is how the Brahmins , for example, understood this fact: At the same time religion also gives inducement and opportunity to a portion of the governed to prepare themselves for future ruling and commanding, those slowly ascending ranks and classes, that is to say, those in which, through fortunate marriage traditions, volitional power and delight in self-mastery is always growing: And finally, to ordinary men, the vast majority, who exist for service and general utility, and are entitled to exist only to that end, religion gives invaluable contentment with their lot and condition, manifold peace of heart, ennoblement of obedience, one more source of joy and sorrow to share with their own kind, with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something that justify all their commonplaceness, all the baseness, all the semi-bestial poverty of their souls.

Religion, together with the religious significance of life, sheds sunshine over such perpetually stricken men and even makes the sight of themselves tolerable to them, it works upon them just as an Epicurean philosophy usually works on suffering people of a higher class, refreshing, refining, as it were making the most use of suffering, and ultimately even sanctifying and justifying it. There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowliest people how to elevate themselves by piety to an illusory higher state of life, and thus enable them to remain satisfied with the real world within which they certainly find a harsh enough life — and necessarily have to!

Among men, as among all other animals species, there is a surplus of defective, diseased, degenerating, frail, and necessarily suffering individuals; even among humans and even considering the fact that man is the animal not yet properly adapted to his environment , the successful cases are always the exception, the rare exception. What, then, is the attitude of the two greatest above-mentioned religions in relation to the excess of failed cases?

They seek to preserve and keep alive whatever can in any way be preserved, indeed they take the side of these upon principle, as the religions for the sufferers , they maintain that all those who suffer from life as from an illness are in the right, and they would like to ensure that every other experience of life be considered wrong and rendered impossible. However highly one might like to value this kind of preservative solicitude, inasmuch as, together with all the other types of man, it has been and is applied to the highest type of man, who up to this point has almost always been the type that has suffered most: One has to thank them for invaluable services; and who is sufficiently rich in gratitude not to feel poor at the contemplation of all that the "spiritual men" of Christianity have done for Europe up to this point!

And yet, when they had given comfort to the sufferers, courage to the oppressed and desperate, a staff and support to the helpless, and when they had lured away from society into cloisters and spiritual penitentiaries the inwardly-shattered and those gone mad: Verfasst von Osman Nuri Topbas am Die Weigerung zu glauben kann nur einem krankhaften Verstand und irregeleiteter Denkweise entspringen. Glaube ist einfacher und naheliegender als Unglaube.

Wenn sie nicht in Erscheinung tritt, liegt die Ursache in einer Form von spiritueller Blindheit und Taubheit.

QSA Members Forum

Sowohl in den himmlisch offenbarten wie in den von Menschen erdachten Religionen findet sich das Konzept des Glaubens an Allah. Sein ist alles, was in den Himmeln und auf der Erde ist Es ist offensichtlich, dass der Existenz dieses gewaltigen Universums eine makellose Ordnung und ein fehlerfreies Zusammenspiel zugrunde liegen. Dieses fein abgestimmte System bestimmt seit der Entstehung des Universums dessen Gleichgewicht und Fortbestand. Siehst du einen Fehler?

Fragt irgendeiner dies, wenn er in seinen Spiegel schaut?

Special offers and product promotions

Oder gibt es keinen, der sie schrieb? Glaubst du, sie wachse von allein?

Der, der nun sagt, nichts sei zu finden hinter diesem Vorhang,. Einstein beschreibt diese Tatsache so:.

Eine Religion ohne Wissenschaft ist blind und eine Wissenschaft ohne Religion ist lahm. Ist es denn nicht genug, dass dein Herr Zeuge aller Dinge ist? Zum Beispiel ist bekannt, dass eine einzige Platane Millionen Samen produziert, die alle, wie mit einem kleinen Fallschirm aus Federn versehen, vom Wind verweht und so verbreitet werden.

• Spiderweb of Deceit
• Et Jean passe... (FICTION) (French Edition)
• An Inquisition of Angels: Volume III of the Taliaferro Chronicles
• Forever Is Still a Long, Long Time
• Chris Matthews Biographies E-book Boxed Set: Tip and the Gipper, Jack Kennedy, and Kennedy & Nixon
• Twelve Lieder, Op. 9, No. 11: Resignation (Entsagung)
• Sara and the Puzzling Ancient Secret-Book 5-The Sara Series