Wild Olive Jeanne Petrolle and Jennifer Bird

Sometimes, readers of the Bible underestimate the effects of translation on the meanings that arise from particular Bible stories. In this episode, Jeanne and Jennifer discuss the complexities of translation, exploring a number of specific examples in which changes made in the process of translation from Hebrew to English--or Hebrew to Greek to English--introduce meanings that do not exist in the original language, or erase certain ideas or images that are in the original but are missing from the English translation.

Jennifer and Jeanne share observations about rhythm, rhyme, parallelism, and imagery in the first three chapters of Genesis. After exploring how the Hebrew poetry in these Genesis chapters work poetically, the conversation goes on to consider the thematic richness of the story, the myriad ways of understanding the woman in Genesis, and two ways of thinking about genre in connection with the Genesis creation stories. The conversation turns to a brief consideration of Zora Neale Hurston's Harlem Renaissance novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, in which the main character, Janie, functions as an Eve figure. 

While some understand the term "myth" to mean "something that's not true," that isn't what biblical or literary scholars mean when they use the term.  For scholars, "myth" is the literary term for certains kinds of storytelling. Jeanne and Jennifer explore a range of meanings for the term "myth," and discuss how reading the Bible as myth opens up a range of rich, valuable interpretations.

Hosts Jeanne Petrolle and Jennifer Bird talk about their backgrounds and how these backgrounds shape the reading lenses that each brings to biblical texts. Conversation goes on to explore the nature of reading "lenses," and how one's "lenses" shape interpretation of any work of literature, and will certainly shape interpretation of the Bible. 

The Wild Olive Podcast brings listeners game-changing conversation about literature, culture, and the Bible. Literature Professor Jeanne Petrolle and Biblical Studies Professor Jennifer Bird talk about the Protestant Bible from a literary perspective, connecting biblical texts with other kinds of texts, and with American culture. In this inaugural episode of Wild Olive, Jeanne and Jennifer introduce the new podcast, explaining what it means to read the Bible as literature, and how the concept of myth can help readers understand some parts of the Bible.