Translating Empire: Tell Fekheriyeh, Deuteronomy, and the Akkadian Treaty Tradition by C. L. Crouch and Jeremy M. Hutton

Abstract

Reviewed by: Translating Empire: Tell Fekheriyeh, Deuteronomy, and the Akkadian Treaty Tradition by C. L. Crouch and Jeremy M. Hutton Samuel Boyd c. l. crouch and jeremy m. hutton, Translating Empire: Tell Fekheriyeh, Deuteronomy, and the Akkadian Treaty Tradition (FAT 135; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019). Pp. xiv + 339. €129. In Translating Empire, C. L. Crouch and Jeremy M. Hutton examine in detail the nature of translation in Iron Age II texts, concentrating specifically on the Tell Fekheriyeh Akkadian-Aramaic bilingual inscription. In the process, they offer a new take on the decades-old question regarding the relationship between Deuteronomy 28 and the curse section in the Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon: Can the former be described as a “translation” of the latter, as some scholars have claimed? The volume is an expansion of a previous article (“Evaluating Deuteronomy as a Translation of Akkadian Treaties: An ‘Optimal Translation’ Approach,” HeBAI 7 [2018] 201–52) and builds on work that each author has published elsewhere. C. and H. take as their point of departure, and as their focus in most of the book, the relationship between the Akkadian and Aramaic texts of the Tell Fekheriyeh inscription as an attested translation. Moreover, using Optimality Theory, itself adapted to Descriptive Translation Studies, they derive a methodological framework for demonstrating that the relationship between the Akkadian and Aramaic texts in the Tell Fekheriyeh inscription qualifies as an optimal translation. In distinction, and by using the same method, the relationship between Deuteronomy 28 and the Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon and that between the Sefire texts and the treaty of Aššur-nerari cannot be described in the same terms. The result is a rich, if technical, study and a rigorous model for applying theoretical approaches to philological data. Chapter 1 contains a general overview of the history and research on the Tell Fekheriyeh inscription. C. and H. then turn their attention to the methodological frameworks that set the basis for the following studies. They use Optimality Theory as one of these approaches, or the view that parts of language (such as phonology) operate by navigating output forms through a series of constraints, where certain constraints are “fatal” because the violations relative to other output possibilities render such fatal possibilities as relatively non-optimal. Though H. elsewhere has noted that Optimality Theory “has not been entirely well-received in the broader field of theoretical linguistics” (“Optimality in the ‘Grammars’ of Ancient [End Page 315] Translation,” JHebS 15 [2015] art. 7, p. 2), he and C. rework the theory in combination with Description Translation Studies. They demonstrate how the two frameworks are complementary and can explain how linguistics and translation theory can work together to shed light on ancient languages. While other methods complement their analyses throughout the book (such as cognitive theory), they successfully reenvision the richness of Optimality Theory to put it into conversation with Descriptive Translation Studies. In chap. 3, the authors apply the method to the Akkadian and Aramaic texts of Tell Fekheriyeh A (Fekh. A), which corresponds to lines 1–18 of the Akkadian inscription and lines 2–12 of the Aramaic inscription. They argue that the relationship between the Akkadian and Aramaic satisfies the criteria for labeling the interface between the two as an optimal translation. Examining the relationship between bilingualism, translation, and cognition, C. and H. conclude that the Aramaic of Fekh. A and Fekh. B can both be described as translations that occurred at different times (and not as a single moment of bilingual composition). In chap. 5, C. and H. demonstrate that Fekh. B, likewise, satisfies the criteria for optimal translation. In this case, however, the relationship between the Akkadian and Aramaic requires a few more minimal constraints, which reveals that, while Fekh. B is still an optimal translation, it evinces a translation technique distinct from that of Fekh. A, all of which sheds light on the composition history of the inscription itself. Crouch and Hutton then apply this methodological framework to the relationship between Deuteronomy 28 and the Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon as well as to the Sefire texts and the treaty of Aššur-nerari, arguing that in each case the relationship between the former text and...