Towards a Poetics of Spoken-Word Bible Translation: Colometry in the Buber-Rosenzweig Working Papers

One of the most peculiar features of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible translation is its so-called colometric division of the biblical text. This article offers a mapping of the range of considerations that guide Buber and Rosenzweig in determining each colometric unit. Drawing on the myriad exchanges in the Working Papers regarding the length and the rhythm of biblical cola, as well as the reading experience these cola elicit, I aim to show that colometry is not merely a theory of the breath-length rhythm of biblical speech, applied arbitrarily. Rather, the relative consistency with which Buber and Rosenzweig apply an overarching principle and a range of rules to their colometric divisions, suggest there is every reason to view colometry as the foundation of a poetics governing the Buber-Rosenzweig translation - one we might designate as the poetics of the spoken word.