A newly unveiled statue of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk was vandalized at the Turning Point USA headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.
The statue was found with red spray-paint. A nearby poster memorial in front of the statue was vandalized with red paint as well.
Well, there are some people who have an interest in exaggerating uncertainty and inconsistency in the biblical text.
Many diasporic Jewish communities of the ancient world were not familiar enough with Hebrew and required the Septuagint (Greek), or the Targum (several Aramaic translations). However, there were rabbis in the first and second centuries CE discussing the correct intonation and punctuation of the text for homiletical purposes. That suggests that they where both very familiar with the language of the text, and shared a “correct” intonation. Worth noting that these discussions were happening in Hebrew.
It’s true that early 20th Century scholars debated that the ancient Hebrew script was lost to Jews after the Babylon exile. We have since found examples of the Ancient Hebrew script and Assyrian script (used in Hebrew from the Babylon time until today) side by side in the same documents.
Your point about translation is right on the money, although some ancient translations do provide additional context about what the original text meant to the people of the day.
Yeah, I just find that the voices I hear talking about it instead have an interest in downplaying uncertainty and inconsistency by, for instance, claiming that the modern Christian bible is the direct word of god, translated by divine inspiration, and that there has only ever been one, consistent version, in order to justify unconscionable beliefs, many of which even members of the original culture to develop the mythology and belief systems might have found abhorrent. So I’m just here calling out the fundie on the fact that they have no basis for the claim that their pet version of the document which, above all others in human history, has undergone the most reinterpretation, excision, addition, and translation, is completely free of human conceit. That original context is, as you point out, lost in translation. The things we could learn if we had a window to the Canaan of 3500 years ago…