Marilynne Robinson on Biblical Interpretation, Calvinist Thought, and Religion in America (Ep. 207)
Special thanks to listener Russell R.
特别感谢听众 Russell R.
for sponsoring this transcript.
赞助这份成绩单。
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎回到《与泰勒对话》。
Today I’m talking with Marilynne Robinson, one of America’s best and best-known writers.
今天我和玛丽莲·罗宾逊交谈，她是美国最优秀、最著名的作家之一。
She is also a nonfiction essayist, and now she has a new book out, called Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson, which I recommend highly.
她也是一位非小说类散文家，现在她出版了一本新书，名为玛丽莲·罗宾逊的《阅读创世纪》，我强烈推荐这本书。
Marilynne, welcome.
玛丽莲，欢迎。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。
Why is betraying a brother such a prominent theme in the Hebrew Bible?
为什么背叛兄弟是希伯来圣经中如此突出的主题？
I think it’s a small model of the offenses against ourselves as human beings that happen at every scale.
我认为这是各种规模的针对人类的犯罪行为的一个小模型。
It seems, in the Hebrew Bible, the older brother typically does worse or is somehow dethroned or put down.
在希伯来圣经中，哥哥通常表现得更糟，或者以某种方式被废黜或镇压。
Why is that?
这是为什么？
What is that telling us?
这告诉我们什么？
I think that there’s no necessity, no causality in the way that things work among human beings, that God is free to choose the younger brother.
我认为人类之间的事情没有必然性、没有因果关系，上帝可以自由地选择弟弟。
The conventions of human society, primogeniture and so on, are not salient in terms of God’s intentions.
人类社会的习俗、长子继承权等等，在神的心意上并不突出。
In your Calvinist view, is it elevating predestination over human institutions and human choices?
在你的加尔文主义者看来，它是否将预定论提升到人类机构和人类选择之上？
Poor old Calvin always comes up, but I don’t think that there’s any theologian who ever walked the earth who didn’t say that David was chosen over his brothers because it was the intention of God.
可怜的老加尔文总是会出现，但我认为地球上没有哪个神学家不说大卫被选中而不是他的兄弟，因为这是上帝的意图。
A great deal of determinist .
大量的决定论者。
.
。
.
。
The language is poor, but God’s choices are reflected continuously in the Bible.
语言很贫乏，但神的选择不断地反映在圣经中。
If that scene is predestination, it seems to me that that isolates it from the text in a way that’s not appropriate.
如果那个场景是宿命的话，在我看来，这以一种不恰当的方式将它与文本隔离开来。
Do you think there’s room in Catholic theology, or even Arminian theology, for human free choice to be the reason why these different events are happening, say, in Genesis or the Hebrew Bible, that predestination is a bit less general than you’re making it out to be in Christian thought?
你认为天主教神学，甚至阿米念派神学，是否有空间让人类自由选择成为这些不同事件发生的原因，比如说，在《创世记》或《希伯来圣经》中，预定论比你在基督教思想中认为的要普遍一些？
Or what’s your view?
或者你的看法是什么？
It’s pretty general in Christian thought.
这在基督教思想中是相当普遍的。
Thomas Aquinas believed in it, for example, wrote about it in the Summa Contra Gentiles and also in the Summa Theologica.
例如，托马斯·阿奎那就相信这一点，并在《反对异教徒大全》和《神学大全》中写到了这一点。
It’s very difficult to conceive of an omnipotent God who is relatively powerless in the way that our conception of freedom would imply.
很难想象一个全能的上帝会像我们的自由概念所暗示的那样相对无能为力。
I argue in the book consistently that God does actually restrain himself from intruding too far on our own nature at the same time that what he intends works its way through our nature.
我在书中始终认为，上帝确实限制自己对我们的本性进行过多的干预，同时他的意图也通过我们的本性发挥作用。
You write in your book, and I quote, “The great figures of scripture are not at all Homeric.” What did you mean by that?
你在书中写道，我引用：“圣经中的伟大人物根本不是荷马史诗。”你这是什么意思？
In a Homeric character, they tend to be demigods, for one thing.
一方面，在荷马的角色中，他们往往是半神。
Their nature is complicated by the influence of a divine parent.
他们的本性因神圣父母的影响而变得复杂。
They’re superhuman in a sense.
从某种意义上来说，他们是超人。
In the Bible, there is no intention to make anyone exceed his humanity, that God is always working through people that are recognizably fallible, limited human beings.
在圣经中，上帝无意让任何人超越他的人性，上帝总是通过那些容易犯错、有限的人来工作。
Part of the reason I think that we have so often God choosing almost at random among people is to make the point that he’s acting through them rather than they’re acting out of some singular quality of their own person.
我认为上帝经常在人中几乎随机地选择的部分原因是为了表明他是通过他们行事的，而不是他们根据自己的某些独特品质行事。
That would be true, say, for the elevation of Moses, who at first is a stumbling, bumbling figure, a stutterer, not very confident.
比如说，对于摩西的提拔来说，情况确实如此，他一开始是一个跌跌撞撞、笨手笨脚的人，一个口吃的人，不太自信。
But God elevates Moses.
但神高举摩西。
Exactly.
确切地。
Moses says, “I’m really not the person who should be doing this.” God says, “Your brother will be your mouth,” et cetera.
摩西说：“我真的不应该做这件事。”神说：“你的兄弟就是你的口”等等。
He does not allow the absence of what appear to be heroic qualities in Moses to be disqualifying of Moses.
他不允许摩西缺乏英雄品质，从而使摩西失去资格。
On the Bible’s influence and complexity
论圣经的影响和复杂性
How has the Book of Genesis influenced your fiction writing?
《创世记》对你的小说创作有何影响？
I think it has actually influenced Western literature, English-language literature to a point where it’s very difficult to say where the influence begins.
我认为它实际上已经影响了西方文学、英语文学，以至于很难说这种影响是从哪里开始的。
I think that there’s nothing in ancient literature that approaches it in terms of characterization, and there’s very little in modern literature that also would approach it from that point of view.
我认为古代文学中没有任何东西能从人物塑造的角度来接近它，现代文学中也很少有东西能从这个角度来接近它。
It’s these people who are rather obscure figures in the human world and overlapping generations of herdsmen.
就是这些人，是人间比较不起眼的人物，是世代相传的牧民。
They’re incredibly strongly differentiated and characterized.
它们具有令人难以置信的强烈差异化和特征。
I think that that’s something that has been an influence on all Western literature.
我认为这对所有西方文学都有影响。
How much do you feel that we moderns should feel free to do a pick and choose from Genesis, or from the Old Testament more generally?
您认为我们现代人应该在多大程度上自由地从《创世记》或更广泛的《旧约》中进行挑选？
You write quite a bit about themes of grace and reconciliation in Genesis, and they clearly are there, say, in the Joseph story.
你在《创世记》中写了很多关于恩典与和解的主题，它们显然存在于约瑟夫的故事中。
But if you look at, say, God destroying almost the entire world through the flood, or you look at some of the battles fought in Deuteronomy, it doesn’t seem to be grace at all.
但如果你看看，比如说，上帝通过洪水摧毁了几乎整个世界，或者你看看申命记中发生的一些战斗，这似乎根本不是恩典。
That certainly is a problem.
这当然是个问题。
The Bible very directly confronts the horrible aspects of human history and human behavior.
圣经非常直接地面对人类历史和人类行为的可怕方面。
That’s true.
这是真的。
It would be meaningless if it didn’t, because those things are so enormously important in human life and history.
如果不这样做，那就毫无意义，因为这些事情在人类生活和历史中非常重要。
The fact that it doesn’t give us an easy way to understand these things does not mean that they’re not germane to its subject, which is the nature of human being and the nature of God.
它没有给我们一个简单的方法来理解这些事情，但这并不意味着它们与它的主题没有密切关系，即人类的本质和上帝的本质。
The picking and choosing is certainly, certainly characteristic of the response that people have made to Genesis and to the Bible altogether.
这种挑选和选择无疑是人们对创世记和圣经的反应的特征。
I think that if I could simply change emphasis and show that there are other ways in which things are to be understood, and that there are words like vengeance and jealousy and so on that are bad translations and distort the reading of the text.
我认为如果我能简单地改变重点并表明还有其他方式可以理解事物，并且有些词如复仇和嫉妒等都是糟糕的翻译并扭曲了文本的阅读。
I consider the Bible to be the most complex document on the planet.
我认为圣经是地球上最复杂的文献。
The fact that its difficulties are not resolvable by me in every case, or any case perhaps, I don’t think is a criticism of the Bible.
事实上，我并不是在所有情况下都能解决它的困难，或者也许在任何情况下，我不认为这是对圣经的批评。
I once knew a Calvinist.
我曾经认识一位加尔文主义者。
His name was John Robbins.
他的名字叫约翰·罗宾斯。
He was what I call a bite-the-bullet Calvinist.
他就是我所说的“咬紧牙关的加尔文主义者”。
He thought the Bible was divine revelation that was above human judgment.
他认为《圣经》是超越人类判断的神圣启示。
You simply had to latch onto whatever was in there and couldn’t really very much use your interpretive faculties to override it.
你只需要抓住其中的任何内容，并且不能真正使用你的解释能力来覆盖它。
What’s the view that you hold that leads you to differ from John Robbins?
您所持有的与约翰·罗宾斯不同的观点是什么？
Read Calvin.
读加尔文.
These people that call themselves Calvinists — there’s no great likelihood that they will have read the Institutes or anything else that he wrote.
这些自称为加尔文主义者的人——他们不太可能读过他写的《基督教要义》或其他任何东西。
The need of interpretation taking into account what appears to be the overriding meaning of the text is what Calvin did.
加尔文所做的就是需要考虑到文本的最重要含义来进行解释。
His whole career was an explication of the Bible by his lights, using his Latin and his Hebrew and so on.
他的整个职业生涯就是用他的拉丁语和希伯来语等等来解释圣经。
He says we’ve read this wrong for a thousand years, and it will take us a thousand years to get it anywhere near right.
他说我们已经错误地理解了这一点一千年，而且我们还需要一千年的时间才能使它接近正确。
So, he does not believe in an absolutely straightforward reading of the text.
因此，他不相信绝对直接地阅读文本。
He believes very much in an interpretation that reconciles the text to the best understanding we feel we have about the nature of God.
他非常相信一种解释，可以使文本与我们对上帝本质的最佳理解相一致。
You write in your book, and again I quote, “To refrain, to put aside power is godlike.” What did you mean?
你在书中写道，我再次引用：“克制，放弃权力是神圣的。”你什么意思？
Simply that.
就是这样。
The ability to assert, to the extent that one can, control over another person is a suspect act in itself.
在可能的范围内主张控制他人的能力本身就是一种可疑行为。
The way that we have been human despite transgressions and all the rest of it, the way that God has loved human beings in their humanity, in order to allow this to happen, we have to assume that God did not assert himself in a way that disallowed our nature.
尽管有过犯和其他一切，我们仍然是人类的方式，上帝在人性中爱人类的方式，为了允许这种情况发生，我们必须假设上帝并没有以不允许我们本性的方式主张自己。
As a Calvinist, too, would not, in general, dismiss the Old Testament, what do you make of a book such as Leviticus?
作为加尔文主义者，一般来说，你也不会忽视《旧约》，你如何看待《利未记》这样的书？
It’s highly legalistic, highly ritualistic.
这是高度律法主义、高度仪式化的。
Some Christians read Leviticus and become a split Christian Jew almost.
有些基督徒读了利未记，几乎成为分裂的基督教犹太人。
Other Christians more or less dismiss the book.
其他基督徒或多或少地对这本书不屑一顾。
How does it fit into your worldview?
它如何符合你的世界观？
I think that when you read Herodotus, where he describes these little civilizations that are scattered over his world — he describes them in terms of what they eat or prohibit, or they paint themselves red, or they shave half their head.
我认为当你读希罗多德时，他描述了散布在他的世界中的这些小文明——他用他们吃什么或禁止什么来描述它们，或者他们把自己涂成红色，或者他们剃了一半的头。
There are all these very arbitrary distinctions that people make in order to identify with one clan over against another.
人们为了认同一个部落而不是另一个部落而做出了所有这些非常武断的区分。
At the point of Leviticus, which of course, is an accumulation of many texts over a very long time, no doubt, but nevertheless, to think of it as being Moses — he is trying to create a defined, distinctive human community.
毫无疑问，《利未记》是很长一段时间内许多文本的积累，但无论如何，将其视为摩西——他正试图创造一个明确的、独特的人类共同体。
By making arbitrary distinctions between people so that you’re not simply replicating notions of what is available or feasible or whatever, but actually asking them to adopt prohibitions of food — that’s a very common distinguishing thing in Herodotus and in contemporary life.
通过在人与人之间进行任意区分，这样你就不是简单地复制什么是可用的、可行的或其他什么的概念，而是实际上要求他们采取食物禁令——这在希罗多德和当代生活中是一个非常常见的区分事物。
So, the arbitrariness of the laws is not a fault.
因此，法律的任意性并不是过错。
It is a way of establishing identification of one group as separate from other groups.
它是一种将一个群体与其他群体区分开来的识别方法。
So, you read it as a narrative of how human communities are created, but you still would take a reading of, say, Sermon on the Mount that the Mosaic law has been lifted?
所以，你把它当作人类社区如何创建的叙述来读，但你仍然会读《登山宝训》，说摩西律法已经被取消了？
Or it’s still in place?
还是还在原地？
Oh, it’s not still in place.
哦，还没到原地。
We’ve been given other means by which to create identity.
我们被赋予了其他方式来创造身份。
Moses was doing something distinctive in a certain period of the evolution of Israel as a people.
在以色列民族进化的某个时期，摩西做了一些独特的事情。
He didn’t want them to be Egyptians.
他不想让他们成为埃及人。
He didn’t want them to subscribe to the prevailing culture, which was idolatrous, and so on.
他不希望他们认同偶像崇拜的流行文化，等等。
He’s doing Plato in The Republic.
他正在演《理想国》中的柏拉图。
He’s saying, “This is how we develop the idea of a community.”
他说：“这就是我们发展社区理念的方式。”
Having said that, then there are certain other things like “Thou shall not kill,” or whatever, that become characterizing laws.
话虽如此，还有一些其他的事情，比如“不可杀人”，或者其他什么，成为了法律的特征。
Jesus very often says, when someone says to him, “How can I be saved?” He says, “You know the commandments.” It’s not as if God is an alien figure from the point of view of Christ, whom we take to be his son.
当有人问耶稣时，耶稣常常说：“我怎样才能得救？”他说：“你晓得诫命。”从基督的角度来看，上帝并不是一个外星人，我们认为基督是他的儿子。
On ritual sacrifice and the Antichrist
论祭祀仪式和敌基督者
Ritual sacrifice plays a major role in the Bible, as you mention in your book, including in Genesis.
正如您在书中提到的，包括《创世记》，仪式牺牲在圣经中扮演着重要角色。
Is that a human universal, and it’s still with us in some form, as René Girard might suggest?
这是人类的普遍现象吗？正如雷内·吉拉德（René Girard）所暗示的那样，它仍然以某种形式存在于我们身边？
Or have we simply transcended the need for all this ritual sacrifice?
或者我们只是超越了所有这些祭祀仪式的需要？
In the books of Moses, he has adapted ritual sacrifice so that it’s clearly a feast.
在摩西的书中，他改编了祭祀仪式，因此这显然是一场盛宴。
It’s a sacrificial animal of a kind that they eat customarily.
这是他们习惯吃的一种祭祀动物。
Whenever these sacrifices are called for as ritual, they invite the widow, the orphan, the Levite, et cetera — these people who are assumed to be without resources.
每当举行这些祭祀仪式时，他们都会邀请寡妇、孤儿、利未人等等——这些人被认为是没有资源的。
I think that this is true also in Homer, that they give bones to the gods and eat the meat as a community.
我认为荷马的故事也是如此，他们把骨头献给众神，并作为一个群体吃肉。
This is probably a huge public health measure for one thing, simply making sure that everyone within a group is nourished every once in a while.
一方面，这可能是一项巨大的公共卫生措施，只是确保一个群体中的每个人每隔一段时间就得到营养。
The idea of sacrificing the animal, I don’t know.
我不知道牺牲动物的想法。
I think it always depends on whether or not the animal becomes the Thanksgiving turkey or not.
我认为这始终取决于该动物是否成为感恩节火鸡。
I think that that varies from one group to another, but among the Israelites, I think it was a feast basically.
我认为这因群体而异，但在以色列人中，我认为这基本上是一场盛宴。
The negative side of the sacrifice, that you do away with something to achieve a ritual cleansing of violent impulses so they don’t turn more violent — that’s not part of ritual sacrifice in the Bible?
祭祀的消极面是，你通过去除一些东西来实现对暴力冲动的仪式净化，这样它们就不会变得更加暴力——这不是圣经中祭祀仪式的一部分吗？
Is that element of ritual sacrifice still with us?
祭祀仪式的元素还存在吗？
I find ourselves very puzzling, frankly.
坦率地说，我发现我们自己非常令人困惑。
I think that what has happened in our civilization, as opposed to civilizations that have come before, is that we have the appearance of a relative absence of violence by historical standards.
我认为，与以前的文明相反，我们的文明中所发生的事情是，按照历史标准，我们相对缺乏暴力。
Then in reserve, in potential, we have a fantastic capacity for violence that would exceed anything that the world has ever seen before.
然后，在储备和潜力方面，我们拥有惊人的暴力能力，这将超过世界上以前见过的任何东西。
Maybe if we had some way of releasing this by littles rather than making more missiles and more bombs, maybe it would be healthier for us, ultimately.
也许如果我们有办法一点一点地释放这些物质，而不是制造更多的导弹和炸弹，也许最终对我们来说会更健康。
What’s the role of the Antichrist in your theology?
敌基督在你的神学中扮演什么角色？
It’s mentioned in Daniel.
但以理书里有提到。
It’s in the Book of Revelation, but a lot of the Bible — it’s just not there.
它在《启示录》中，但《圣经》中的很多内容都没有。
I tend to think the Antichrist is probably an array of bad human actors and behaviors rather than being a single figure, as some people think that it is.
我倾向于认为反基督者可能是一群坏的人类演员和行为，而不是像有些人认为的那样是一个单一的人物。
It seems to me that, for example, in the Book of Revelation, what you have is this cyclical pattern of history in which these Antichrist figures appear and work themselves through an epoch of history, and then it goes on to another epoch of history.
在我看来，例如，在《启示录》中，你所看到的是这种历史的循环模式，其中这些反基督人物出现并在一个历史时代中发挥作用，然后又进入另一个历史时代。
It seems to me as if you don’t have to look far to see things that are very, very much opposed to Christ very directly, whether they acknowledge this or not.
在我看来，似乎你不需要看太远就能看到那些非常非常直接地反对基督的事情，无论他们是否承认这一点。
Typically, they do not acknowledge it.
通常，他们不承认这一点。
So, I don’t think that Antichrist is necessarily an unusable term, well, I think that it is a term that should require scrutiny on the part of people who use it, certainly.
所以，我不认为“敌基督”一定是一个不可用的术语，嗯，我认为这个术语当然应该要求使用它的人仔细审查。
For you, it comes in cyclical form, and it’s a matrix, rather than say, oh, singling out the pope, or singling out Hitler or some person yet to come.
对你来说，它以循环的形式出现，它是一个矩阵，而不是说，哦，挑出教皇，或者挑出希特勒或未来的某个人。
Is that fair to say?
这么说公平吗？
Yes.
是的。
You look at history — there are a lot of terrifying people in history.
你看看历史——历史上有很多可怕的人。
It’s not just Hitler.
不仅仅是希特勒。
On teaching and preaching
关于教学和讲道
For how many years did you teach literature at the University of Iowa and other places?
您在爱荷华大学和其他地方教授文学有多少年了？
Iowa about 25 years, and then I did lectureships or briefer appointments in other places.
在爱荷华州工作了大约 25 年，然后我在其他地方做过讲师或进行过简短的任命。
How hard was it to teach literature to groups of students who I assume very often were not familiar with the Bible?
向一群我认为通常不熟悉圣经的学生教授文学有多难？
How was that for you?
你觉得怎么样？
That’s an interesting question.
这是一个有趣的问题。
Sometimes, if you ask the right question, you’ll find out that there are people in that room that know a lot more about the Bible than you would ever expect them to.
有时，如果你提出正确的问题，你会发现那个房间里的人对圣经的了解比你想象的要多得多。
A lot of people tend to be rather private about their upbringing, perhaps.
也许，很多人对于自己的成长经历都比较保守。
Then, often, it turns out that they were brought up in a religious context.
然后，往往会发现他们是在宗教背景下长大的。
Many, many people are.
很多很多人都是这样。
There’s a sad phenomenon of Christianity having become identified with what are seen as very ungenerous positions and values.
基督教有一种可悲的现象，它被认为是非常不慷慨的立场和价值观。
People are very reluctant to be identified with religion because they’re afraid that they’re also identified with the kind of politics that they have no respect for.
人们非常不愿意被认同为宗教，因为他们担心自己也会被认同为他们不尊重的政治。
Where in the world have the students most surprised you in this regard with what they knew about the Bible or how they understood it?
在这方面，学生们对圣经的了解或如何理解圣经，最令你惊讶的地方在哪里？
I think that there’s a spontaneous generosity in younger people, and they admire Jesus.
我认为年轻人有一种自发的慷慨，他们钦佩耶稣。
I think this is actually a more widespread feeling than actual adherence to Christianity, or acknowledged adherence to it.
我认为这实际上是一种比实际遵守基督教或承认遵守基督教更普遍的感觉。
The impulse toward generosity, I think, insofar as it’s celebrated in the Bible, is the thing that attracts them.
我认为，就圣经中所颂扬的而言，慷慨的冲动才是吸引他们的原因。
You’ve also been a preacher for many years — is that correct — in church?
您也当了很多年的牧师 — 这是正确的 — 在教堂里吗？
No. There was a time when the minister was often called away, and I would preach.
没有。曾经有一段时间，牧师经常被叫走，我就去讲道。
This must have happened three or four times, and my whole reputation as a preacher has come from those three or four times.
这样的事肯定发生过三四次了，而我作为传道人的全部声誉就是来自这三四次。
I’m actually very anxious about being in a pulpit.
事实上，我对登上讲坛感到非常焦虑。
I feel like an imposter, and so I don’t seek out that opportunity.
我感觉自己像个冒名顶替者，所以我不会寻求这个机会。
What did you learn from those three or four times preaching?
从这三四次讲道中你学到了什么？
That I had more to say than the 20 minutes of approved preaching could accommodate.
我要说的内容超出了 20 分钟经批准的讲道所能容纳的范围。
Also, perhaps, that people in churches have an internal 20-minute timer and begin to notice when you’re talking longer than they would’ve expected.
另外，也许教堂里的人有一个内部 20 分钟计时器，当你说话的时间比他们预期的要长时，他们就会开始注意到。
Do you have a view on Bible translations?
您对圣经翻译有什么看法吗？
It seems to me there’s a new generation of translators.
在我看来，新一代翻译家已经出现。
There’s a John Tabor translation of Genesis just out.
约翰·泰伯（John Tabor）翻译的《创世记》刚刚出版。
There’s Sarah Ruden doing the Gospels.
莎拉·鲁登（Sarah Ruden）在传福音书。
The view there seems to be the earlier translations — they don’t sound rough enough or authentic enough.
那里的观点似乎是早期的翻译——它们听起来不够粗糙或不够真实。
They’re all a bit smoothed over.
他们都有点平滑了。
What translation or translations do you prefer?
您更喜欢哪种翻译？
I like the Revised Standard Version, but that seems to be a little bit difficult to acquire at the moment.
我喜欢修订标准版，但目前似乎有点难以获得。
I don’t know why.
我不知道为什么。
It’s just the classic American Protestant Bible in its latest form.
这只是最新形式的经典美国新教圣经。
I have problems with the later Bible, simply in the sense that they preserve words like jealousy and so on that reflect very badly — as they are understood in modern English — on God.
我对后来的《圣经》有疑问，只是因为它们保留了诸如嫉妒之类的词语，这些词语对上帝的反映非常糟糕——正如它们在现代英语中的理解一样。
The Jewish Publication Society doesn’t use the word jealous.
犹太出版协会不使用“嫉妒”这个词。
They use the word passionate, which sounds to me like a vastly less injurious term.
他们使用“热情”这个词，在我看来，这个词的伤害性要小得多。
Likewise, vengeance — it’s a very bad translation of what meant judgment, implying that one could be vindicated as well as condemned.
同样，“复仇”——这是对“审判”的一个非常糟糕的翻译，意味着一个人既可以被平反，也可以被谴责。
I haven’t seen these terms criticized except with the one exception of the word jealous.
除了“嫉妒”这个词之外，我还没有看到这些术语受到批评。
I think that they are carried over because they sound biblical.
我认为它们被保留下来是因为它们听起来符合圣经。
People have been saying them since they were appropriate translations, but they aren’t anymore, and if anything’s going to be changed, that kind of thing should be changed.
人们一直在说它们，因为它们是合适的翻译，但现在已经不再是了，如果要改变什么，那类事情就应该改变。
On Shakespeare
论莎士比亚
You did your PhD on Shakespeare, correct?
你的博士学位是研究莎士比亚的，对吧？
Yes.
是的。
Do you think Shakespeare was a Catholic?
你认为莎士比亚是天主教徒吗？
No.
不。
Do you think he believed in the Trinity, even?
你认为他相信三位一体吗？
I wouldn’t go into detail like that.
我不会详细讨论这样的事情。
The question of being Catholic or Protestant in Shakespeare’s time was more a political question than a theological one, I think.
我认为，在莎士比亚时代，成为天主教徒还是新教徒的问题更多的是一个政治问题，而不是神学问题。
The denomination — inappropriate word — but the church, as it were, that somebody in Shakespeare’s period would be reacting against would’ve been the Anglican church, not the Catholic church, because the Catholic church had been effectively expelled from England for a long time, since Henry VIII.
莎士比亚时代的人所反对的教派——“不恰当的词”——但可以说是教会，应该是英国圣公会，而不是天主教会，因为自亨利八世以来，天主教会实际上已经被驱逐出英国很长一段时间了。
On the scale between having the king as the head of the church — the Anglican model — and the Protestantisms that were flourishing, and that were publishing, and that were preaching, and all the rest of it — popular religion of the period — I think that’s where Shakespeare would be found.
在以国王为教会领袖的“英国圣公会模式”与蓬勃发展的新教之间的规模上，新教正在出版，正在传教，以及所有其他的“这一时期的流行宗教”，我认为这就是莎士比亚的所在。
Do you think his late play The Winter’s Tale makes sense?
你认为他晚期的戏剧《冬天的故事》有意义吗？
It’s often called a problem play.
它通常被称为问题游戏。
Is there a problem in the structure of the plot, the setup, the resolution?
剧情结构、设定、分辨率有问题吗？
Or do you feel you understand it?
或者你觉得你明白了吗？
ROBINSON: I don’t know.
罗宾逊：我不知道。
I don’t know if I understand it.
不知道我是否理解了。
I love the late plays.
我喜欢迟到的戏剧。
I love the problem.
我喜欢这个问题。
He becomes very, very fascinated with grace and reconciliation in his late plays.
他对晚期戏剧中的优雅与和解非常非常着迷。
In The Winter’s Tale, of course, it’s the reconciliation between the king and his statuous wife.
当然，在《冬天的故事》中，是国王和他尊贵的妻子之间的和解。
The play makes you realize what has been lost, what has been harmed at the same time that it is also a reconciliation, an embrace, an undoing, a forgiving.
这部剧让你意识到失去了什么、受到了伤害，同时也是一种和解、一种拥抱、一种毁灭、一种宽恕。
The same thing happens in Cymbeline, same thing happens in The Tempest.
同样的事情发生在《辛白林》中，同样的事情也发生在《暴风雨》中。
Do you think there are hints in The Winter’s Tale that the queen actually was unfaithful to the king, or he just completely is imagining it?
你认为《冬天的故事》中是否有暗示王后实际上对国王不忠，或者这完全是他的想象？
I think he’s imagining it.
我认为他是在想象。
Where else do you go?
你还去哪里？
It’s very like Othello in that regard.
在这方面，它很像《奥赛罗》。
I think that these women are to be understood as actually honest, virtuous people.
我认为这些女性应该被理解为真正诚实、善良的人。
Reading Shakespeare as a Calvinist, what do you feel that directs your attention to that, say, contemporary secular readers might not see?
作为加尔文主义者来阅读莎士比亚，你觉得是什么让你注意到当代世俗读者可能看不到的东西？
Calvinism was made to evolve.
加尔文主义是为了进化而产生的。
Calvin is making suggestions.
卡尔文正在提出建议。
He’s not doctrinal in the way that people seem to think, but he was making really valuable suggestions.
他并不像人们想象的那样教条，但他提出了非常有价值的建议。
One of them was certainly that any encounter with another human being is an encounter with God, and that it is always a question, and the question is always, what would God want from this encounter?
其中之一肯定是，任何与另一个人的相遇都是与上帝的相遇，这始终是一个问题，而问题始终是，上帝想从这次相遇中得到什么？
It’s in his gloss in the Institutes on “Who is my neighbor?” as I recall.
这是他在《研究所》中对“谁是我的邻居？”的注释。我记得。
In any case, I think that’s very beautiful.
无论如何，我认为这非常美丽。
I think that that sense in Shakespeare of these enormously beautiful encounters, where people recognize each other, people pardon each other, people embrace each other — I think that could certainly be something that he explored as a suggestion taken from Calvin.
我认为莎士比亚对这些极其美丽的相遇的感觉，人们互相认识，人们互相原谅，人们互相拥抱 —— 我认为这肯定是他从加尔文那里得到的建议而探索的。
On Calvin’s influence
论加尔文的影响
Why do you think Calvin himself has lost so much popularity as a thinker?
你认为加尔文本人作为思想家的受欢迎程度为何下降了这么多？
Of course, feel free to challenge that premise, but he has a reputation of being a nasty guy, not so thoughtful, very intolerant.
当然，你可以随意挑战这个前提，但他是出了名的令人讨厌的人，不那么体贴，非常不宽容。
The word is almost used as an insult in some circles.
这个词在某些圈子里几乎被用作侮辱。
What’s your view on that, the evolution of Calvin’s reputation?
您对加尔文声誉的演变有何看法？
Well, he was associated with virtually every early revolution in Europe — Cromwell, the French Wars of Religion, and so on, the Dutch revolution against Spain.
嗯，他几乎与欧洲的每一次早期革命都有联系——克伦威尔、法国宗教战争等等，荷兰反对西班牙的革命。
He became so important in that sense that, of course, he was the object of polemic.
从这个意义上说，他变得如此重要，当然，他成为了争论的对象。
The American Revolution could be seen as another Calvinist revolution, and so could the American Civil War if you wanted to look at it from the point of view of the Great Awakenings and so on.
美国革命可以被视为另一场加尔文主义革命，如果你想从大觉醒等角度来看待美国内战，也可以将其视为另一场加尔文主义革命。
His teachings introduced a great deal of volatility into the existing order anywhere.
他的教义给任何地方的现有秩序带来了极大的波动。
People defend themselves against that by speaking of him very harshly, and also completely reversing the implications and the consequences of his theology.
人们通过非常严厉地谈论他来为自己辩护，并且还完全颠倒了他的神学的含义和后果。
The cure, of course, is to read Calvin, which no one does, and the reason no one does is because they think they know what they’ll find.
当然，治疗方法是阅读加尔文，但没有人这样做，而没有人这样做的原因是他们认为自己知道会发现什么。
It’s very self-perpetuating from that point of view when a negative reputation is established.
从这个角度来看，当负面声誉建立起来时，它就会自我延续。
There’s one person who was associated with a physical martyrdom on religious grounds, Michael Servetus.
有一个人因宗教原因而与肉体殉道有关，他就是迈克尔·塞尔维特斯。
One person.
一个人。
Then look at any other king in Europe at that time, or any bishop in Europe at that time, and so on.
然后看看当时欧洲的任何其他国王，或者当时欧洲的任何主教，等等。
You’ll see that, as sad as it is to have murdered one man, it’s a very minor event by the standards of the period.
你会发现，尽管谋杀一个人是一件令人悲伤的事，但以当时的标准来看，这只是一件非常小的事件。
The edition of Institutes that I own — I think it’s about 1100 pages with relatively fine print.
我拥有的《研究所》版本 — 我认为大约有1100页，印刷相对精美。
If you were making a case to people why they should read it, other than, “Well, you’ll see what Calvin really thought,” how would you try to persuade them?
如果你要向人们解释为什么他们应该读这本书，除了“好吧，你会看到加尔文真正的想法”之外，你会如何说服他们？
I say this as someone who wants to read Calvin carefully.
我是作为一个想仔细阅读加尔文的人这样说的。
You have to read him very carefully because, for some reason or other, the familiarity of theological language — if you’re interested in theology — so much of that language comes from him, but it’s very easy to read superficially.
你必须非常仔细地阅读他的著作，因为出于某种原因，神学语言的熟悉性 ——如果你对神学感兴趣的话——那么多语言都来自他，但从表面上看很容易。
At the beginning of the Institutes, he says, “The only true knowledge of God is born of obedience,” which is a very important situation of the psyche, the mind in Calvinist terms.
在《基督教要义》的开头，他说，“对上帝的唯一真正的认识是从服从中产生的”，这是心灵的一个非常重要的状况，用加尔文主义的术语来说就是心智。
He says if you want to encounter God, descend into yourself.
他说如果你想遇见上帝，就深入你自己。
Then he says if you want to understand yourself, contemplate God.
然后他说，如果你想了解自己，就沉思上帝。
He creates with this the possibility for very direct encounter between a human being and God, and holds metaphysics of what God is and what humankind are, which is again very beautiful because it’s a celebration of the brilliance of human beings.
他以此创造了人类与上帝直接相遇的可能性，并掌握了上帝是什么和人类是什么的形而上学，这又是非常美丽的，因为它是对人类辉煌的庆祝。
All this he does in the first couple of chapters.
所有这些都是他在前几章中所做的。
He can talk about human beings for a long time without ever mentioning sin or any of the things that are normally associated with him because he is of this renaissance humanism, the celebration.
他可以很长一段时间谈论人类，而从不提及罪恶或任何通常与他联系在一起的事情，因为他属于文艺复兴时期的人文主义，即庆祝活动。
There’s also a view known or sometimes caricatured as hyper-Calvinism.
还有一种观点被称为极端加尔文主义，有时被讽刺为极端加尔文主义。
Are you a hyper-Calvinist?
你是一个极端加尔文主义者吗？
I don’t know any of these terms.
我不知道这些术语中的任何一个。
All I know is, I’ve read his books, and I appreciate his metaphysics.
我只知道，我读过他的书，我很欣赏他的形而上学。
As I understand it, which is very imperfectly, the hyper-Calvinists take determinism more seriously.
据我了解，这是非常不完美的，极端加尔文主义者更严肃地对待决定论。
And they think, for instance, that trying to convert people or preach to them is futile, and we shouldn’t even bother doing it because God has settled everything.
例如，他们认为试图改变人们的信仰或向他们传教是徒劳的，我们甚至不应该费心这样做，因为上帝已经解决了一切。
Well, one thing that Calvinists — perhaps not hyper-Calvinists — have done is produce thousands of volumes of sermons.
好吧，加尔文主义者（也许不是超级加尔文主义者）所做的一件事就是制作了数千卷布道。
Obviously, it was a very, very literary, printing press–oriented culture.
显然，这是一种非常非常文学化、以印刷机为导向的文化。
You can talk about people who have invented some theory that finds no confirmation in Calvin’s own work.
你可以谈论那些发明了一些在加尔文自己的著作中没有得到证实的理论的人。
He preached several times every week, and did a great deal toward what he considered to be the education of people in the scriptures, so started schools and so on.
他每周讲道几次，并在他认为的经文教育方面做了很多工作，例如开办学校等等。
If somebody takes an idea and runs off with it and call themselves a hyper this or hyper that, it has nothing to do with the source material.
如果有人提出一个想法，然后就跑掉了，并称自己是“超级这个”或“超级那个”，那么它与源材料无关。
How can we tell whether we’re saved or damned?
我们怎样才能知道自己是得救了还是被诅咒了？
Can’t.
不能。
Can’t tell.
说不出来。
No. You can’t tell about yourself; you can’t tell about anybody else.
不，你不能讲述你自己；你不能谈论你自己。你不能告诉任何人。
Do you worry that the distinction between saved and damned leads to a certain tolerance amongst religious people for highly inegalitarian outcomes?
您是否担心得救与被诅咒之间的区别会导致宗教人士对高度不平等的结果产生某种程度的容忍？
If some people are elevated to heaven and others burn in hell for reasons not related to their free choices, that this then becomes also a political view, that extreme inequalities are something that are quite natural and sanctioned by God.
如果一些人因为与他们的自由选择无关的原因而被提升到天堂，而另一些人则在地狱中被烧死，那么这也成为一种政治观点，即极端的不平等是很自然的并受到上帝认可的事情。
Extreme inequalities are something that people seem sadly inclined toward.
人们似乎很遗憾地倾向于极端不平等。
A decaying society always sinks into that in one form or another.
一个腐朽的社会总是会以这样或那样的形式陷入困境。
But Calvin never says that you can judge whether anyone is saved or damned.
但加尔文从未说过你可以判断一个人是得救还是被诅咒。
Never, because he believes that as we appear to God, like David and his transgressions, and so on, we cannot say that those are acts that have a certain value in terms of their impact on the fate of our souls.
从来没有，因为他相信，当我们向上帝显现时，就像大卫和他的过犯等等，我们不能说这些行为对我们灵魂的命运有一定的影响。
His cultures — the Dutch culture, the Protestant English-language cultures, America and the colonial period, and so on — are not marked by hierarchy by the standards of the period.
他的文化——荷兰文化、新教英语文化、美国和殖民时期等等——并没有按照当时的标准来划分等级制度。
If he were to say that there was an egalitarian energy in that period, it would have been Calvinism.
如果说那个时期有一种平等主义的能量，那就是加尔文主义。
Have you been to the Netherlands at all?
你去过荷兰吗？
Yes, I’ve been there a couple of times.
是的，我去过那里几次。
Now, when you go, do you feel this is a modern version of a Dutch Calvinist culture?
现在，当你去的时候，你是否觉得这是荷兰加尔文主义文化的现代版本？
Or do you feel it’s an extreme rebellion against that?
或者你觉得这是对这一点的极端反叛？
Because if you look at some metrics, say legal sex work, liberal use of drugs, the Netherlands seems to be fairly extreme.
因为如果你看一些指标，比如合法的性工作、自由使用毒品，荷兰似乎相当极端。
How do you connect that or model that in your mind as an outgrowth of an earlier Dutch Calvinism?
您如何将其联系起来或在您的脑海中将其建模为早期荷兰加尔文主义的产物？
Well, the Dutch Calvinism I’m aware of tends to be in the Middle West.
嗯，我所知道的荷兰加尔文主义往往在中西部。
It is not at all like contemporary Netherlands.
它一点也不像当代的荷兰。
You know what I mean?
你知道我的意思？
Sure, absolutely.
当然，绝对。
It’s interesting with the Netherlands.
荷兰的情况很有趣。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I have talked with extremely erudite, devout people in the Netherlands.
我曾与荷兰极其博学、虔诚的人们交谈过。
People are so attracted by the sensational, but we know that things happen in the Netherlands that are surprising.
人们总是被耸人听闻的事物所吸引，但我们知道在荷兰发生的事情令人惊讶。
On the other hand, that’s gloss.
另一方面，那就是光泽。
There’s a lot of seriousness, and anywhere it’s a human tendency.
有很多严肃性，无论在哪里，这都是人类的倾向。
If I think about this country, we used to have a stronger tradition of a devout liberal Christianity: the Quakers, William Sloane Coffin, Martin Luther King.
如果我想想这个国家，我们曾经有一个更强大的虔诚自由基督教传统：贵格会、威廉·斯隆·科芬、马丁·路德·金。
It seems to me this is weaker today in relative terms, much weaker than it used to be.
在我看来，今天的情况相对而言要弱一些，比以前弱得多。
Do you agree with that?
你同意吗？
And if so, why do you think it happened?
如果是这样，您认为为什么会发生这种情况？
I think that it’s probably fair to say that that’s true.
我认为可以公平地说这是真的。
There’s been a loss of a certain kind of confidence, no question.
毫无疑问，人们已经失去了某种信心。
One thing we did is disaffiliate ourselves from our own educational institutions.
我们所做的一件事就是与我们自己的教育机构脱离。
Harvard, Yale — all these were Protestant schools founded by Congregationalists, Princeton by Presbyterians, and so on.
哈佛、耶鲁——这些都是公理会教徒创办的新教学校，长老会创办的普林斯顿大学等等。
When they became major national institutions, they stopped being self-identified as Protestant institutions.
当它们成为主要的国家机构时，它们不再自我认定为新教机构。
I think that the loss of dedicated intellectual institutions has been a sad thing for us, maybe a good thing for the culture at large.
我认为失去专门的知识机构对我们来说是一件悲伤的事情，但对整个文化来说也许是一件好事。
On American religiosity
论美国的宗教信仰
When you mentioned having taught, including at Iowa, for about 25 years, surely you noticed that academics are amongst the most secular people in American society.
当您提到您曾教书（包括在爱荷华州）大约 25 年时，您肯定注意到学者是美国社会中最世俗的人之一。
Why do you think that is?
你认为这是为什么？
I don’t think we can really tell.
我认为我们无法真正判断。
The thing about it is that, unfortunately, religion has become associated with inhumane values, inhumane episodes among the governing class, and so on.
不幸的是，宗教已经与不人道的价值观、统治阶级的不人道事件等联系在一起。
That makes people conceal their religion or their thoughts that are of a religious character.
这使得人们隐藏他们的宗教信仰或具有宗教性质的思想。
When somebody calls you whom you would always have taken to be secular and says, “Would you pray for me because I’m in some kind of trouble,” how secular is that?
当有人给你打电话，而你一直认为他是世俗的人，并说：“你能为我祈祷吗，因为我遇到了某种麻烦”，这有多世俗？
People are private about religion, but I don’t think that that means that they’re as secular as they seem to appear.
人们对宗教是保密的，但我不认为这意味着他们像看上去那样世俗。
So, you think we Americans are much more religious than it seems at first glance?
那么，您认为我们美国人比乍一看更加虔诚吗？
Yes, I do think that.
是的，我确实这么认为。
Do you think the Midwest is still considerably more religious than, say, most of the coasts?
您认为中西部地区的宗教信仰是否仍比大多数海岸地区高得多？
Well, again, that’s the kind of thing I can’t really tell.
好吧，再说一遍，这是我无法真正说出的事情。
I spend a lot of time on the East Coast, which is where I am now, and I suppose that is, to all appearances, more secular than most parts of the country.
我在东海岸度过了很多时间，这就是我现在所在的地方，我认为从表面上看，那里比这个国家的大部分地区更加世俗。
But at the same time, there’s a flourishing church here of my denomination, and so on.
但与此同时，我所在的教派这里有一座蓬勃发展的教堂，等等。
We don’t know what we’re comparing it against, for one thing.
一方面，我们不知道要与什么进行比较。
Also, there’s just the fact that people can feel that they are sufficiently religious without affiliation with a church.
此外，事实上，人们即使不隶属于教会，也能感觉到自己足够虔诚。
Many people feel that way.
很多人都有这样的感觉。
If we take your Iowa, which presumably you know quite well, when I was younger, I had the impression of it as a Democratic Party–leaning, highly educated, fairly tolerant, liberal, Protestant state overall with, obviously, a lot of diversity.
如果我们以爱荷华州为例，想必你对它很了解，当我年轻的时候，我对它的印象是一个民主党倾向、受过高等教育、相当宽容、自由、新教的国家，总体上显然有很多多样性。
Today, it seems to be a state that, say, Donald Trump is going to win quite easily electorally, assuming Trump is running.
如今，假设特朗普参加竞选，唐纳德·特朗普似乎将在选举中轻松获胜。
How did that change?
这是怎么改变的？
And why did the former philosophies held in Iowa not satisfy people?
为什么爱荷华州以前的哲学不能令人们满意呢？
We’re talking about something that has happened over a brief period of time, basically during the governorship of this Kim Reynolds.
我们谈论的是在短时间内发生的事情，基本上是在金·雷诺兹担任州长期间发生的事情。
I think that Trumpism is a fad that suddenly everybody’s doing the same thing, using the same language, and so on.
我认为特朗普主义是一种时尚，突然每个人都在做同样的事情，使用同样的语言，等等。
I’m very grieved by the change in the political climate in Iowa because I admired its generosity and civility and so on, and I hope that this is some weird temporary fluctuation because the basic decency and enlightenment of Iowa was so well established over such a long time, it’s hard to believe that this is a permanent conversion.
我对爱荷华州政治气候的变化感到非常悲伤，因为我钦佩它的慷慨和文明等等，我希望这只是一些奇怪的暂时波动，因为爱荷华州的基本正派和开明已经在这么长的时间里建立得很好，很难相信这是一种永久性的转变。
Some thinkers, I think especially on the conservative right, have argued that as America becomes more pluralistic — ethnically and religiously pluralistic — that that, on net, marginalizes the influence of religion.
一些思想家，我认为尤其是保守右翼思想家，认为随着美国变得更加多元化——“种族和宗教多元化”——从网上来说，宗教的影响被边缘化了。
That it’s easier for society to be fairly religious when there’s mostly one or maybe two religions in question, but when you have people from all over the world with a variety of religions or just very different understandings of Christianity, there’s a least-common-denominator effect, where most of us become more secular.
当主要存在一种或两种宗教时，社会更容易变得相当虔诚，但当你有来自世界各地的不同宗教信仰或对基督教的理解截然不同的人时，就会出现最小公分母效应，我们大多数人变得更加世俗。
Do you think that’s true?
你认为这是真的吗？
No, I think that one of the things that has been a resource in this country for many years is religious cultures that are derived from the place of origin.
不，我认为多年来一直是这个国家的资源之一就是源于原产地的宗教文化。
In other words, the multiplicity of religious institutions sustained religion as a phenomenon.
换句话说，宗教机构的多样性维持了宗教作为一种现象。
I think that you would say, without much fear of contradiction, that if you’re going to find religious people now, you would go to immigrant communities because they sustain many things for people who might otherwise feel that they are adrift.
我想你会说，不用担心矛盾，如果你现在要寻找宗教人士，你会去移民社区，因为他们为那些可能会觉得自己漂泊不定的人提供了很多东西。
Some commentators have suggested that the current woke movement, say from the progressive left, that it’s intellectually and ideologically an outgrowth of an earlier American Protestantism, that it has roots, in a sense, in the 17th century.
一些评论家认为，当前的觉醒运动，比如来自进步左派的运动，在思想和意识形态上都是早期美国新教的产物，从某种意义上说，它的根源可以追溯到 17 世纪。
Do you agree with that?
你同意吗？
I’d want to know what you mean by the word wokeism.
我想知道你所说的觉醒主义是什么意思。
Lots of things in this country have roots in 17th-century Protestantism.
这个国家的很多事物都源于 17 世纪的新教。
Say in San Francisco, there was an institution.
比如说在旧金山，有一个机构。
It was called a Woke Kindergarten, and it taught American history a particular way.
它被称为沃克幼儿园，以一种特殊的方式教授美国历史。
The New York Times segments emphasizing 1619, a particular kind of focus on issues of race, class, gender, trans individuals, the Me Too movement added up together as allied with the progressive left.
《纽约时报》的片段强调了 1619 年，这是一种对种族、阶级、性别、跨性别者问题的特殊关注，Me Too 运动与进步左派结盟。
I would take that to be one meaning of woke.
我认为这是唤醒的含义之一。
Do you think that’s an outgrowth of American Protestantism?
你认为这是美国新教的产物吗？
No. Having lived among the American Protestants for 80 years, I would not necessarily say that that is a phenomenon that is in any way especially peculiar to us.
不。在美国新教徒中生活了 80 年，我不一定会说这种现象对我们来说是特别独特的。
Insofar as any social movement wishes to alleviate injustice, unhappiness, pointless cruelty — the way so many discriminations do — insofar as the point is to reduce that kind of criminal misery, really, I’m perfectly happy to adopt it as a Protestant and say, “Yes, we did that.” But I think, in fact, it is just the generous evolution of a democratic society.
只要任何社会运动都希望减轻不公正、不幸和毫无意义的残忍行为——就像许多歧视所做的那样——只要其目的是减少这种犯罪痛苦，真的，我非常高兴地接受它作为一个新教徒，并说：“是的，我们做到了。”但我认为，事实上，这只是民主社会的慷慨演变。
What do you think of the Benedictine option to just retreat and tend one’s own garden, be highly spiritual, and not engage much with the world?
您如何看待本笃会的选择，即隐居并照料自己的花园，高度精神化，不与世界接触太多？
Is that a cop-out, or is that a legitimate way of being religious?
这是一种逃避，还是一种合法的宗教方式？
I would say it depends on circumstance.
我想说这取决于具体情况。
I would say that when people feel that impulse, it’s probably because the world is in a bad way.
我想说，当人们有这种冲动时，可能是因为这个世界已经变得很糟糕了。
They were actually withdrawing from problems that could be addressed — in theory, in any case.
他们实际上是在回避那些可以解决的问题——无论如何，理论上是这样。
I think we’re responsible for each other, and my particular salvation is not as important as my honoring the sacredness of human beings and the world.
我认为我们对彼此负责，我的特殊救赎并不像我尊重人类和世界的神圣性那么重要。
On Iowa and the success of the Writer’s Workshop
关于爱荷华州和作家研讨会的成功
How did you decide to live and stay in Iowa?
您是如何决定住在爱荷华州并留在爱荷华州的？
You were born in Idaho, right?
你出生在爱达荷州，对吗？
You grew up there?
你在那里长大？
Yes.
是的。
What led you to prefer Iowa?
是什么让您选择爱荷华州？
I went to college in Rhode Island and lived in Massachusetts and so on.
我在罗德岛州上大学，并住在马萨诸塞州等地。
I was quite a distance from Idaho, in terms of my experience, by the time I was invited to come teach in the Writers’ Workshop at the university in Iowa, which is such a classic phenomenon in American literature that I was very happy to go there and be part of it.
就我的经历而言，当我受邀到爱荷华州大学的作家工作室任教时，我距离爱达荷州还很远，这是美国文学中的一个经典现象，我很高兴能去那里并成为其中的一部分。
How did the Iowa — what you might call writer’s scene — originally blossom?
爱荷华州——你可能称之为作家界——最初是如何蓬勃发展的？
It must be 80 years ago by now.
现在已经是80年前的事了。
There was a lot of experiment at the university at that time.
当时大学里有很多实验。
They were giving advanced degrees for physical art, for sculpture and for theater and so on, which was either unusual or unprecedented at the time.
他们授予身体艺术、雕塑和戏剧等方面的高级学位，这在当时是不寻常的或前所未有的。
There were already groups of people in that city who met to discuss things that they wrote.
那个城市已经有一群人聚在一起讨论他们写的东西。
The university just embraced them at a certain point, and that became the Writers’ Workshop, and many, many very distinguished writers have come through there.
大学在某个时候就接纳了他们，那就变成了作家工作室，许多非常杰出的作家都来自那里。
Do you think there’s any kind of unique Midwest or Iowa voice in fiction, the way there’s arguably a Southern voice?
你认为小说中是否存在某种独特的中西部或爱荷华声音，就像南方声音一样？
I think not because Iowa is just .
我认为不是因为爱荷华州就是这样。
.
。
.
。
Most of my students were from New York City or from California, or .
我的大多数学生来自纽约市或加利福尼亚州，或者。
.
。
.
。
People come to Iowa not to be Iowans, but to study at the workshop, whereas Southern writers identify as Southern.
人们来到爱荷华州不是为了成为爱荷华人，而是为了在研讨会上学习，而南方作家则认为自己是南方人。
They want to be expressing that particular culture, so that’s a great difference.
他们想要表达那种特定的文化，所以这是一个很大的区别。
Why is it you think Iowa out-competes so many other writing workshops?
您认为为什么爱荷华州在竞争中胜过了许多其他写作研讨会？
People can, and have, set up writing workshops along the coasts, in larger cities.
人们可以而且已经在大城市的沿海地区设立了写作工作室。
Iowa very often still seems to do better.
爱荷华州似乎常常做得更好。
Is that just history and path dependence?
这只是历史和路径依赖吗？
Or is there some comparative advantage still in Iowa that makes it work?
或者爱荷华州是否仍然存在一些比较优势使其发挥作用？
It’s very hard for me to say because it’s the only program that I’ve taught in of that kind, but it’s a culture.
这对我来说很难说，因为这是我教过的唯一一个此类项目，但这是一种文化。
One of the things that I think is a definite benefit is that they learn how to be helpful to one another, the people that are students there.
我认为明确的好处之一是他们学会了如何互相帮助，帮助那里的学生。
They’re very good critics of each other.
他们非常善于互相批评。
That’s one of the important things that they seem to learn.
这似乎是他们学到的重要事情之一。
And the status of the place — everybody’s success feels like everyone else’s success because of the reputation of it as a community.
这个地方的地位——每个人的成功感觉就像其他人的成功，因为它作为一个社区的声誉。
As far as the faculty are concerned, we were very autonomous.
就教师而言，我们非常自主。
We simply taught as we felt was appropriate in whatever setting, absolute minimum of meetings or anything like that.
我们只是按照我们认为在任何环境下都合适的方式进行教学，绝对最少的会议或类似的事情。
I think that that’s part of the spirit of it also, that we are trusted and not regulated.
我认为这也是其精神的一部分，即我们受到信任，不受监管。
When your students would arrive, what is it you had wished they had known but they hadn’t?
当您的学生到达时，您希望他们知道但他们没有知道的是什么？
Oh, so much.
哦，这么多。
I can’t really generalize because we do get a diverse student body, and some of them are working with a great deal less than others in terms of educational background and so on, but that doesn’t make them less interesting.
我不能一概而论，因为我们确实有一个多元化的学生群体，其中一些人在教育背景等方面的工作量比其他人少得多，但这并不会让他们变得不那么有趣。
That’s one of the great equalizing things about writing as an art.
这是写作作为一门艺术最重要的平衡点之一。
If you do it well, you can make anything into an appropriate subject.
如果你做得好，你可以把任何东西变成合适的主题。
You can make anything blossom into meaning.
你可以让任何事物绽放出意义。
Yes.
是的。
Do you play around with large language models at all, and AI?
您是否尝试过大型语言模型和人工智能？
No, no, no. I’m just sneaking past.
不，不，不。我只是偷偷过去。
I feel very fortunate that my lifespan did not incorporate these things so that they became things that I had to actually be adequate with.
我觉得很庆幸，我的一生没有把这些东西融入其中，让它们变成了我实际上必须应付的东西。
On nuclear pollution, movies, and work habits
关于核污染、电影和工作习惯
Your very first book, which is called Mother Country — it’s about nuclear pollution in Great Britain.
你的第一本书叫做《祖国》——是关于英国的核污染的。
Why did you write that book?
你为什么写那本书？
Many people are surprised when they learn that’s a book of yours.
许多人得知这是您的书时都会感到惊讶。
My first book is actually the novel Housekeeping, and then —
我的第一本书实际上是小说《家政》，然后 ——
Nuclear pollution came after, I’m sorry.
抱歉，核污染随之而来。
Yes.
是的。
It was my second book.
这是我的第二本书。
I was in England, and frankly, I picked up a newspaper and read about how ingesting plutonium is considered to be harmful to children.
我当时在英国，坦白地说，我拿起一份报纸，读到摄入钚被认为对儿童有害。
It was just very, very remarkable, the kind of information that was in the atmosphere about what was happening, particularly at this one reprocessing plant on the coast of the Irish Sea.
大气中弥漫着关于正在发生的事情的信息，特别是在爱尔兰海沿岸的这家后处理厂，这是非常非常引人注目的。
There are Americans all over England all the time, and they can read a newspaper as well as I can, and they don’t see things.
英国各地一直都有美国人，他们看报纸的能力和我一样好，但他们看不到东西。
They see violets and geraniums and not the fact that things are very different there.
他们看到的是紫罗兰和天竺葵，而不是那里的事物有很大不同的事实。
Many conceptions of what is appropriate economically and so on are very different.
关于什么是经济上适当的等等的许多概念是非常不同的。
I could see what was happening.
我可以看到发生了什么。
I could find information about it in all sorts of places.
我可以在各种地方找到有关它的信息。
Why should I not write about it?
我为什么不应该写它呢？
Should the British just have done more and more expensive nuclear reprocessing the way the French did?
英国是否应该像法国那样进行越来越昂贵的核后处理？
Didn’t that work out okay for the French, and France today is glad that it went nuclear?
这对法国人来说不是很好吗？今天的法国很高兴它拥有了核武器吗？
What is your source of information?
您的信息来源是什么？
That a lot of European nations, due to the Russian energy price shock, have reconsidered nuclear.
由于俄罗斯能源价格冲击，许多欧洲国家已经重新考虑核能。
Those that stuck with it, such as Sweden and France, seem to be glad they stuck with it and now possibly want to expand it.
那些坚持这样做的国家，例如瑞典和法国，似乎很高兴他们坚持了它，现在可能想扩大它。
There are better and worse ways of doing nuclear.
核能的开发方式有更好也有更差。
Britain seems to have done a worse way, but aren’t there better ways that some countries have done and were happy they did them?
英国似乎做得更糟糕，但一些国家是否有更好的方法，并且很高兴他们这样做了？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
There’s a great deal of secrecy, shall we say, that surrounds these things.
容我们说，围绕这些事情有很多秘密。
I know that France built most of its reactors a very long time ago when Giscard d’Estaing was in power.
我知道法国的大部分反应堆是在很久以前吉斯卡尔·德斯坦执政时期建造的。
Reactors don’t have a very long life — 30 years, 40 years.
反应堆的寿命并不长——30年、40年。
They’re past that.
他们已经过去了。
It would be incredibly expensive to replace them or to demolish them, whatever, decommission them.
更换它们或拆除它们或使它们退役将是极其昂贵的。
I don’t think we’re going to know.
我认为我们不会知道。
The prestige of any country — for example, Russia — depends on the kind of information that we have about it.
任何国家（例如俄罗斯）的威望都取决于我们掌握的有关该国家的信息类型。
Frankly, you don’t have to look far in many cases — for example, in Russia — to find that things are extremely problematic and that they are problematic as a consequence of nuclear power.
坦率地说，在很多情况下——例如在俄罗斯——你不必看得太远，就会发现事情的问题极其严重，而且这些问题都是核电造成的。
The idea that somehow or other there’s something that can be done with these materials that were never meant to exist on Earth, it’s a polite fiction.
认为可以用这些材料做一些事情，而这些材料本来就不存在于地球上，这种想法只是客气的虚构。
It’s not true.
这不是真的。
Do you watch movies much?
你看电影多吗？
Not a great deal.
没什么大不了的。
Do you have a favorite movie?
你有最喜欢的电影吗？
No. I like serializations of 19th-century novels.
不，我喜欢 19 世纪小说的连载。
I suppose that’s what I would say if I were to be perfectly honest.
我想如果我完全诚实的话我也会这么说。
What other movies have I liked?
我还喜欢哪些其他电影？
I’m drawing a blank.
我正在画一个空白。
The sense of, say, God’s grace that is in many of your books, you might say all of your books.
比如说，上帝恩典的感觉存在于你的许多书中，你可能会说你所有的书中。
Can you think of something from television or the cinema that, when you watch it, you feel someone is thinking, feeling along the same lines that you are, and you think, “That’s reflecting my vision of God’s grace”?
你能想到电视或电影中的某些东西，当你观看它时，你会感觉到有人正在思考，有与你相同的感受，并且你认为，“这反映了我对上帝恩典的看法”？
Nothing comes to mind immediately, but as I said, I don’t watch films very much.
没有立即想到什么，但正如我所说，我不太看电影。
I love the ending of The Tempest.
我喜欢《暴风雨》的结局。
There’s a good movie version by Julie Taymor.
朱莉·泰莫（Julie Taymor）有一个很好的电影版本。
I think it’s quite good.
我认为这很好。
If you haven’t already seen it, you would enjoy it.
如果您还没有看过，您一定会喜欢的。
Yes.
是的。
What’s the one where the great woman actor plays Prospero?
这位伟大的女演员扮演普洛斯彼罗的那一部是什么？
Is it that same one you’re speaking of?
你说的是同一个人吗？
I think it’s the same one.
我认为这是同一个。
Yes, that’s very beautiful.
是的，那非常漂亮。
What is your most unusual successful work habit?
您最不寻常的成功工作习惯是什么？
I think it’s becoming used to the fact that it takes me a long time to get to the place where I can work on something, that all this frustration and depression that precedes my writing anything is part of the process of writing.
我认为它已经习惯了这样一个事实：我需要很长时间才能到达可以做某事的地方，所有在我写任何东西之前的挫败和沮丧都是写作过程的一部分。
Before my last question, I would just like to repeat to our listeners and readers, Marilynne Robinson has a new book out, which I enjoyed very much, Reading Genesis, which is about, of course, the book of Genesis in the Bible.
在我的最后一个问题之前，我想向我们的听众和读者重复一遍，玛丽莲·罗宾逊出版了一本我非常喜欢的新书，《读创世记》，当然，这本书是关于圣经中的《创世记》的。
I’m very happy to recommend all of her books and, of course, her famous novels.
我很高兴推荐她所有的书，当然还有她著名的小说。
Housekeeping, I think, being my favorite.
我想，家政服务是我最喜欢的。
Last question is simply, what will you do next?
最后一个问题很简单，你接下来要做什么？
Exodus.
出埃及记。
I look forward to that.
我对此很期待。
I will read it with pleasure.
我会很高兴地阅读它。
Marilynne Robinson, thank you very much.
玛丽莲·罗宾逊，非常感谢你。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Photo Credit: Alec Soth, Magnum Photos
图片来源：Alec Soth，玛格南图片社