You may have already guessed who these strange and powerless herdsmen were.
也許你已經(jīng)猜到了,這個奇怪的、弱小的游牧民族是誰。
They were the Jews.
他們就是猶太人。
And the songs of their deeds, which were the deeds of their god, are the Old Testament1 of the Bible.
這些歌,他們用這些歌來歌唱他們的事跡,這些事跡是他們的神的事跡,這就是《圣經(jīng)》中的《舊約全書》。
One day – but there's no hurry – you may come to read the Bible.
有一天——但你也不必著急——你可以讀讀《圣經(jīng)》。
Nowhere else will you find so many stories about ancient times so vividly2 told.
你就會發(fā)現(xiàn)古代的事情幾乎哪兒也沒有在《圣經(jīng)》里講得這么多、這么生動。
And if you read them carefully, you may find that you now understand many of them better.
如果你仔細閱讀,你會發(fā)現(xiàn)你現(xiàn)在能更好地理解它們。
There's the story of Abraham, for example.
比如亞伯拉罕的故事。
Do you remember where he came from?
你還記得他來自哪兒嗎?
The answer is in the Book of Genesis, in chapter 11.
答案在《圣經(jīng)》的《創(chuàng)世紀》的第11章中。
He came from Ur in the Chaldees.
他來自迦勒底的烏爾城。
Ur–that mound3 of rubble4 near the Persian Gulf5, where they dug up all those ancient things like harps6 and game-boards and weapons and jewelry7.
烏爾城——這是波斯灣附近的廢墟,人們在那兒挖掘出很古老的文物,如豎琴和棋盤,武器和首飾。
But Abraham didn't live there in the earliest times.
但是亞伯拉罕不是生活在很古老的時代。
He was probably alive at the time of Hammurabi, the great lawgiver, which was–as you remember! – around 1,700 BC.
他大概生活在偉大的立法者漢謨拉比的那個時代,這就是——就像你記得的那樣——大約在公元前1700年。
And many of Hammurabi's strict and just laws turn up again in the Bible.
漢謨拉比的某些許多和公正的法典,人們也在《圣經(jīng)》中重新找到了。