Good Liar

Good Translations? Bad Translations?

Olga Litvak | Hedgehog Review | 1st July 2025

Until the 16C, it was not widely acknowledged that the Bible began life as a translation by Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria from the 1st BC. Differences in translation have been consequential, to say the least. In Hebrew, the verse about the virgin birth refers simply to a “young woman with child”. “Young woman” was translated as “virgin” because in Greek, the two words are synonymous (5,200 words)

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The French Liar

Sandrine Parageau | Aeon | 8th July 2025

René Descartes, in his time, was repeatedly and publicly accused of being a fraud. The “radical or hyperbolical doubt” that Descartes advocated seemed, to his detractors, to be “implying a form of self-induced ignorance” which would result in “solitude and despair”, and leave his victims no choice but to “adhere to him tooth and nail”. This description is strikingly similar to what we now call “gaslighting” (2,400 words)