David Sirlin loves Sun Tzu and wants us all to get to know him better...

[Epoetker]

See here:

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm

But I'll be darned if quite a few aspects of his whole philosophy of "Play to Win" couldn't form the center of quite a few sermons and sermonettes. Outlining this and Sun Tzu's philosophy within the context of video games, (where, keep in mind, the RULES are pretty much unbreakable by any average player) an arena more at home to most of us than any battlefield ancient or modern, might help some of the people unaccustomed to the interpretation of Sun Tzu's somewhat clipped prose. A cheat sheet, if you will.

Besides, his sidebar applies many of Tzu's strats quite concisely:thumb:

[flipper]

Aren't you mercilessly twisting a rather taoist outlook to suit your needs?

Beware self-serving translations. Own at least five different translations. Ensure that at least 3 of them were developed by native chinese speakers.

[Epoetker]

But that would take, like, WORK. And work sucks! Why can't we just proclaim the olde Englishe 18th century translation the inspired gospel of Sun Tzu and avoid comparing other translations for the nuances? :angel:

I mean, shouldn't Tzu have written his book so a 21st century reader could understand it?

[flipper]

Epoetker:

*grin* chinese is an extremely difficult language to translate, or so I am assured, and it is very easy to introduce personal bias when translating it. Context is everything. Well, lots of things anyway.

[Epoetker]

In any case, the main thrust of my point is that Christians need more people to inculcate this philosophy of life. The ones who seem to do it the best are the former criminals and the former Satanists. Both seem to have fewer inhibitions against praying for things, appealing to civil authorities, and speaking their mind on issues that political correctness or personal inhibition(we're all scrubs in the Body of Christ!) have kept us from saying but that reason and Biblicism neither have nor should not. I'm wanting to spread the word.

[Ben Franklin]

If you're in the market for a really, really, good translation of Ping Fa (Art of War) in English, look no further than Samel Griffin. A retired Marine Corp officer, he generously added many footnotes and monographs about warfare in Sun Tzu's time, a history of Ping Fa's effect on Japanese military thought, and even a commentary about the difficulties in proofing Chinese literature. Also, the translation itself is the bomb ! I always hated Giles, Clearly, et allus. He also lists an impressive bibliography of many works written in Chinese and foregin languages about Ping Fa, and clearly had much guidance from eminent Chinese scholars. You just can't go wrong with it ! I love it !

[Vorkosigan]

I'll second Ben

*grin* chinese is an extremely difficult language to translate, or so I am assured, and it is very easy to introduce personal bias when translating it. Context is everything. Well, lots of things anyway.

Speaking as one who has been doing it for more than ten years, Chinese is not difficult to translate. It has its idiosyncrasies, like any language.....genres, not languages, are difficult to translate.

[Ryokan]

I've read to versions of it, and they aren't that different.

[Ben Franklin]

Today @ 01:51 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=367855#post367855)
Ryokan:

I've read to versions of it, and they aren't that different.

Because some lazy (LAZY !) translators use the Giles' translation as their source reference, without doing the dirty work. Don't get me wrong: Giles' earned his place, being the first Englishman to seriously tackle "Ping Fa". But his translation wasn't perfect (as is no translation). In fact, as Vorkosigan pointed out, the words themselves can easily be identified (didn't Kung Tzu "systemize" Chinese writing over two millenia ago ?). But, just like any other language, words' meanings do change: and even for the best of translators, sometimes they must dig (and I mean REALLY dig) to find the context of a word in a given sentence. It's simple human error: authors sometimes forget to ensure you're following them.

And now, shame-facedly, I must tell you, that the translator I referred to is named Samuel Griffith, NOT Griffin... I goofed ! Apologies all around ! :doh: