Bruce Feiler Quote

The King James Bible, which most Pennsylvanians would have been using, describes the central moment as an act of economic liberation: Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. But there’s a problem with this translation. The Hebrew word deror, which the King James renders as liberty, is more precisely translated as release. Modern Bibles usually translate Leviticus 25:10 as You shall proclaim release throughout the land, stressing that the liberation is a freeing from economic duress, not political servitude. Considering all that would befall Isaac Norris’s bell, the one misfortune that proved most beneficial was preventing America’s treasured icon from being called … the Release Bell.

Bruce Feiler

The King James Bible, which most Pennsylvanians would have been using, describes the central moment as an act of economic liberation: Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. But there’s a problem with this translation. The Hebrew word deror, which the King James renders as liberty, is more precisely translated as release. Modern Bibles usually translate Leviticus 25:10 as You shall proclaim release throughout the land, stressing that the liberation is a freeing from economic duress, not political servitude. Considering all that would befall Isaac Norris’s bell, the one misfortune that proved most beneficial was preventing America’s treasured icon from being called … the Release Bell.

Related Quotes

About Bruce Feiler

Bruce Feiler (born October 25, 1964) is an American writer and television personality. He is the author of 15 books, including The Council of Dads, a book that describes how he responded to a diagnosis of a rare cancer by asking a group of men to be present in the lives of his young daughters. The book was the subject of a TED Talk and inspired NBC drama series Council of Dads. His latest work explores the power of life stories. Drawing on interviews with Americans in all 50 states, he offers strategies for coping with life's unsettling times in his new book, Life Is In The Transitions. Bruce writes the "This Life" column in the Sunday New York Times and is also the writer/presenter of the PBS miniseries Walking the Bible and Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler (2014).