9 is my favorite, too.

9 strikes a dagger into the heart of capitalism.

Not really

Well verse 53 twists the knife

https://twitter.com/yoginho/status/1244892104196870146

Not really, that chapter is more about irresponsible nobles. Starving the farmers and consequently others is rather characteristic of communism, I would say. A better chapter to make your point would be chapter 80. But if all one tries to use the tao te ching for is scoring points for or against some ism, a large point has been missed.

> Starving the farmers and consequently others is rather characteristic of communism,

You're confusing communism with dictatorship. Communism is about communal ownership, and likely some version of worker-ownership ("own the means of production"). If the system, or its leaders, are starving the farmers, and the farmers and their customers can't actively negotiate against that practice, you don't have communism at all.

Dao-ism is the only ism I see. It’s not about scoring points, it is trying to live in accord with the Dao.

80? That is about government!

What about 19??

Give up ingenuity, renounce profit, And bandits and thieves will disappear.

29?

Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done.

66?

Because he does not compete, He does not meet competition.

Here is Red Pine's translation of both, in case you are interested. He spent ~20 years including substantial time in monasteries studying Chinese classics. His translation is much more tightly linked to the actual work.

4:

  The Tao is so empty
  those who use it
  never become full again
  and so deep
  as if were the ancestor of us all
  it dulls our edges
  unties our tangles
  softens our light
  and merges our dust
  it's so clear
  as if it were present
  I wonder whose child it is
  it seems it was here before Ti

9:

  Instead of pouring in more
  better stop while you can
  making it sharper
  won't help it last longer
  rooms full of treasure
  can never be safe
  the vanity of success
  invites its own failure
  when your work is done retire
  this is the Way of Heaven

Notice how different, in particular, 4. The text reads much, much closer to Red Pine's translation. The 4th line literally reads "deep !", but that word is nowhere to be found in Mitchell's translation.

I strongly recommend Red Pine!

Are there two versions in the same translation? You gave two versions to number 9 in this very post!

Hi- Those are the same translation (Red Pine's) of the two sections from Mitchell that you quoted, 4 and 9. They are quite different than Mitchell, and correspond about as closely as one can to the text (given assumptions on punctuation; Classical Chinese was not punctuated).

To give a bit more detail of the first one, 4:

Mitchell 4a: The Tao is like a well: used but never used up. It is like the eternal void: filled with infinite possibilities.

  1. The original text does not mention a well.
  2. those who use it are not full, not the Tao not used up.
  3. there is no mention of eternal voids just a lack of fullness for users.
  4. there is no mention of infinite impossibilities, but it is possible "as it were the ancestor of us all" is mistranslated by Mitchell where "all" wan wu (literally 10,000 things) is translated as infinite, and the ancestor part is dropped.

Mitchel 4b: <blank>

  It appears Mitchell skips the middle part of the section, which discusses dulled edges, tangles, light, and dust.

Mitchell 4c: It is hidden but always present. I don't know who gave birth to it. It is older than God.

  1. The first half is clear / as if it were present, not hidden.
  The rest is reasonable.

By all means if you found something in Mitchell, enjoy, but he's taken many liberties while translated a language he did not understand, and so it doesn't match the original text as well as other alternatives.

It seems like his is a much more zen-infused translation, which given his other work isn’t surprising. It’s great to have so many takes on the translation though, I’ll be appreciating this text for the rest of my life. Already have been for a good 15 years already, and whoever old Lao Tze was, they were likely one of the greatest geniuses in history.

It’s almost as if they’re saying: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and grasping of the wind… “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,” -‭‭Ecclesiastes‬

IIUC much of the bible's "wisdom" is taken from older root traditions. According to Mitchell's (the same Mitchell, he IS an expert in ancient Hebrew) translation of Job the entire book isn't even about a Jew but is far older.

Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon, King David's son.

The wisdom of Solomon was so great, the Queen of Bathsheeba made a year-long journey just to hear him.

The time of Solomon, and his accomplishments, are not taken from older traditions but from the man himself.

Perhaps read some for yourself. The Bible doesn't indoctrinate people do that. The Bible has so much wisdom and knowledge packed within its pages I'm not sure why people are so reticent to peruse or even read through it.

The Bible doesn't bite, but it certainly does cut to the quick.

Qohelet was most likely compiled by multiple authors well after the Babylonian conquest. The presence of loanwords in the text makes a date in the 10th century BCE highly unlikely.

Solomon the Biblical personage probably never existed. No archaeological evidence, as far as I’m aware, has been found.