[b-hebrew] Daniel 6:27 (time indefinite) II
Stoney Breyer
stoneyb at touchwood.net
Thu Nov 17 13:20:52 EST 2005
Every Bible translation has its plusses and minuses, and phrases that
are favored or disfavored by somebody. But it is another thing to
impute ulterior, unscholarly, or sectarian motives to a translation
without knowing all the facts or doing honest research, or by relying on
innuendo, bias, and speculation.
I see I wrote too quickly and expressed myself badly. I imputed no
"ulterior, unscholarly, or sectarian" motive to the translator. My
criticism of the translation - which is entirely literary - is that the
inverted construction is unidiomatic and the use of "indefinite" has in
this context unhappy connotations. My "guess" was in fact intended to
suggest a reason why the translator might (consciously or unconsciously)
have gone in this direction - a reason I regard as entirely valid and
part of the art of translation. My second paragraph further qualified my
objection by anticipating Rolf Furuli's cogent observation that
non-idiomatic usages in Biblical translation very often become idiomatic
if the translation is widely read.
Stoney breyer
Writer/Touchwood, Inc.
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