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  • From: "Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Translating Ezekiel 16:26
  • Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 17:30:24 -0700

George,

Thank you. Your reasoning makes sense to me, but in light of 23:20, I am still wavering and looking for any other assistance before going forward.

Chris

On Jul 30, 2005, at 5:29 PM, George F Somsel wrote:

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 13:10:21 -0700 "Heard, Christopher"
<Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu> writes:

I am working through Ezekiel and I am not sure how to take the phrase

???? ??? [GDLY B&R] "those being great of flesh" in Ezekiel
16:26. It's clear enough from the context that the speaker is
referring to male genitalia, and the use of ??? [B&R] in Ezekiel

23:20 confirms this. However, I am not sure whether to understand
???? ??? [GDLY B&R] as a reference simply to large genitalia

per se, or to _enlarged_ genitalia, that is, erections. NIV, NRSV,
and JPS all take it in the latter sense, and translate it as
"lustful." The LXX has a fairly literalistic translation,
?e?a??s????? [MEGALOSARKOS], "big-fleshed." Neither the

Hebrew word-pair nor the Greek word appear elsewhere in the Tanakh
or
LXX, so I don't have any comparative data there to work with. Does
anyone know of any good evidence, e.g. uses of the Hebrew phrase or

Greek word in extra-biblical sources, or similar phrases in cognate

languages, that would help me solidify this translation, or is it an

irreducible ambiguity? Anybody know why NIV, NRSV, JPS read this as

they do?
--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info

_______________________________________________

The phrase WaT.:F:Y"K: )eT_RaG:LaYiK: "you spread your legs" in the
preceding verse would seem to imply a sexual activity and thus an erect
penis would seem to be referenced. I somewhat doubt that the prophet
would have been concerned with the mere physical size of their genitalia
aside from the reason for its size.

george
gfsomsel
___________


--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info




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