Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Translation

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Irene Riegner <iriegner AT concentric.net>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Translation
  • Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 10:15:15 -0500


Dear List People

I have a strange question: Is there a word for "steam" in biblical
Hebrew? In Akkadian?

If there is, I wonder if it's a construct form using as one of its
elements "water" (mym) or "nose" (@p) or "to ascend" [ (lh]?

I was reading the BDB definition of @p---nose, nostril, face,
anger---and it occurred to me that the meaning "face" places an
idiomatic English meaning on @p that is not found in Hebrew. Thus Gen
19.6, "And Joseph's brothers... bowed low to him, noses to the ground"
means just that. "Faces to the ground," the usual translation, express
the English idiom, not the Hebrew. By saying that @p also means "face,"
BDB is extending the range of meaning beyond the Hebrew.

Comments? Any other places you have noticed this extension? It would
seem that Fox's translation should avoid these pitfalls by a rendering
closer to the Hebrew idiom.

irene







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page