Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>No, I am not saying that the others are making mistakes. I am saying
>that both are valid translations because no one can be sure which
>meaning was the Hebrew author's intention. Are you prepared to agree
>with me on that? If so, we can agree that this evidence for your
>interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2 is debatable and so unreliable.

Do you at least agree that there is the tendency to 
translate long sentences from a source language into 
more, shorter sentences in English?

Do you also agree that languages that generally allow 
longer sentences than modern English, tend to 
translate the verse under consideration as one long 
sentence with clauses governed by the time phrase?

Do you also agree that older versions in English 
generally used longer sentences? and translated 
our verse as one long sentence with clauses governed 
by the time phrase?

Do you agree that the earliest translations did the 
same thing?

This is not a big deal about large meaning changes, 
for the modern English versions you cite do what I 
do when translating Italian, ie chop up the sentences. 
There is nothing particularly strange about the act.
What we are dealing with is your resilliance to the 
notion that the original text had a time phrase which 
could govern more than one clause.


Ian