Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Re: nephesh mot

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: nephesh mot
  • Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 23:17:44 -0500

Dear Michael:

I am not a trained tanslator, just a person who tries to understand to the
best of my ability what is meant in the original language. As such, I try to
delineate where are the borders of a term’s meaning, then let you translators
sweat how to render the meaning into the target language.

Even so, it is much easier to understand a word in a learned language if
there is a close equivelant in one’s mother tongue. NP$ is a term I have
sweat over trying to understanding it in that there is no equivelant in
English, my mother tongue, nor in any other language I learned prior to
Hebrew.

As far as I can recognize, NP$ refers to “life force” and/or “(formerly)
living creature” or by extension “life, being”. Did the ancient Hebrews of a
spiritual portion of a person that lived on even after a person died? If so,
would the term they’d have used for that concept be RWX ruach and not NP$?

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: Deborah Millier <deborahmillier AT yahoo.com>

> J. Sprinkle wrote:
>
> > I agree that the sense "life"
> > comes close the sense of
> > "soul," but it reads too much
> > into the text to identify the
> > two terms.
>
> I'm a trained Bible translator (though not a
> practicing one). I'm "programmed" to look for the
> best semantic equivelant in a target language (in this
> case English)--even if some nuance(s) might have to be
> sacrificed. Life fit the context of the Rachel story
> fairly well (I'm open to improvements), as it does the
> story of Elisha and the lad.
>
> > All this reflects its broad
> > usage. And any particular
> > usage can be debated as to
> > which nuance is intended.
>
> ...which is why I agree with Jim West. We should
> stick with specific texts and "debate" them. I
> brought up two which I think appraoch the idea of an
> immaterial NEPHESH which is in some sense distinct
> from the body. How would you (or anybody) render into
> English the particular passages I mentioned?
>
> -- Michael Millier
--
__________________________________________________________
Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup

CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search
http://corp.mail.com/careers





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page