Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Schmuel <Schmuel AT escape.com>]

Hi b-hebrew,

Subject was: Re: [b-hebrew] Review Alter's translation

Schmuel
First, let me say that I am not convinced that the term paraphrase is limited 
to reworking 
within one language in scholarly lingo.

The dictionary definitions do not seem to have that definition limitation, 
and if you put 
    "translation is a paraphrase" or "paraphrase translation" into Google
you will 500 hits each where all sorts of translations are called paraphrases 
in writings.
One interesting article
http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/articles/bibletrans.html
discusses what is a paraphrase, and says that paraphrase itself is a "loaded 
word"

However, for the purpose of your question below, I will  be using your 
definition.

Peter Kirk,
>Please name any English version which is in fact a paraphrase, i.e. an 
>adaptation of a previous text in the same language, rather than a 
>translation, i.e. based on the original language texts - and which does not 
>call itself a paraphrase as the Living Bible does. 

Schmuel
Well, the Complete Jewish Bible Tanach from David Stern simply changed words 
in the JPS-1914, (David acknowledged very limited Hebrew expertise).  When 
David discusses "paraphrase", as in 
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/StudyTheBible/InfoJewish.rtf he is using the 
literalness of the translation as his definition, not whether it is a rework 
of an existing text in the target language.

And apparently the Restoration Scriptures by a group called YATI (Your Arms 
to Israel) did similarly using the Revised Standard Version.  Not 
surprisingly they are not very straightforward with their description of 
their methodology, leaving the impression that they did an original 
translation. 

How these two handled the NT I cannot say for certain offhand.

There are others where there is no real scholarship background given, and 
there have been paraphrase theories offered by outsiders.  One would be the 
ISR - "Institute of Scriptural Research" in South Africa version "The 
Scriptures".  The second is well-known, the New World Translation by the 
Jehovah's Witnesses.  Perhaps this did in fact fully involve translation from 
the original languages, but there is at least some uncertainty.  I see now 
that you mention this below.

btw, James Trimm did something similar with his Hebraic-Roots-Version NT, 
being publicized largely through the Internet, while claiming an original 
translation.  This was a little different, as mostly he didn't even change 
any vocabulary, prepositions, conjunctions, punctuation, etc. so his volume 
qualifies much more as a plagiarism than a paraphrase.   A lot of words were 
changed to be more "Hebraic", but that is neither translation or paraphrase, 
simply substitution (word processor scan-and-replace).

Peter Kirk
>I know that it has been alleged that the King James Version and the New 
>World Translation were in fact based only on previous English versions, but 
>this certainly not entirely true. 

Schmuel - (After I wrote this I saw this was partially covered on the forum) 

On the King James Bible, anybody who has read about the translation in some 
depth would know that it is simply a myth, along with other myths such as the 
Tanach was from the Greek Septuagint or Latin Vulgate, or the NT was from the 
Vulgate, which pop up with surprising frequency.

Myths die hard. 

And when a myth is used to discredit the Bible considered the Scriptures, the 
Word of God, by millions throughout the world, it is important that scholars 
be especially careful not to be the source or propagators of myth, but to be 
correctors thereof. 

Forty-seven Greek, Latin and semitic scholars worked in committee in Oxford 
and Cambridge, for a number of years, at a time where both the classical and 
semitic languages were studied with great intensity and dedication.  The 
modern Christian Hebraist movement, with men like Sebastian Muller, was by 
then was almost 100 years in full swing.  Pinchas Lapide's book "Hebrew in 
the Church" always gives a good backdrop to these times, although not to the 
Authorized Version in particular. 

And we know that the base underlying texts were the Ben Hayim Masoretic Text, 
and the Textus Receptus editions, particularly of Stephanus and Bezae.  There 
is a lot of commentary and detail available about the translators committees 
and their translation work.  

A book came out recently, although it was more for popular consumption, not 
technical. 
Fortunately, we have on the Internet material from the excellent and off 
copyright....
The Translators Revived by Alexander McClure, 1858 - (not sure if the whole 
book is online.) 
Example --> http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/transtoc.htm
                   Who were the King James Version Translators? 

Also Scrivener did yeoman's work a little over a century ago going over every 
NT verse, comparing 
it to the various TR editions, even looking closely at issues like 
punctuation, spelling and italics. 

I have rarely seen any King James Bible verses or words outside the TR and 
Masoretic Text (along with the vocabulary and interpretation wisdom from the 
rabbinical commentaries thereof by men like Kimchi.)  The NT divergences I 
have seen is that on rare occasions they may have given a preference to an 
Old Latin reading, possibly with the Vulgate, that the Textus Receptus did 
not have.  An example of this might be the word order "Jesus Christ" in 
Romans 6:3 that we recently discussed on b-greek. That is just about as far 
as the King James Bible strays from the Textus Receptus texts, although a 
full study will turn up a few a smidgen more. Personaly I feel that the 
various Old Latin texts, such as the Tepl, were likely consulted closely, as 
an adjunct to the TR, as Martin Luther is known to have done with his 
translation.  

And, getting back to the Tanach, I have not really seen Masoretic Text 
divergences, although they clearly considered minority readings. 

The footnotes in the AV 1611 also demonstrate that they were well aware of 
the textual questions that arise today, and worked closely with the original 
texts in both Tanach and NT.

The Authorized Version (it was not called the King James Bible till 200+ 
years later)  was commissioned as an update to previous (quite excellent) 
English versions.  Particularly the Bishops Bible was the base, but also the 
Tyndale and Geneva were surely consulted.  The Rheims NT had been published 
by then as well, although it would have not have been as highly regarded 

And the preface made it clear that the Authorized Version was continuing in 
the lineage of English Bibles. :-)  They were thankful to continue in the 
tradition of the great Reformation Bibles, while adding a new dimension of 
verse-by-verse careful committee examination, by the large group of 
world-class scholars. 

> Peter (in later post)
> And this is how most English versions have been done, except for Wycliffe's 
> very first one. 

Schmuel
Wycliffe could only translate from the NT Vulgate, so that is basically an 
independent translation.
(I'm not 100% sure about the Tanach)
Tyndale was the "very first one" on the line of Masoretic Text and TR Bibles. 
 

Shalom,
Steven  Avery
Queens, NY

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/