Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George F Somsel <gfsomsel AT juno.com>]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 07:48:35 -0800 (PST) Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
writes:
>    Bill Rea wrote, inter alia:
>  
>   ..." One final example, Gen 27:41, the following are 
> word-for-word, dynamic
> equivalence, and paraphrase to me:-
> 
> Esau said in his heart
> Esau said to himself
> He thought to himself
> 
> Here Leman accepts the second and third as right and rejects the 
> first as
> wrong..."
>  
>  UH: this is a convenient illustration that more than one correct 
> translation is possible from an origional. Contrary to Leman, the 
> first possibility looks perfectly alright; it is intelligible and of 
> course closest to the original.
>        
>        A varaiation of the the third, and more "modern" sounding, if 
> this is the effect the translator wishes to achieve,  is:
>       
>        He thought
>  
>       Uri
____________________

Fundamental to Wayne Leman's conception is that a translation must be
intelligible to the intended audience.  His idea of what today's audience
would understand and what I think it would understand differ somewhat.  I
would say that his philosophy in that regard is expressed in the
statement attributed to H.L. Mencken

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American
people. 

george
gfsomsel
___________
>From peterkirk AT qaya.org  Thu Jan  6 11:19:49 2005
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Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:19:48 +0000
From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
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To: Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: [b-hebrew] paraphrase Bible versions
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On 06/01/2005 15:48, Uri Hurwitz wrote:

>   Bill Rea wrote, inter alia:
> 
>  ..." One final example, Gen 27:41, the following are word-for-word, dynamic
>equivalence, and paraphrase to me:-
>
>Esau said in his heart
>Esau said to himself
>He thought to himself
>
>Here Leman accepts the second and third as right and rejects the first as
>wrong..."
> 
> UH: this is a convenient illustration that more than one correct 
> translation is possible from an origional. Contrary to Leman, the first 
> possibility looks perfectly alright; it is intelligible ...
>

To you, who are used to this Hebrew idiom. Maybe to well-educated 
English speakers. But this kind of usage can be very confusing to less 
educated people.

>... and of course closest to the original.
>  
>

Well, this is only true if Hebrew LEB is closer to English "heart" than 
to English "self". This is by no means self-evident. In modern English 
"heart" refers either to a physical organ or in some way to romantic 
love. Hebrew LEB never refers to the physical organ. Its extended senses 
relate to the entire inner person, or to the mind and the will, but only 
rarely to the emotions and never specifically to love. "Self" may well 
be a better gloss than "heart". I note that BDB glossed "inner man, 
mind, will, heart", with "heart" relegated to fourth place.

-- 
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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