Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 07/01/2005 20:28, B. M. Rocine wrote:

> ...
>
> Personally, I would say six such figures represents in Genesis a 
> significantly thematic repetition to try to preserve it in 
> translation.  I think it is a shame and a disservice to any audience 
> to obliterate such a figure by substituting an *explanation* such as 
> "he thought" for a translation of Hebrew leb, "heart." ...


It may be consistent to translate "heart", but it is wrong. As I pointed 
out before, Hebrew LEB nowhere refers to the heart as an organ. The 
words have only a limited domain of semantic overlap, which certainly 
does not cover this expression. If you want to preserve the thematic 
repetition (although a rather weak one if it occurs only one per 8 
chapters on average), a better way to do so would be to translate "he 
said to himself".

On the other hand, almost every language has compound verbal idioms, and 
it is simply not possible to preserve those idioms in translation. For 
example, in Genesis 29:1 literally Jacob "lifted up his feet", but every 
one of the translations which Wayne Leman surveyed recognises that this 
is an idiom for "went on his journey". Would you say that such a verbal 
idiom must be translated literally? Or that this would be necessary if 
it was used repeatedly?

The phrase literally translated "long of nose" or "long of nostrils" is 
used repeatedly and thematically a number of times as an attribute of 
YHWH. The meaning, as followed by all translations I know, is "slow to 
anger". Are you saying that because this phrase is thematically 
significant it should be translated literally?

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



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