Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

Dear Yitzhak,

you have admitted that certain passages in the tanak acknowledge all other 
gods to be lifeless and this is certainly the tradtional and modern 
understanding of the hebrew scriptures in their entirety. 
I personally have good reason to believe that the original authors of the 
books of the tanak are as tradition holds Moses, Joshua, etc etc. While there 
are scholars who disagree with this opinion it is certainly clear that the 
books were written in this general chronological order and so their true 
authors is irrelevant for my question which follows:

If what you say is true then we would expect to see a gradual change in the 
scriptures which reflects a general change in hebrew thinking in this regard. 
We would expect this gradual change to range from a pantheon of gods with 
only 
one true and rather jealous god to be worshipped to a totally montheistic 
concept with all other gods being considered as man-made creations.
At one point in time do you place this shift to have been complete?
On which scriptures do you base your ideas?
How do you demonstrate this *gradual* change?

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Harold R. Holmyard III
Sent: Fri 7/29/2005 12:59 PM
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fwd: Re: YHWH
 
Dear Yigal,

>While Yitzhak is undoubtedly correct in saying that the earliest strands of
>the Pentateuch seem to admit the existence of other gods, the authors could
>have very well have been referring to the conception of the existence of
>other gods. In other words, "there is only one God, but we know that a lot
>of people believe that there are others - whether 'true' or not, the very
>belief is a sin". Certainly, there is a strand (priestly?) that denies their
>existence and claims that they are but "wood and stone". The Bible often
>seems to claim that those who worship idols are fools, who think that "this
>piece of wood created me". But we know, that this was not the case at all;
>pagans never believed that the actual idol was a deity - the idol simply
>represented the deity and helped the worshipper "focus" - just as ritual
>objects do today, in many monotheistic faiths.


HH: I have read that people believed the deity came and indwelt the 
representation.

                                        Yours,
                                        Harold Holmyard

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>From furuli AT online.no  Fri Jul 29 09:37:19 2005
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Dear James,

My posts to Bryan and Peter have a bearing on your confusion. And I give a
few more remarks below.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 11:45 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] verbs


>
>
> Thanx for your example Rolf. While most of the tenses seem to read well
> you have left me a little confused. You have argued that your research
> is based on the word and that the word is the basic unit of translation
> and then you have performed a translation which is entirely based on
> context
> as I have been arguing it should be.

There is no opposition between using the word as the basic translation unit
and
at the same time make an extensive use of the context in actual translation
work.  The basic point here is the realization that words do have meaning
(or better, signal concepts that have meaning) without any context. The
same is true with morphosyntactic words, e.g.a YIQTOL and a QATAL have a
different semantic meaning. When we start with the words as units, we first
must ascertain the potential of each lexical and morphosyntactic word. And
after that we have to look at the context to see how grammar and syntax and
other contextual factors make visible a part of the potential meaning of
each word.  Then we can draw our conclusion.

E.A. Nida was the one who took the lead in the abandonement of the word as
the
fundamental translation unit. He was inspired by Chomsky`s "deep
structures," and on this basis he suggested the "kernel" as the translation
unit. The kernels are short expressions of the *idea* the translator gets
from a short sequence of words. (see E. A. Nida and C. R. Taber (1974). "The
Theory and practice of Translation"). I will use a NT example to illustrate
how the "kernel"- approach can mislead the reader.  In Ephesians 1:4 the
literal rendering of KATABOLHS KOSMOU is "the foundation of the world," as
RSV renders the words. The kernel in this expression is "(God) creates the
world" according to Nida and Taber (pp. 35, 36), and NIV renders it as "the
creation of the world".  A noun can even in a literal translation be redered
by a verb, but the problem here is that "to create" and "to found" are not
necessarily the same. The connotations of  "the creation of the world" for
most people is the universe and the earth, and Genesis 1 when they were
created. However, in most cases when KOSMOS is used in the NT, it refers to
the human family, or to something connected with the human family (I am
aware of a single instance in the NT where it possibly refers to the
universe). And
then we get a problem. In Luke 11:50,51 "the foundation of the world" is
connected with Abel, and one interpretation is that  the words here do not
refer to the creation of the universe but to the start of the human family
(In Hebrews 11:11 KATABOLH is used in the meaning "to conceive seed"). In
any case, KATABOLHS KOSMOU can either refer to the beginning of the earth
and the universe or to the start of the human family when seed was conceived
for the first time. By using the kernel rather than the word, Nida and Taber
(and NIV) in fact exclude one of the
possible meanings (the most likely one, in my view), namely the start of the
human family. Moreover, this can
have an impact on Christian teaching, because if those mentioned in
Ephesians 1:4 "were known" before the creation of the earth, that would
strongly suggest predestination, but the same is not necessarily true if the
human family is referred to. I do not want to discuss Christian or Jewish
doctrine, I just want to show how great the implications can be of a
non-literal translation. Most people will say the difference between
"create" and "found  are minute.  But this "minute" difference can have a
great impact.

I agree with Peter that if one word consistently is used for each SL word as
far as possible, this can mislead the TL readers, because of the meaning and
connotations of a word in their TL. However, the possibility of distorting
the message with a non-literal translation, as in the example above, is more
serious. And this is the case in hundreds of cases in modern Bibles. If the
target group understands that they should take the core of each TL word (in
their language) and find the Biblical nuances that do not occur in their own
language by looking up the passages where this word occurs in the Bible,
then a literal translation will serve its purpose.

Nida`s system with kernels is today followed by very few Bible translators.
The system has been refined and refined, coming a little closer to the word.
But still there is a great distance between the methods used by "orthodox"
translators and those who take the word as the fundamental translational
unit. And the basic problems created by Nida remain.


> The hebrew verb system, IMO, is a verb system which we will never find an
> adequate way of rendering consistently in the English language. The
> English
> language is entirely centered around tenses and the very concept of
> tenselesness
> to the English mind is completely indigestible.

You are both right and wrong. It is absolutely possible to render the Hebrew
text accurately into English, even though Hebrew, as you say, is tenseless.

In fact, I am of the
> opinion
> that the hebrew verb system is so completely tenseless that it has the
> capacity
> of expressing both history and prophecy in the exact same phrase. The
> example
> you have given is a good case in point. IMO opinion the hebrew mind was so
> devoid of tense constraints that they read these verses with little care
> of
> tense and did not feel the need to place the events either in the past or
> the
> present but happily accepted that they could exist in both.

I am not sure you are right here. The Hebrews of ancient time were very
conscious of time, and even though time is not grammaticalized, it can in
most texts be construed on the basis of the context.

> In fact, a large feature of bible prophecy is the larger fulfillment of
> past
> events which described greater future events e.g. The (almost)sacrifice of
> Isaac, the emancipation of yah's people, the taking of the promised land
> etc..
> The author of the gospel of John, who evidently had an adequate command of
> the hebrew language translated a section of your example as 'OPSONVTAI EIS
> HON
> EXEKENTISAN' (They will see the one they pierced John19:37).
> I do not believe he is saying this is the one way the sentence should
> always be
> translated because of the inherent sense of the verb forms but 'given the
> limitations
> of the language I am translating into this is the way I would render it
> best
> in the given context'. His context and his agenda was to show the
> fulfillment
> of bible prophecy and so the future tense was the natural choice in the
> Greek
> language. However, I firmly believe that as the hebrew language was
> tenseless
> that these verses could easily have been translated as a historic account
> in
> other circumstances as the hebrew mind was not concerned with these
> things.
>
> I know this sounds strange and alien to speakers of tense driven languages
> but
> I am told, correct me if I wrong, that Chinese languages also exhibit this
> behaviour and that it is very difficult for the Chinese to even understand
> the concept
> of tenses when learning the English language.
>
> Hence, as you seem to have shown Rolf, it is the context which dictates
> the
> translation and not the verb form and your research only seems of use to
> me
> in helping a biblical hebrew student to better understand the hebrew mind
> and concept of expression.

Agree.


Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
>
> -----Original Message-----