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  • From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • To: "George F Somsel" <gfsomsel AT juno.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 2Sam24:1 subjects
  • Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 17:17:37 +0100


Hi George,

I don't know how to cut and paste hebrew text and make it displayable on this
mailing list but if it will
make you feel better and you instruct me how to do it I will do it for you.
My referrals to the LXX and Acts were not out of lack of ability to read this
simple hebrew passage but to
show that other translators much earlier and more acquainted with the
language than us did not understand the
agent to be YHWH himself.
Making belittling accusations is all very well but it hardly addresses the
question at hand and I really don't
feel like getting into an "I know b-hebrew better than you" discussion as I
feel it would bring little of value
to the discussion.
The fact remains that the various subjects and objects in the Tanakh are not
always as clear as we would like them to be and only context can make them
clearer. Failing context we can look at how ancient translators viewed
them and then we can decide if we feel we are in a position to know better
than they.
The whole theology of the torah presents yah as being too holy to view and
both to me, to the LXX translators and
to the author of Acts the logical conclusion is that Yah is used as a
substitute subject as one of his messengers.
In a similar wayin English we say 'King... built such and such a bridge'. But
do we really imagine that the King
got off his throne and went and hauled tonnes of stone and single handedly
erected the bridge? Not by a long
stretch of the imagination. We reasonably conclude that the King ordered and
was responsible for the building of
the bridge and that hired-labourers or slaves did the actual physical labour.
In the same way, in b-hebrew, it is possible to say that Yah tried to kill
Mose in the street when really it
was his messenger. This is a normal manner of expression in all modern
languages that I am familiar with.

Anyway, the later objects in the quote are far more interesting and I have
already admitted that my interpretation
is by no means the last word. But that is the whole point. We cannot be 100%
sure at whose feet the skin fell
because there are three males in the context of the story and one of which
may have one of two identities
(Yah/Yah's messenger). NWT has chosen to preserve the ambiguity here and
allow the reader to reach his/her own
conclusions.
2Sam24:1 is ambiguous because the inferred subject of the second clause makes
absolutely no sense what-so-ever
in the context of the chapter (not just the context of the entire tanakh).
The Chronicler, who knew b-hebrew
far better than I will ever, seemed to think that the subject of the second
clause was not Yah and that the
text is 2Sam24:1 allowed for another subject and I have to say that I agree
with him.
It is not justifiable to say that the Chronicler had problems with Yah being
capable of 'bad' because other
sections of Chronicles directly connect Yah with both blessing and with
malediction.

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