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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Daniel 6:27 (time indefinite)
  • Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 07:56:31 -0000

Dear Kelton,

I do not have time to continue this discussion, but I will make some final comments. The question that started it was wether the NWT can be taken seriously. In connection with the writing of my mentioned book I compared every English clause in the NWT with the corresponding Hebrew one. My conclusion is that the translation is a scholarly work made by persons with an excellent grasp of Hebrew, and who have been very careful in following their own translation principles.

Criticisms of the NWT are often theologically conditioned. In other cases - and this relates to other literal translations as well - are its renderings judged on the basis of idiomatic principles. And sometimes you fall in this trap as well. See below:

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Dr.Furuli:> Those making the concordant translation try to find an English word that represent the core of a Hebrew concept (represented by one Hebrew word) as they understand this core. This English word is used consistently throughout
the English translation to represent the Hebrew word and its concept. The
target group can look up the occurrences of one particular English word, and
on the basis of its context one can get rid of unwanted English baggage, and
the readers come closer to the Hebrew concept that the word signals. From
one point of view one can say that a literal transltion is a
semi-translation, because the readers have a part in the very translation
process as described above.

Response: That makes sense, however, I think that is good with regard to single words, I'd imagine that one would run into problems when dealing with actual phrases. Because if you always translate phrases literally one can come up with "expressions" that were never meant to be expressed by a native Hebrew or Greek speaker. Like God of WLM, no native english speaker would say "God of eternalty" they would just say "eternal God."

And that is what I would argue is what the Greek or Hebrew author meant. Or if we take "time indefinite" no one would say "God of time indefinite." God may be God forever or just a couple of minutes.

So I think when dealing with actual phrases, if one is too literal you can come up with expressions that were never meant to be communicated in that manner. The concept of the word would not make much sense if translated literally inside of an actual phrase.

Another problem is of coures ambiguity. Something in Greek and Hebrew might be totally clear to the audience might not make much sense at all in English. Fee & Stuart use the example KATA SARKA(according to the flesh), which if translated literally does not make much sense to us today.
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We must never forget that a literal translation is a special type of animal that must be judged in its own right. The aim of such a translation is not to make it appear that Luke and Paul spoke English, or to render the text in good idiomatic English. So when you say that something does not make much sense in English, this is beyond the point. Then you are judging the literal translation in light of idiomatic principles, because the aim of the translators of the literal translation is not that the renderings always should "make sense" from an idiomatic point of view. A literal translation is a study translation which challenges the readers to do research, to read texts where the same word occurs and by this learn something about the Hebrew concept behind the original word.

An illustrative example is the NWT´s use of "Sheol" (and Hades and Gehenna in the NT). This word makes absolutely no sense in English, so the readers have to find where it occurs and make up their mind as to the concept behind it. I guess that the reasons why the NWT translators in the case of the three mentioned words chose transcription instead of using one particular English word in each case, is that the words are so theologically loaded. So the readers must find their meaning themselves by studying the text (here we definitely can speak of semi-translation).

Interestingly, the principle of the literal approach mentioned above is sometimes used even in idiomatic translations. In order to illustrate that I use an example from the NT. The NWT translates KOSMOS 186 times as "world" and one time ( 1 Pet 3:3) as "adornment". TEV is a very free translation, even a paraphrase, but as for KOSMOS it uses "world" in 175 instances. Why this literalism ? I guess that the translators realized that the amount of interpretative material they had to force upon the readers by choosing different renderings would be so great that they wanted to let the readers do the interpretation themselves. A literal translation follows this principle to a much greater extent. Therefore, to render KATA SARKA as "according to the flesh" is perfectly legitimate in a literal translation. True, this expression is not a part of a modern English vocabulary, but again, that is beyond the point, because of the nature of the literal translation. And such phrases make sense for the student who wants to work with the text.

So do not judge the literal translation from the point of view of idiomatic principles. That is the same as to compare apples and oranges.



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--
Kelton Graham
KGRAHAM0938 AT comcast.net




Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




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