Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

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:

snip
>

> 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.
> ------------------------------------------

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.



snip
> --
> Kelton Graham
> KGRAHAM0938 AT comcast.net



Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo