Biblical Hebrew Forum

[kgraham0938 AT comcast.net]

@Peter:

No, not really,  I did not want them to think I was accusing them of being 
dishonest.

--
Kelton Graham 
KGRAHAM0938 AT comcast.net

-------------- Original message -------------- 

> On 15/11/2005 14:20, kgraham0938 AT comcast.net wrote: 
> 
> >... Anyway, when I came to "to time indefinite." I had to stop and think 
> about what this meant, it was not very clear, at first I thought the NWT 
> translators made this expression up. ... 
> > 
> 
> Do you have any reason to change your mind? It seems to me that these 
> translators did indeed make up the expression, or perhaps they borrowed 
> it from earlier teaching of their sect. 
> 
> -- 
> Peter Kirk 
> peter AT qaya.org (personal) 
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work) 
> http://www.qaya.org/ 
> 
>From dwashbur AT nyx.net  Tue Nov 15 11:46:52 2005
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Eccl 1:4 was Re:  Daniel 6:27 (time indefinite)
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On Tuesday 15 November 2005 05:13, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> Dear Dave,
>
> In connection with my intermediate exam in Hebrew many years ago, I was
> assigned
> Ecclesiastes as a book for special study, linguistically, philologically,
> historically, and theologically. After that I have kept an eye on this
> book and the different viewpoints regarding it that have been presented.
>
> I am not sure exactly what you mean by "not making a theological
> statement," but your short description represent one view of the book, and
> other scholars have other views. Be that as it may. The point here is what
> the translator conveys to the reader and what s/he should convey.

Who are these "other scholars," what are their "other views" and what's the 
basis for them?  This vague statement sounds like a patronizing blow-off.

> You appeal to "the genre... and to the immediate and wider context " of the
> book, and that should
> of course be taken into account by the one interpreting its text (which in
> my view basically should be the reader).  But what about the sayings of the
> book itself?  In 1:1 it is said that the author of
> the book is "son of David, king in Jerusalem," and that can only refer to
> Solomon. This means that the claim of the book is that the material comes
> from the start of the fist millennium BCE. Few scholars would accept such
> an early date for the book, but is it the duty of the translators to force
> scholarly consensus upon the readers?  Such a concencus can be wrong, as
> has been shown over and over again.

I hold to Solomonic authorship.  That has nothing to do with the discussion.

> Your words regarding Qohelet seem to contradict the claim of 1:1. I am not

I have no idea how you got to this.  I said nothing at all about 1:1 or 
authorship in general.  I said the genre of the book, as well as the repeated 
statements of despair etc. show that this author (whether Solomon or someone 
several centuries later, it makes no difference to me) is not talking 
theology, but what seems to be the situation according to what he observes 
"under the sun."  Would you claim that "everything is vanity and chasing 
after wind" is also a solid, take-it-to-the-bank theological statement?  How 
about "let's eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die"?  This is what I'm 
talking about.  You dragged the question of authorship in out of left field, 
and I really don't know how or why.  Let's stick to the main topic, shall we?

[snip]
> And here is the dilemma for Bible translators: How much interpretative
> material should they include in the translation?  Modern Bible translations
> include huge amonuts of the biases and theology of the translators, because
> they think it is their duty to do the interpretation in behalf of the
> readers.

It depends on the reader.  If the reader is a scholar or scholarly student, 
then of course such a reader doesn't need much interpretive material.  The 
average Joe or Jane on the street needs a bit more, because an awful lot of 
the text is far too obscure and culturally removed from them to allow them to 
understand it as it stands.  By your approach, perhaps we should just 
transliterate the whole thing and let the reader figure out what all the 
gibberish is.

> This leaves the readers at the mercy of the translators, and I often am
> tempted to say: "Poor readers!"  Because of this, it is my view that even
> those making an idiomatic translation should strive to be as neutral as
> possible to the text. In connection with Qohelet this means that their
> translations should neither be influenced by their view of Eccl. 1:1 nor by
> the views that you present.  Such a neutrality is of course much easier to
> excercise in connection with a strictly literal translation, and therefore
> such translations are valuable.

Once again, I have no clue why you are trying to drag 1:1 into it.  I never 
mentioned or even hinted at it.  We're talking about 1:4, and authorship has 
nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, to do with it.  

> Regarding Eccl. 1:4, it is my view that "time indefinite" is a neutral
> rendering, since the readers must decide whether this refers to eternality
> or to a limited time, while "for ever" is interpretative, and the readers
> cannot do anything but accept the views of the translator.

Like Peter, I find the phrase "time indefinte" to be utterly meaningless.  As 
I read it, it could mean 10,000 years or it could meant 10 seconds.  That 
hardly expresses what this author is saying in context.  He's saying that 
everything goes on and on, one generation appears and passes away, replaced 
by another one, the wind goes round and round, the water falls, runs to the 
ocean and goes back again, and so on and so on ad infinitum, *as far as he 
can see*.  This last phrase is the part that you don't seem to grasp.  This 
is why I said he's not making a theological statement, and in fact the 
surrounding context says this more or less explicitly.  He says "this is what 
I observe, this is how things seem to be from my perspective."  In such a 
context, "forever" (one word, not two) fits both the general meaning of the 
word and the passage much more effectively than the nonsensical "time 
indefinite."  Granted that I don't actually speak English, I speak 
American :-) but the result is the same: your phrase seems contrived and 
devoid of actual sense.


-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Maybe I'll trade it for a new hat."