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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] NIV v' NWT translation policy

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] NIV v' NWT translation policy
  • Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 11:12:35 +0000

On 17/11/2005 02:51, Read, James C wrote:

...
Agreed! While I agree with the ideaology behind NWT translators decisions
here I am adamantly against their conclusions and choice of words with
which to translate them consistently. ...

NWT has arrived at these 'plastic' translations not their use of consistency
but throught their failure to understand that the basic unit of translation
was not the individual word itself but the unique and repeating combinations
of words which convey the same underlying concepts which we find in every single
language either living or dead.

I am fully confident that had the NWT translation team taken this into account
they would have produced a far more warming translation which fulfilled the
goals of both consistency and of faithful natural speech. ...


James, I am not sure what you mean by "I agree with the ideaology behind NWT translators decisions". If you mean you share their theology, I will let that pass without comment here. But if you are claiming to accept their translation philosophy, it seems that you are mistaken. For it is fundamental to their whole method that the basic unit of translation is the individual word. If they had abandoned this wrong idea they would indeed have produced a better translation. Since you are saying that they should have changed their fundamental philosophy, you can hardly claim to agree with them.

...
Also as the word soul in English means 'immortal immaterial part of a person
which survives the death of the body' this was a very poor choice in a translation
whose aim is to demonstrate that such was not the biblical meaning. Althoug, I
have to admit that I struggle to find a single English word which captures the
concept which the combination of all its uses conveys.


Of course you struggle. For this is the fundamental falllacy of the literal translation method used in NWT, the presumption that there is a single English word, or even a short phrase, which corresponds even approximately to the full range of meaning of a Hebrew word. In general there is no one word in language B which corresponds to all the senses of a word in language A; language simply does not work like that.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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