Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Awohili AT aol.com]

Well, that's a lot of guessing and speculating, but if you really want to  
know the rationale behind the NWT's use of "time indefinite" for "olam," I  
suggest you read the publication "Insight on the Scriptures," volume 2, under 
 the 
topic "Time Indefinite."
 
The thought that "olam" can refer to an indefinite time is not unique to  the 
NWT.  As I noted earlier, at least one encyclopedia used the expression  back 
in 1915, and Gesenius' Hebrew-English Lexicon in 1836 defined "olam" as  
"hidden time, i.e. obscure and long, of which the beginning or end is 
uncertain  
or indefinite." (My emphasis)
 
The term has nothing to do with Witness theology, since in most instances  
the term "forever" fits quite well, i.e., the belief that the earth abides  
forever, and that God is everlasting.  Yet the NWT consistently uses "for  
time 
indefinite" or "from time indefinite to time indefinite" in verses  
expressing 
those concepts.  However, when an augmenting Hebrew word such as  "ad" is 
used, 
as in "olam w'ad," the NWT translates as "time indefinite, even  forever."
 
Every Bible translation has its plusses and minuses, and phrases that are  
favored or disfavored by somebody.  But it is another thing to impute  
ulterior, 
unscholarly, or sectarian motives to a translation without knowing all  the 
facts or doing honest research, or by relying on innuendo, bias, and  
speculation.
 
Solomon Landers
In a message dated 11/16/2005 9:38:15 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
stoneyb AT touchwood.net writes:

SB: I concur  that it is not. It's bad English, with unfortunate
overtones of legal  weaseling. Syntactical inversion is a constant NWT
mannerism, but in this  particular case my professional guess is that
whoever coined the phrase was  trying to find something that would borrow
legal/proverbial resonance from  the familiar "from time immemorial".


I note, however, that the  phrase is *becoming* regularly used
(presumably by writers raised in the  NWT tradition). If you'll revisit
your Google results you'll find "to time  indefinite" in, inter alia, a
romantic short story ... personal wedding  congratulations ... and a
sentence in a Wikipedia article which purports to  translate a diary
entry by on the elder Lucas Cranach: "But I know these  things happenth
not, for the marriage of her and I shall last to time  indefinite". It
speaks for itself.