Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Schmuel <schmuel AT nyc.rr.com>]

Hi b-hebrew,

  Wow. 
  Even I am a bit surprised by the combination of confusion and venom. 

Read, James C wrote:
>This happens to be the single most hypocritical piece of reasoning I have 
>ever heard.
>In the one breath you would insist tha nephesh be translated according to 
>context where
>it fits your dogma but in the other you would accuse the NWT for 
>interpreting where kurios
>means yhwh and where it means lord.

Schmuel
Actually James, I never even discussed nephesh.  Perhaps you are confusing me
with someone else.  You should at least have your facts accurate when you 
write 
things like "the single most hypocritical piece of reasoning".

And I definitely believe the NWT has no basis whatsoever for putting Jehovah 
in the 
NT, and especially not "interpreting" its inclusions and omissions simply to 
match their
doctrinal agenda.  And I gave solid verse examples of the selective 
tampering. 

The 'textual theories' recently invented to support the selective insertion 
are probably
the most incredible aspect of the whole endeavor.  That is where the web 
apologists
like Rolf have come in.  Apparently these theories have been largely 
unexamined, 
and hopefully that will no longer be the case.

As for the lack of NWT translator language competence, which I mention en 
passant,
that is actually quite well-documented.  We know who the 'translators' were 
and their
language expertise.  

In fact, I have a theory that (on top of mostly using as source certain 
specific existing 
English translations) the committee may well have done a type of lexicon type 
of 
translation.  That would create the type of word 'consistency' mentioned 
earlier.
Granted, this is only a theory that would need much greater examination.

There is one web translation (Concordant Literal) that works entirely by that 
motif.  
Talk about an awkward and stilted translation :-)

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

James Read
>If it hadn't been for the apostasy of your church in the first place the NWW 
>would not have to have made such decisions. I apologise in advance for going 
>off scope but the below really hit the limits of my patience.

Curious  ... what church am I apart of that has this "apostosy".

======================================================================

>Rolf Furuli wrote:
>>I think it is obvious for the list-members that when *the context*, i.e., 
>>how the translators understand the setting in which words and clauses 
>>occur, is used as a translation principle, it is no violation of this 
>>principle if the translators use "Jehovah" where they believe the context 
>>suggests that God is referred to.
>
>Schmuel
>If a group inserts "Jehovah" simply to match their Christology, and omits
>it when it does not match their Christology, given an essentially identical
>Greek, it is a violation of sound translation, and it is inconsistent to the
>underlying Greek. 
>
>However, you are right in a sense, it may not violate their principles,
>if their principles are to translate to match their doctrine.
>
>Rolf
>>.. Whether "Jehovah" should be used in the New Testament at all is a 
>>philological question
>
>No, it is a straightforward translation question.  There is no equivalent
>in the source text to match Jehovah, and one has to come up with
>fanciful and even absurd textual transmission insertion and omission
>theories (see my PS.) in order to justify the insertion.  So the selective
>insertion fails on common sense, it fails on sound translation, and Occam
>loses his razor as well.
>
>We may also note that the NWT translators had a real lack of original
>language expertise, making any claims made for the NWT that much
>more suspect.
>
>I'll try to hold back and let you have the last word, so we don't get
>overly-repetitive-redundant :-)