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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Daniel 6:27 (time indefinite) II

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Awohili AT aol.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Daniel 6:27 (time indefinite) II
  • Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:51:19 +0000

On 18/11/2005 22:54, Awohili AT aol.com wrote:


By the way, you may be interested in a different opinion on the KJV voiced by Bible translator Robert Alter, in his _The Five Books of Moses_ (Norton, 2004):

"One might have expected that this recent flurry of translation activity, informed by the newly focused awareness of the meanings of biblical Hebrew, would have produced at least some English versions that would be both vividly precise and closer to the feel of the original than any of the older translations. Instead, the modern English versions...have placed readers at a grotesque distance from the distinctive literary experience of the Bible in its original language. As a consequence, the King James Version, as Gerald Hammond, an eminent British authority on Bible translations, has convincingly argued, remains the closest approach for English readers to the original -- despite its frequent and at times embarrassing inaccuracies, despite its archaisms, and despite its insistent substitution of Renaissance English tonalities and rhythms for biblical ones." -- Introduction, xvii (My emphasis)

It would seem that Alter does not agree that the KJV represents "bad English." And I would argue that the NWT presents a much 'closer approach in English to the original' than does the KJV.


This sounds like a description of bad English:

its frequent and at times embarrassing inaccuracies, despite its archaisms,
and despite its insistent substitution of Renaissance English tonalities and
rhythms for biblical ones.


Alter's and Hammond's point would appear to be that all other English translations are even worse, in one way or another. And they have a point, for there certainly is a lack of "English versions that would be both vividly precise and closer to the feel of the original than any of the older translations". The trouble with Alter's attempt to fill this lack, from what I remember from a brief look some time ago, is that the English in it is so unnatural that it must also be rejected as "bad English". And the same is apparently true of NWT.

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





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