Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

Hi Peter,  comments below.

Peter Kirk wrote:

> But let's examine the hypothesis that Alter is "a master at the English 
> language". Start with the first two verses of his translation:
>
> > “When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was 
> > welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God’s breath hovering 
> > over the waters, God said, ‘Let there be light’. And there was light.”
>
>
>
> That's as much as I can find online, but that is enough to prove my point.
>
> "The earth then was welter"? What on earth does that mean? It may sound 
> nice and poetic with its alliteration with "waste", but as far as I am 
> concerned it is nonsense, a bit like Jabberwocky. 

Do you mean that readers of the Bible cannot look up words with which 
they are unfamiliar?  Bohu hardly seems to have been a familiar Hebrew word.

Then we have "and
> God’s breath hovering over the waters" 

I don't like "breath" myself.  I prefer spirit, wind--going in that 
direction.

with no main verb, a clear
> grammatical error which would be marked wrong in first grade. 

He has not written in the 'to be' verbs in the two adjective clauses in 
an attempt to capture the rhythm of the Hebrew.  It is very readable 
because the first clause in the series of three has the verb.  We know 
what he has done.

(Well, I
> suppose the point could be that "the earth then was... God's breath...", 
> but this is both bad punctuation and a translation error.) This is no 
> more and no less than bad English, and would be marked as such by any 
> teacher. I suppose there is a fashion in certain literary circles for 
> writers to ignore the basic rules of English and still be considered 
> "literary", but I don't judge English by those people's standards.

Teacher, Smeacher.  I'm an English teacher.  I would give him an A for 
diction and for having such a respect and feel for the text's structure.

Hey, Bro., be happy!  :-)

Shalom,
Bryan

--
B. M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13026
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