Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Gene and Dave,

See my comments below.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 3:42 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Daniel 12:2


On Saturday 04 February 2006 19:31, Gene Gardner wrote:
>                     Dave Washburn dwashbur at nyx.net
> Sat Feb 4 19:14:40 EST 2006
>   stated:
>
>
> What else would it be?  Gene:
>  I was just looking for a different perspective, after reading the NWT
> translation of Daniel 12:2:
>
>
>   2 And there will be many of those asleep in the ground of dust who will
> wake up, these to indefinitely lasting life and those to reproaches [and]
> to indefinitely lasting abhorrence.
>
>
>   Here is their translation of Gen 21:
>
>
>   33 After that he planted a tamarisk tree at Be´er-she´ba and called 
> there
> upon the name of Jehovah the indefinitely lasting God.
>
> GG:
>  Maybe it is a theological bias.

DW:
There's no "maybe" about it.

RF:
You should not be so quick to question the motives of Bible translators. 
Which theological view would lead translators to use "indefinitely lasting 
life" rather than "everlasting life"?

In my view there are linguistic rather than theological reasons behind 
"indefinitely lasting life". I can see three possible reasons for the choice 
of the NWT translators:

1) A careful study of the lexical meaning of (LM and its use in the OT.
2) The principle of concordance, i.e., the use of one English word for each 
Hebrew word whenever possible.
3) The principle that the readers should have a part in the translation 
process whenever possible.

As for 1), there is no doubt that the reference of (LM in many instances is 
to unending time, but that is not true in all cases. Translators should 
differenciate between the lexical meaning of a word, which is the concept in 
the mind of native speakers that is signalled by the word, and its 
reference. The core of the concept signalled by the verb (LM is "hide, 
hidden," and the same may be the case with the noun. The time whose length 
is hidden may be rather short or it may be everlasting.

As for 2), the translators use the same words or similar words, e.g., "time 
indefinite" when the noun (LM is found. The advantage of this is that the 
readers can know when the same Hebrew word is used in differeent English 
passages.

As for 3), the words "indifinitely lasting" and "time indefinite" are more 
ambiguous than "everlasting". The translating process begins when the author 
writes the words, and it ends when the reader grasps the message. By using 
an English term that both can be interpreted as everlasting and not 
everlasting, the final interpretation of the word is left to the individual 
reader.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo