Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Yigal:

Though I have not been to Israel, I have met modern 
Israelis here on business trips: I have asked a few 
if they read Tanakh, whereupon they answered that 
they don't because they don't understand it.

Now these were adults, not children.

I didn't get a chance to go into detail by what 
they meant, but I suspect that it is similar as 
when I try to read Elizabethan English: parts that 
are clearly archaic are quaint but understandable, 
words that have dropped out of use I can look up, 
but it is the words that have changed their 
meanings that lead to misunderstanding, even 
gibberish, if, as is usually the case, I don't know 
which words have changed meaning and what the 
meanings were back in Elizabethan days. The 
differences between BH and MH appear to be greater 
than that between between Elizabethan and modern 
English, but few translations made because it is  
held that those are just different versions of the 
same language. 

Like Herman, I find it curious that there have been 
no translations of Tanakh from BH to MH, unlike the 
New Testament which has been translated to modern 
Greek.

Karl W. Randolph.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Herman Meester" <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>
> 
> > Dear members
> >
> > For example, why is there no translation of the Hebrew Bible into
> > modern Hebrew? I think modern Hebrew is about the only language left
> > the Bible has not been translated to!
> > (But I may well have missed the latest developments in modern Hebrew
> > bible scholarship)
> > Fascinating, isn't it? And b-Hebrew and modern Hebrew most certainly
> > are two different languages.
> 
> Dear Herman,
> 
> The reason that no-one has undertaken to translate the Bible into modern
> Hebrew, is that biblical and modern Hebrew are most definately NOT two
> different languages. Of course they are not identical, and represent
> different stages in the development of the language, but modern Hebrew is
> very much based on BH. Yes, MH has thousands of words that BH is lacking;
> its syntax is closer to that of modern European languages and it has adopted
> modern European punctuation. There are also many words and expressions in BH
> that are not usually used in MH, and many more words that have been given a
> diferent meaning. However, this is only natural. The Bible remains one of
> the classical sources of MH. It is much easier for native speakers of MH to
> understand BH than it is for native English speakers to understand
> Shakespeare, for example. I do. So do my grade-school aged children. Of
> course, children have difficulty with a lot of the concepts in the Bible,
> and the language is "high literary" language, not what is spoken on TV. But
> it is still the same language.
> 
> And of course, there are renderings of Bible stories in easy MH, meant for
> children. But they soon grow out of needing them. Try seeing the Hebrew
> version of the animated film "Prince of Egypt". You'll be amazed at the
> amount of direct quotes of BH used in the dialogue. And I have yet to hear
> an Israeli child claim that he can't understand it.
> 
> Yigal

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