Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 12/3/06, Edward Andrews wrote:

> The reason for my question is this; a man was on trial over 50-years ago.
> The prosecution was attempting to humiliate him.  The man had claimed he
> could read and write in several languages, Biblical Hebrew being one of
> them.  The prosecutor asked the man if he would take Genesis 2:4 in English
> and please render it into Biblical Hebrew.  The man said he would not
> attempt it, for he could not in such a setting. He was cut off from being
> allowed to explain why. The prosecution left the lay audience with the
> thought: 'and you call yourself a scholar of Biblical languages, a
> translator?'

> My concern is this; a lay audience does not know that what was being asked
> of this man was not the norm.  That it is no easy task in that type of
> setting to do what he was being asked to do.

But what you asked originally was about translating an English text
into Biblical
Hebrew.  Here you are asking to translate an English translation of a known
Biblical verse into Biblical Hebrew.   The two are not the same thing
because the
first could be a modern English text that is unrelated to the Bible and was 
not
originally translated from it.  Furthermore, since that man was a translator 
of
the Bible himself, he might be expected to know how he translated specific
passages.

Yitzhak Sapir