Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>]

MA: As to the NWT, I think Yoda would have found this completely natural.

JCR: lol In places I would agree with this statement. 
Their goal was not to reflect natural language but to 
preserve consistency by opting for a literal translation.
However, I think this rendition adequately preserves the 
original concepts while at the same time making a 
complete mockery of spoken modern English.

MA: While I appreciate your answer, I am not all that certain that Elohim is 
in 
a construct relationship.

JCR: Why not? Just because of the JPS translation? 
JPS is attempting to translate the same concept but to 
render into something that better deserves to be called 
English. They are not for one minute suggesting that 
that they do not recognise the construct relationship 
here. They are just attempting to render into something 
that an English person is more likely to say in a 
similar situation, a technique known as paraphrasing.

Is there any linguistic reason for doubting a construct 
relationship? Or were the doubts merely fueled by your
understanding of the JPS paraphrase?

James Christian Read
BSc Computer Science
thesis1: concept driven machine translation using the Aleppo codex
thesis2: language acquisition simulation
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew