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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Tithing
  • Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:05:55 EST


Stoney Breyer:

You wrote: “I think in the passage below you're seeing an error where none
exists.
The English word "tithe" originally means "a tenth" or "to dedicate a
tenth". In non-scriptural usage the latter sense has broadened to mean
simply "to dedicate" - if I drop five bucks in the Sunday collection
plate I may self-complacently refer to this as "tithing" - but certainly
in a translation "tithe" would have its original force. A salutary reminder
to us all that sound translation depends at least as much on mastery of the
target language as on mastery of the source.”

That’s a good point that “tithe” in English originally meant “tenth” or “
to give a tenth”. Thus the original English meaning is the same as the
Biblical Hebrew meaning.

But I was not complaining about a translation. I can live with “tithe”,
although “tithe a tenth”, while a bit cumbersome, would in my view be more
accurate for most English speakers.

That was not my point, however. Rather, my point was that Genesis 28: 20-22
is not fiction created in the mid-1st millennium BCE by a Hebrew priest who
was trying to get his fellow Hebrews to give more money to the temple. There
is
no way that a mid-1st millennium BCE Hebrew priest would make up a story like
that. No way. That story does not fit the mindset of the 1st millennium BCE
at all. That was my point.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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