Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James and Steve:
I can see the question as far as how best to render these ideas into
English.

But for the Hebrew, I can’t recognize your questions. Grammatically it is
simple, common Hebrew, other than the subject matter. God commands the light
to come into existence, and it does.

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 2:17 PM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

>
> Just to make things clear I am not advocating that Wycliffe's translation
> was superior to Tyndale's. Neither am I advocating the reverse. In fact I
> am
> not advocating anything. The issue is far from resolved in my mind. My
> intention was to stimulate discussion to help me resolve the question. The
> way I see it is this:
>
> We are clearly attempting to translate a situation which does not occur in
> everday life and so is difficult to find corresponding natural language
> equivalents of as ideal target language translations.


Yes, this was a one time event, never to be repeated.


> My understanding is
> that Tyndale 'invented' the English idiom 'Let there be...' for this very
> reason. So the question is this. Was the Hebrew also an example of such
> rare
> and funny sounding language?


No.


> I have reason to believe it wasn't. Did Moses
> (or the author) make up a funny sounding Hebrew expression to express this?
> Or did he reuse easily understood formulas and forms? I am not certain but
> I
> think he did. Can anybody suggest any similar formulas or forms from other
> parts of the Tanakh? If so, this would seem to suggest implications about
> the register of the language used in the creation account.
>
> How about verses 6 and 14 in the same chapter, Genesis 30:34, 33:9, Exodus
10:10, Ruth 2:19, 1 Kings 8:57 and many more? No, grammatically, this is a
common structure.


> James Christian
>
> As for translation, how would you render the above verses into English?
Similar to Tyndale?

Karl W. Randolph.