Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com>]

Thank you, Karl.
I think of a general difficulty.
And so to my sense it is more easy to translate the book of Ruth than to
translate some Psalms.
Maybe we could say that narrative texts are more easily translated than, so
to say, philosophic texts.
Gn 37, which tells us Joseph's selling (by his brothers) to men who went to
Egypt .... is more easy to translate than some fragments of Qohelet...

Some chapters of Exodus are more easily translated than, say, several verses
in the Proverbs... which are rather of philosophic nature...

And so on.

Then, maybe some chapters in Ezekiel would be between the most difficult to
translate?  Or perhaps some pieces of Lamentations?

Pere Porta
(Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)



On 20 July 2010 17:28, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Pere:
>
> What do you mean “most difficult”? What sort of difficulties?
>
> I find that difficulties are caused by the fact that Biblical Hebrew is not
> that well understood, as shown by disagreements we have on this list.
> Sometimes those disagreements cause friction, but if we approach them with
> the right attitude, we all can benefit from them. I would hate to be a
> translator dealing what to do with these uncertainties.
>
> Do you mean difficult in the ideas presented?
>
> I never sat down to compile a list of which verses are most difficult to
> translate. Part of the reason is that each reading of Tanakh would give a
> different list.
>
> Just curious.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
>  On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 12:06 AM, Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I wish to know what is the most difficult passage of the Hebrew Bible
> > to translate to English.
> > Maybe are there more than one (namely two, three...), which are
> > equally difficult?
> >
> > Pere Porta
> > (Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)
> >
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-- 
Pere Porta
"Ei nekrói ouk eguéirontai, fágomen kai píomen áurion gar apothnéskomen"
(1Cor 15:32)