Biblical Hebrew Forum

[fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com>]

I agree with much of your comments.

Speculation is nice, but I have to go with what we've got. And basically, we
have four sets of manuscripts/books:

a. 5th century greek manuscripts;

b. 10th century hebrew manuscripts;

c. 15th century aramaic manuscripts; and

d. 20th century english books.

I choose "b" because of the limitations inherent in the translation process
yielding "a," "c," and "d."

And my un-scientific experience with these four sources impels to me the
originality of "b," beginning ... but not ending, with the
hyper-controversial little word .... עולם .
regards,

fred burlingame



>
>
> My response:
>
>
>
> Not really.  Even if it were true (and the jury definitely remains out on
> the question) that there were significant differences between the versions
> of the Hebrew and, as your question implies, the version used for the LXX
> was closer to the original, the fact remains that the LXX is a translation.
> Who will be able to judge which differences are the result of a different
> source text, and which ones are the result of the interpretations required
> to determine how to express the message in Greek?
>
>
>
> Perhaps you might want to research the problems inherent in
> back-translation, a technique used frequently to attempt to check the
> accuracy of a translation.
>
>
>
> Paul Zellmer
>