Hi Peter,
It seems like you are pretending that the English word *heart* only refers to the blood-pumping organ. It also means the center of a thing (as in "the heart of the sea") ...
... and the seat of the emotions (as in "I love him with all my heart"). ...
... These latter are very well shared with the Hebrew *leb*. I am sure *heart* means a lot of other things, too, some of which are shared with the Hebrew *leb* and some of which are not.
English *nose* does not mean anger, is hardly connected to anger, so *nose* will not always work as a translation for Hebrew *aph*.
This is not so hard.
In another post you quoted as problematic:
Jeremiah 4:4 "circumcise your hearts" (some kind of surgery?)
Jeremiah 6:10 "their ear is uncircumcised" (more surgery not carried out?)
Jer 4:4 doesn't read like that. ...
... Anyway, let me mention the expression (Jer 6:10), "their ear is uncircumcised." It would be a shame, IMO, to express this any other way. Jeremiah is inventing a figure. It is meant to be an arresting expression. It is supposed to make people think. It is supposed to be a little wild or shocking. It is meant to collocate a cultic procedure with a part of the human being that is not only not usually associated with the procedure; it is a literally or naturally impossible image. It is meant to confuse some people until they ask others who they respect what it means. ...
... If we render this expression something like "their ear is closed" in our new dynamic equivalence Bible, we have not translated the expression, we have explained it. The cover of our book should read *Explanation of the Bible*, not *Holy Bible* or *Tanakh*.I would conclude from that that *any* translation should be so labelled. After all, you seemed to agree that a literal translation of God having a long nose could not be used. But if that one can be explained, why can't the circumcised heart or ear? After all, just as "English *nose* does not mean anger, is hardly connected to anger", English "circumcise" does not mean what Jeremiah had in mind. Where is the difference?
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