Day: September 24, 2009

Bible Translations and Mistranslations

A Case of Gender Awkwardness

Still with the goal of providing a solid framework for understanding gender and translation, here’s another example from Modern Hebrew. Modern Hebrew has two ways of expressing the generic “you” of English (as in, “you shouldn’t put your elbows on the dinner table,” which means “one shouldn’t….”). The first is a plural masculine verb with…
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Q&A: Should We Translate the Hebrew Word ‘Et’?

Bob MacDonald asks on the About page: Here’s a question — what about that word et? Here it is as preposition (Genesis 4:1): kaniti ish et YHWH, (“I acquired a man with the LORD”). While I would not normally translate it when it is an object marker (it seems unnecessary most of the time it…
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