In my last post I asked whether we should use modern terms like “womb” and “stomach” to translate the ancient beten, which was used for both. Similarly, what about “chair” and “throne”? It seems that, at least in the OT, one word was used for both different modern concepts. The Hebrew for both is kisei.…
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At Hebrew and Greek Reader, the question is asked whether the NLT’s rendering of Ecclesiastes 11:5 is politically motivated. The issue is the image of …ka’atzamim b’veten ha-m’lei’ah, that is, “like etzems in the beten.” The NLT’s rending is: …a tiny baby [etzem] growing in its mother’s womb [beten]… (I’m ignoring maleh here, because it’s…
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It turns out that “um” means something in English, and we can learn about translation by looking at that short word. The following hypothetical conversation between a shopper and a sales associate at a book store demonstrates: Shopper: “Where can I find a complete bilingual text of Aristotle?” Clerk: “Aristotle who?” Shopper: “Um, the Greek…
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Polycarp asks on the about page about a comment to a thread he started. The issue is Mark 15:34: eloi eloi lema sabachthani. The Greek — which appears almost identically in Matthew 27:46 — is actually transliterated Hebrew/Aramaic. In Mark we find eloi, which is probably Aramaic; in Matthew eli, probably Hebrew. The only line…
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And one more from the about page: Is Genesis 4:7, the first words, halo im-teitiv s’eit, an example of the idiom of a condition with antecedent but no stated consequence? Would the last of the words apply to Cain (as KJV implies) or to Cain’s offering (JPS)? Genesis 4:7 is clearly poetry, so we shouldn’t…
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The Greek word hosanna appears six times in the NT: three times in Matthew, twice in Mark, and twice in John. The context is each case includes the quotation, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” from Psalm 118:26. Because Psalm 118:25 contains the Hebrew words hoshi’a na, the Greek…
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A curious footnote in the ESV: Numbers 24:3 “The oracle of Balaam the son of Beor, the oracle of the man whose eye is opened,…”(1) (1) “Or closed” It seems to me that when the translator can’t narrow it down beyond “open or closed,” the footnote should be “we don’t know what it means.”
Adjectives without nouns are quirky and idiosyncratic, and understanding them is important for translation. As an example, in English we have “the Americans” (American people) but not (*)”the Swisses,” or (*)”the Frenches.” We have “the Swiss” (Swiss people) and “the French” (French people), but “the American” can only mean one person. Other languages work differently.…
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From the about page comes this question: Here is something I ignored when I translated Job and I don’t think I should have. In chapter 1 we get the b’nei ha-elohim. In chapter 38 we get the b’nei elohim without the definite article. I am thinking that the first should be the children (or sons)…
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