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Poor Bible Translations | ||
Tags: Hebrew | Translation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6122 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes  22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 1 of 24 15 December 2010 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Here is a translation I find outrageous in that it is blatantly incorrect and misleading:
Gen 3:15 in the original Hebrew: ואיבה אשית בינך ובין האשה ובין זרעך ובין זרעה הוא ישופך ראש ואתה תשופנו עקב This is translated in the Tanakh, a publication of the Jewish Publication Society as follows: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; they shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise their heel. However, the correct translation of הוא ישופך is "He shall bruise you" as follows: הוא is the third person masculine singular pronoun (He) ישופך is the qal imperfect third person masculine singular with a second person masculine singular suffix of שׁוף meaning to bruise (shall bruise you). Thus the correct translation is as follows (NASB): And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. This is confirmed in the Septuagint (LXX) translation into Greek: καὶ ἔχθραν θήσω ἀνὰ μέσον σου καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τῆς γυναικὸς καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σπέρματός σου καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτῆς αὐτός σου τηρήσει κεφαλήν καὶ σὺ τηρήσεις αὐτοῦ πτέρναν αὐτός is the nominative singular masculine pronoun (He) and τηρήσει is the future active indicative 3rd person singular of τηρέω and σου is the 2nd person genitive singular personal pronoun. Thus "He shall bruise (of) you" This translation is a good impartial reference in that is was done by Jewish translators in the 4th century BC, i.e., prior to the time of Jesus. The reason for this mistranslation in the Tanakh is purely theological: To rob the passage of it's messianic significance that it was fulfilled when Jesus, the seed of the woman, died on the cross and thereby defeated Satan, the Serpent of old, and sealed his dooom. The picture in the Hebrew is of a man and a serpent in a deadly fight in which the man is bitten on the heel by the Serpent--He crushes the head of the Serpent and kills him but, is fatally wounded by a bite on His heel. The translation by the JPS totally destroys the meaning of the passage. Edited by JW on 22 December 2010 at 2:50am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6122 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 2 of 24 22 December 2010 at 3:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have decided to change the title of this thread based on a PM I received by broadening it to include any poor Bible translation.
Here is another: Martin Luther translated Romans 3:28 into German as follows: So halten wir nun dafür, daß der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, allein durch den Glauben. (Luther Bibel 1545). In English this would be: For we maintain, that man is justified without the works of the Law, alone through Faith. The original Greek is as follows: λογιζομεθα γαρ δικαιουσθαι πιστει ανθρωπον χωρις εργων νομου (1881 Westcott-Hort New Testament) The "allein" (alone) is not found in the Greek. Thus the translation should have been: So halten wir nun dafür, daß der Mensch durch den Glauben gerecht werde, ohne des Gesetzes Werke. In English: For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law (NASB) Edited by JW on 22 December 2010 at 3:18am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5569 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 3 of 24 22 December 2010 at 7:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I've never used a JPS translation in any of my bible study courses, so I can't speak for it's overall quality. However, I find the above passage problematic for a secular (?) language forum. Are we really allowed to get into Christian polemics here? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6122 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 4 of 24 22 December 2010 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think in this part of the forum we have some latitude as long as it is language related:
I made that statement because I can't imagine any other reason for that mistranslation and, if there is a reason that I am missing, I would like to know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5569 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 5 of 24 22 December 2010 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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A neutral religious topic would be simply describing mistranslations. That would be both interesting and language-related. When you add your interpretation that JPS is trying to cover up some perceived connection to Jesus, that is Christian polemics and offensive to me. I find this discussion utterly inappropriate for a language forum, but since the topic is allowed to remain, I'll give an honest answer: I don't know anything about their organization or the quality of their translations, so I can only speculate as you did. It doesn't make sense to me that JPS would purposely try to cover up a possible connection to messianism, considering that messianism is a central pillar of the Jewish religion. Bringing Jesus into a passage in the Tanakh makes absolutely no sense to me. My opinion is that either the translators found that the plural article made more sense with the continuity of the passage or they were sloppy. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mr_chinnery Senior Member England Joined 5757 days ago 202 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 24 23 December 2010 at 1:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree, this should have been posted in a theology forum or something. I come here to study language, not superstition. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 24 23 December 2010 at 2:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
No. JW, please edit your post. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Qbe Tetraglot Senior Member United States joewright.org/var Joined 7135 days ago 289 posts - 335 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Japanese, German, Mandarin, Aramaic | Message 8 of 24 23 December 2010 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hmmm. I was going to comment on JW's second post in this thread, but apparently we're only allowed to discuss language mechanics here and not the meaning of ideas expressed in language.
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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