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Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew

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Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew

#11

Post by ubertaco »

The Bible is too well-known a text that is too represented in training datasets for this _not_ to be skewed towards poorly reproducing existing translations.

Beyond that,

>there are hallucinations and issues

seems like a deal-killer for a religious text. Yes, all translation by humans is an act of interpretation on some level, and so there's lossiness in all translation – but the difference between a human carefully weighing their reasoning for a particular choice of rendering vs. an LLM that is basically weighted dice that might land totally wrong is a categorically-different thing, not a question of degrees.

Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew

#13

Post by LarsDu88 »

ubertaco wrote: post #11

The Bible is too well-known a text that is too represented in training datasets for this _not_ to be skewed towards poorly reproducing existing translations. Beyond that, >there are hallucinations and issues seems like a deal-killer for a religious text. Yes, all translation by humans is an act of interpretation on some level, and so there's lossiness in all translation – but the difference between a human carefully…

This is definitely one area where the training set for the LLM is liable to be polluted by existing translations and even straight memorized english biblical text.

Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew

#14

Post by giancarlostoro »

I would be really interested in this done to the Peshitta Bible, which is roughly as old as the Septuagint. Peshitta is in Aramaic a sister language to Hebrew. Over the years I've found interesting insights about verses that make way less sense in Greek but in Aramaic they make drastically more sense. It seems that somehow the Greek translated from some other source where in Aramaic or Hebrew the word used could have been one of two words, the Greek seemed to pick the worst possible representation in some cases that the Aramaic highlights.

For example. It is easier for a Camel to go into the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into Heaven. If you read this, it makes it sound like Abraham cannot get into Heaven, wasn't he wealthy? Heck, there's others who were wealthy in scripture, even kings are they all doomed? In Aramaic the same word that in Greek is said to mean camel, can also mean rope.

If you think about a rope going through the eye of a needle, and what it TAKES for a rope to go through the eye of a needle, aka removing all the threads or layers (humbling the person and forcing them to strip themselves down to their core) in order to make it through the eye of the needle. Or in other words, you must be willing to dethatch yourself from all your wealth. Remember the guy who asked Jesus was he must do to be saved and enter heaven, and walked away when Jesus told him to give away everything he owned to the poor? That is the same exact message.

There's a few other verses, but that's the main one that always strikes me. Some of them are far more nuanced and I get into hours of debate with people who are ignoring everything I am saying (I don't know why, I try to lay it all out in the most simple way possible) as if I'm breaking the law, but its obvious to me that we don't have perfect copies of the Bible. I still think the overall message is the same though, so nothing wrong with that. It proves yet again that men are all fallible.

Sorry for the tangent. I used to deep dive translations and their nuances, and the Aramaic based Bibles are very interesting.

There's also an Aleh Tav Old Testament Bible which is fascinating to me. It adds the Aleph Tav anywhere it would be in the Hebrew into the English.

Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew

#15

Post by gnerd00 »

these books are social in nature.. it takes agreement to make revisions. The agreement process is part of a spiritual path, in multiple ways. One translation by a machine is new but newness is exactly not the point of these works. Stability through generations and resolving open theological questions to some extent, are much more the point than newness. Also, pride and vanity are expressly discouraged. If this is a personal achievement somehow, its not very consistent with the core teachings. You ought to acknowledge your teachers, your spiritual community, their leaders and elders, and other inputs.. because without all of that you would not be able to complete a non-trivial work of scholarship. other ideas missing?

Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew

#16

Post by anonymous344 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #14

I would be really interested in this done to the Peshitta Bible, which is roughly as old as the Septuagint. Peshitta is in Aramaic a sister language to Hebrew. Over the years I've found interesting insights about verses that make way less sense in Greek but in Aramaic they make drastically more sense. It seems that somehow the Greek translated from some other source where in Aramaic or Hebrew the word used could have…

[flagged]

Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew

#17

Post by snickerer »

ubertaco wrote: post #11

The Bible is too well-known a text that is too represented in training datasets for this _not_ to be skewed towards poorly reproducing existing translations. Beyond that, >there are hallucinations and issues seems like a deal-killer for a religious text. Yes, all translation by humans is an act of interpretation on some level, and so there's lossiness in all translation – but the difference between a human carefully…

[flagged]

Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew

#18

Post by indigoabstract »

I'm not sure how this is accomplished, but I like the "poetic" translation a lot more than the "optimal" one.

Which reminds me, do you think it's possible that the stories in the Bible are actually mystic symbolism and "veiled truth" (like the sort of stories that you might get in a dream) and people have mistaken it for actual physical history (with which it's obviously incompatible)?

The parables of Jesus come to mind. They weren't meant to be taken literally but to teach, to get a point across.

Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew

#19

Post by order-matters »

epsteingpt wrote: post #5
jqpabc123 wrote: post #4

What is the "expanse"? Answer: The sky. The ancient people who wrote the bible thought the sky was a solid dome that separated "the water's above" (aka rain) from the water's below. God lived on the other side of this dome. This is confirmed later in Genesis with the Tower of Babel story. They tried to reach this dome by building a tower. And "god" was so offended by their ignorance and stupidity (which he perpetrate…

Not here to have a religious debate - though given HN, it may turn into one! Imprecise language is a common human feature of a lack of understanding - something we all suffer from. We call LLM's "AI" without fully understanding what's artificial and what's intelligence. The story of faith is, in some ways, the story about how little we know about the universe. That doesn't mean there's no progress. If anything, it sh…

there is also the unspoken alignment of those people from being of the same age / time period.

humans additionally have a spectacular ability to use absurdity and loose definitions of things in ways that play with this unspoken alignment to communicate other ineffable ideas and/or build community. I'd go as far as to say we play with this unspoken alignment more so than we say exactly what we mean.

I would think this behavior, although often seen in meme culture nowadays, would be highly relevant to religious communication and documentation of the past. I think actually trying to write down an exact meaning is a modern phenomenon and is observed in the over articulation and general structure of "legalese", for which I dont think the bible resembles very much in spirit in any way.

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