141–150 of 183 posts
Regarding “hard choices” when translating: what about not making them? If the goal isn’t to editorialize on purpose, could one just write, “[young girl|virgin]” when faced with what the “correct” translation is supposed to be?
1) How to translate names of animals and other concepts that are unfamiliar in the target culture, e.g. "sheep" into Inuit.
2) Whether to translate a given word in the same way in each instance of the word. Suppose you're translating into a Mayan language, where "bread" is an unfamiliar concept. Jesus refers to "breaking bread" (literal sense) and "the bread of life" (metaphorical sense, for which a translation as tortilla might be better).
3) How to translate a word where the target language makes unavoidable distinctions that the source language does not. In Tzeltal, there is a word for "older brother" and a word for "younger sibling", but no word for "brother, whether younger or older". When the Bible refers to Peter and his brother Andrew, which word do you use?
Lots more...
Since the article is kind of shallow, here are a few atypical approaches to Biblical translation I’ve found interesting over the years: • The Five Books of Moses, by Everett Fox, who attempts to retain in English the underlying poetry of the Hebrew like alliteration, meter, wordplay, and so on. ( https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/55160/the-five-book... ) • The Books of the Bible: not a new translation (it’s ju…
I wish there were more translations like this (and of a high quality binding). One example I found and have ordered is "Bibliotheca" which looks amazing, should arrive later this year. Unfortunately it's not a translation I'm very interested in, I've been seriously considering seeing what it takes to print my own edition that has all the textual features I want.
Since the article is kind of shallow, here are a few atypical approaches to Biblical translation I’ve found interesting over the years: • The Five Books of Moses, by Everett Fox, who attempts to retain in English the underlying poetry of the Hebrew like alliteration, meter, wordplay, and so on. ( https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/55160/the-five-book... ) • The Books of the Bible: not a new translation (it’s ju…
There was a beautifully made book from 1936 called "The Bible Designed To Be Read As Literature" that was set out and edited to be more like a normal book: https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.10239/ I picked up a copy secondhand years ago and I'm happy I did.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Judaism and Islam have more in common with each other than with Christianity. Christianity's belief in the divinity of Jesus is shared by neither other religion. The Jewish jurist Maimonides ruled that Christians were idol worshipers because of their belief in the trinity and Muslims were not (Menachem Meiri rules otherwise). But more than that, in terms of practice, Muslims and Jews share a great deal. Prayi…
> Muslims and Jews share a great deal. Praying in a certain direction. Praying several times a day. Specific dietary requirements, including banning pork. Christian churches face the East. Christian clerics and devout laypersons pray the Liturgy of the Hours daily. Finally many Christians observe religious dietary requirements involving fasting and abstinence from meat.
I should have been more specific, it's about praying to a specific place. Jews face the western wall in Jerusalem, Muslims face Mecca. And they do this in or out of the synagogue (or mosque as far as I know). I've seen people get out a compass!
> Christian clerics and devout laypersons pray the Liturgy of the Hours daily.
This might be more analogous, but the "devout laypeople" seems less analogous, as it's got the status of a commandment in Judaism and Islam.
> Finally many Christians observe religious dietary requirements involving fasting and abstinence from meat.
In this Christianity really differs from Judaism and Islam. I'm talking about ritual slaughter and avoiding eating specific animals, not general periods of abstinence from meat.
All in all obviously Judaism and Christianity share a lot too, I'm just suspicious of the claim that they shares more with each other than Islam when my experience is not like that at all.
Some things this article doesn't touch on (although maybe the complete book does), which come up when translating into other languages. I'm not saying there are no solutions to these, but they are interesting (and for those who believe, important) questions. 1) How to translate names of animals and other concepts that are unfamiliar in the target culture, e.g. "sheep" into Inuit. 2) Whether to translate a given word…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Muslims and Jews share a great deal. Praying in a certain direction. Praying several times a day. Specific dietary requirements, including banning pork. Christian churches face the East. Christian clerics and devout laypersons pray the Liturgy of the Hours daily. Finally many Christians observe religious dietary requirements involving fasting and abstinence from meat.
> Christian churches face the East I should have been more specific, it's about praying to a specific place. Jews face the western wall in Jerusalem, Muslims face Mecca. And they do this in or out of the synagogue (or mosque as far as I know). I've seen people get out a compass! > Christian clerics and devout laypersons pray the Liturgy of the Hours daily. This might be more analogous, but the "devout laypeople" seem…
Close, but a few metres out - we face the place where the Holy of Holies was, on the Temple Mount.
That’s why we read the Hebrew bible out loud, in its original language, three times a week and cycle over the whole thing in the course of a year.
Do you have any resources for someone who wants to learn Biblical Hebrew? I desire to be able to read the original languages.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And who decided what the "New Testament" is? Hint, not the Protestants...
There was no such thing as Protestant when the canon was formalized, and the reformation had nothing to do with canon.
Canonical issues were debated during the "reformation", including canonicity of certain New Testament works (there are famous Luther quotes that often get brought out).
Odd that an all powerful god would choose text written in dying languages, easily susceptible to being lost or destroyed, as the preferred method of communication.
He was doing the best he could, given Babel. The whole thing, going all the way back to the Fall, was necessarily and inescapably imperfect. Why would an omnipotent and omniscient God create such a mess, you ask? A lot of theological ink has been spilled on that question, but I think the consensus was that it was the best that could be done, given a (theological) concept of free will. The alternative was for God to c…