22
Interestingly, despite there being several good answers here, no one has yet raised the possibility that the word ראם (re'em) refers to an animal known as the aurochs or urus (Bos primigenius). (Edit: Bruce James' answer does say "the ראם is a type of cow", which would be consistent with the aurochs conclusion.)
Around the turn of the twentieth century (i....
19
Since the Book of Psalms was written in Hebrew, let's look at what Hebrew language and Bible scholars say on the subject. Specifically with regards to Psalm 22:21 (verse 22 in some Bibles), it says:
"Save me from the lion's mouth; yea, from the horns of the רמים[plural version; pronounced "reymim"]."
This is an animal that appears elsewhere in the ...
19
Neither "And a god was the Word" nor: "And God was the Word" are correct translations for θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
To understand the implications of the last clause, you need to understand something of Greek syntax. First, Greek distinguishes the role a noun plays in a sentence by changing the case. In general, if the noun is the subject, it is in the nominative ...
16
This is cross-posted and adapted from my answer here.
Accuracy and 'literalness' are only two of several factors in a translation, and I would argue that they are subjective factors at that. I would propose the following criteria for selecting an English Bible translation:
faithfulness to the original languages
translation philosophy (thought-for-thought, ...
15
We must remember that two people with the same education and knowledge of original Biblical languages, will, and commonly do, conclude opposite conclusions while maintaining proclaimed objectivity in their exegesis. This is exactly what Protestant and Catholic scholars do concerning this verse. The reality is that everyone makes their exegetical conclusion ...
14
The Hebrew Bible is primarily in Biblical Hebrew (the term given to the Semitic language that the Bible was written in from which modern Hebrew descends) with some Aramaic in various places (Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Jeremiah 10:11; Daniel 2:46-7:28; and two words in Genesis 31:47).
The New Testament is in Koine (common) first-century Greek. Koine Greek ...
14
When considering the NET translation one should always consider the footnotes.
4 tn Here is another sound play (paronomasia) on a name. The sound of the verb קָנִיתִי (qaniti, “I have created”) reflects the sound of the name Cain in Hebrew (קַיִן, qayin) and gives meaning to it. The saying uses the Qal perfect of קָנָה (qanah). There are two homonymic ...
14
The OP questions why translators take the root ברא (brʾ) here in the sense "to be fat" rather than the homonym "to create", which is more common in the Hebrew Bible. I see several good reasons.
The word in 1 Sam 2:29 -- habriʾăkem -- is in the hifil stem. The word brʾ meaning "to create" is only used in the qal and nifil. Therefore, taking it as hifil would ...
14
I think the thing which is causing you to see a contradiction is the use of the imperative. Rephrase using conditionals:
If you answer a fool according to his folly, you risk becoming like him.
If you refrain from answering a fool according to his folly, he may become wise in his own conceit.
and the problem disappears. Instead you're left with a ...
13
The first part of the question, about "singular elohim" already has an excellent answer to a related question. I will pass over the flawed commentary (which also gets a response at the answer linked above) to get to the main question posed here:
Why not let the readers decide what it really means and translate the bible as faithfully as possible?
Because ...
13
This is a good question -- or rather, set of questions. I begin by reiterating a comment from the Q&A linked by OP: to engage with this set of issues fully, one really needs to consult Catrin H. Williams, I Am He: The Interpretation of ʾAnî Hûʾ in Jewish and Early Christian Literature (WUNT II/113; Mohr Siebeck, 2000). There is plenty of other relevant ...
12
The short answer is "No". Perhaps there is a little confusion at work here, because this verse is embedded in one of the Aramaic passages found in the (otherwise) Hebrew Bible: it is not in Hebrew.1
The "-ah" ending that makes this look like "prophetess" (if the word was in Hebrew), is in fact the Aramaic definite article, = "the". (See heading 2.2, bullet #...
12
You are probably best off looking at an interlinear Bible, rather than a translation. Then you can read the meanings of each word or phrase in context, in the order in which they were presented. If something seems odd or raises questions, you know precisely which (original-language) word to go look up.
The trick here is that any translation involves ...
11
Most of these changes happened in the Septuagint and stuck around as they became more familiar. I can only assume that the JPS uses these almost transliterations into English because they are so familiar to English speakers.
Greek and Hebrew alphabets don't match up in a one-to-one correspondence. Some of the problems from that would be:
Letters in one ...
11
A translation coming from an already translated work is called a "daughter translation." For example, the Septuagint in English is a daughter translation as it is based on the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew.
English Translations that use the Vulgate
Using the Vulgate as the basis for an English Bible has been done several times.
The first English Bible, ...
11
No, it is not true. However, the NIV (2011) and NLT do translate παράδοσις (paradosis) as something other than "tradition" in 2 out of 3 positive uses, indicating there may be some bias here against using "tradition" in a positive sense (but not entirely).
Method
First I identified every use of παράδοσις (paradosis) in the New Testament (regardless of ...
11
As other parts have been addressed, I will not restate them. However,
El -> God Elyon -> Most High (El Yon) so not to close possibility that Elyon may be a different God than Yahweh or Elohim. El Roi -> God who see (Roi God/El Roi) again, not to close possibility that El Roi may simply be a different God. Yahweh -> Yahweh (He is/He causes).
The problem ...
11
The phrase appears not only in Gen 31:42:
MT ... אֱלֹהֵי אָבִי אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם וּפַחַד יִצְחָק ...
= ... ʾĕlōhê ʾābî ʾĕlōhê ʾābrāhām ûpaḥad yiṣḥāq ...
LXX ... ὁ θεὸς τοῦ πατρός μου Αβρααμ καὶ ὁ φόβος Ισαακ ...
= ... ho theos tou patros mou Abraam kai ho phobos Isaak ...
but also in a slightly variant form a few verses later, in v. 53:
ESV ... ...
11
The OP questions the validity of the article "a" in English versions given the lack of a corresponding word in Greek. I will argue that "a law" is indeed an accurate translation.
There is no indefinite article "a" in Greek; good translations include it with indefinite nouns where required in English. While there are many contexts where a noun without the ...
11
For OP's question:
Is the chi (χ) used to indicate the kind of a vowel in the original Hebrew (namley the aleph א), a transliteration as it is from Hebrew in already Hebraic Greek?
The short answer is "No" -- (1) in the first instance, because chi is representing (possibly, more in a moment) a consonantal sound, not a "vowel". Aleph and Ayin are ...
10
Unicorn is a correct translation. Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary says that a unicorn is a rhinoceros, and a rhinoceros is a unicorn.
The Latin Vulgate says "rinocerotis" in Deut 33:17 and "rinoceros" in Job 39:9.
The King James says "Or Rhinocerots" in the marginal note in Isaiah 34:7.
Even scientists today use the word unicorn in reference to the one-...
10
The lexical meaning of the noun שָׂטָן śāṭān in biblical Hebrew is "adversary" or the like. It occurs 27x in 23 verses in the Hebrew Bible. In most instances, it is clear this it is best translated by the word "adversary":
in Psalm 109:6 it clearly refers to a hostile person;
in the Samuel/Kings references, it refers to human opponents of Israel or its ...
9
It should be noted that several terms in the NT have broader and narrower meanings, such as diakonos, which can refer to Christ Himself (Rom 15:8), to an ordained role ("deacon"; see Phi 1:1; 1 Tim 3:8–12) or more generally to any servant of the church, even a "minister" (e.g. in Col 1:25, Paul refers to himself as a diakonos; cf also 1 Tim 4:6: Timothy was ...
9
I do not pretend to know the minds of the ESV revisers. But there is some justification for their rendering of Genesis 2:16, although exploring the (possible) reasoning cannot be done briefly. Here we go...
Genesis 2:16-17
We need the text, and in this case it is imperative to work from the Hebrew, with the immediate context also in view (I'll stick with ...
9
When looking at slightly odd renderings in the KJV (and there are some fascinating ones), it is worth checking on its influences for any clues.
And the case of Mark 11:24, along with its parallel in Matthew 21:22, is an odd one: while, as OP notes, Mk 11:24 has "desire" where "ask" is expected, Mt 21:22 does, indeed, have "ask":
Mt 21 22 And all things, ...
9
The Hebrew phrase in question is מִטּוֹב עַד־רָע (metov ad ra), literally “from good to bad.”
According to Gesenius on מן...עד (min...ad),1
There are used in opposition to each other—(α) מִן אֶל … from … unto (see אֶל let. a, 1); often for tam, quam, whether, or. Psa. 144:13, מִזַּן אֶל־וַן “from kind to kind,” i.e. things of every kind.—(β) מִן … עִד and ...
9
The Douay-Rheims version is a translation of the Vulgate. The Vulgate to Psalms seems to have gone through multiple revisions. I looked through all the versions I could find easily and found these translations of the word in question:
Dei caeli, God of heaven (Romanum, Gallicanum, Clementine)
Domini, Lord (Hebraica)
Omnipotentis, Almighty (Pianum, New ...
9
The contradiction is intended, and rhetorical—and present in the Hebrew. However, there may be a slight play on the use of the preposition כ which means "according to, like" as in "according to his folly." If taken to mean "in the way he is foolish," it could refer to not being like him, "lest you become even as he is." But if taken in the "in his folly" ...
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