I have heard that old testament Hebrew is a very hard language to translate because the exact (dialect?) is no longer spoken. Has anyone else either heard this or can offer any thoughts?
As for the text, if the people were so bad that God either gave them over to or gave them bad commands, would there be any difference? I don't think the passage is referring to people who were ready to repent so there would essentially be no difference what commands were given. They weren't going to comply. Just something else to throw into the mix.
Help? Bible question
by skyking 23 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Narkissos
I'm going to chime in with The Message Bible. Although it takes great liberties with the text at times, it also sheds light on many a difficult passage.
Ezekiel 20:25 Since they were determined to live bad lives, I myself gave them statutes that could not produce goodness and laws that did not produce life.
The first part is made out of thin air, but the rest is closer to the text than the NIV indeed.
I have heard that old testament Hebrew is a very hard language to translate because the exact (dialect?) is no longer spoken. Has anyone else either heard this or can offer any thoughts?
Classical (= "Biblical") Hebrew was already close to a dead language at the beginning of the Christian era. Because the extant corpus is comparatively limited some of its vocabulary (words that only occur once or a couple of times) remains of uncertain meaning, but its syntax is pretty clear (syntax can be ascertained even with a much smaller corpus). In any case, this particular passage offers no particular difficulty to the translator (besides possible religious embarrassment).
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uwishufish
Hey JC was Ringo there when you spoke with John and Paul?
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Sad emo
Fascinating - if the Message has paraphrased it correctly, it could be taken to mean that 'they got what they asked for'! ie they didn't want the 'good' laws so God gave them some bad ones to follow - could these be the ones which Jesus referred to when questioned about divorce and he told the Pharisees that they followed men's laws, not God's?
However it still leaves the inference by the NIV open for acceptance too, but the perhaps should have done what the NWT translators are fond of doing - put 'over to' in parentheses! I suspect the NIV have read that into the text because of the following verses about following the religions of other nations and child sacrifice etc.