On Sat, 14 Jul 2007, Matthew Johnson wrote:
> So it is not absolutely, uncompromisingly literal, but it is as
> literal as any translation can ever get for this expression. Any more
> literal and it is no longer even a translation.
I meant to say: it is not literal. The absolute infinitive "mot" has no
counterpart in English that could take the same place in the sentence, so
there cannot be a really literal translation. "dying you will die" could
perhaps be rendered with a construct infinitive as "bamut tamut" (lit. "in
dying ...") but not with an absolute infinitive -- at least I heard never
of an example where such a translation would make sense. More translation
alternatives are discussed below.
> >and the equivalence of "surely die" is *not* dynamic.
>
> At the risk of dragging this thread even further from the main point,
> I ask: why not?
This depends on the meaning of "dynamic". If it means "not literal if
literal makes no sense", this translation is dynamic. If it means
"inaccurate because more literal would always be more accurate", this
translation does not fall under the verdict.
> And there are. You gave several examples yourself. So WHAT if the NIV
> never translated it that way? That does not prove much. If you haven't
> noticed yet, it is time to notice: the NIV is still a somewhat
> controversial translation. It is not just the KJV-only fringe who find
> problems with it.
For these examples, I checked the NIV and the KJV whether one of them
provided a translation that is more literal for the expression with the
two identical verbs. When there was no difference in *this* respect, I
mostly took the NIV because I understand its language better (e.g. I
had never heard "fain flee" before, so I refrained from using it for the
Job passage). No comment about the general reliability of the NIV was
intended (and you will find translation blunders in the KJV as well, won't
you?).
> >As one can see by these examples, the construct where an absolute
> >infinitive is used as a spurious object,
>
> "Spurious object"? Now _that_ explanation of the construction I did
> _not_ find in my Hebrew grammar references.
"Spurious" may be the wrong term. What I meant to say is: it is something
that takes the syntactic position of an object[1] but adds no information
on the object of the action ("spurious" in that sense). You may -- at
least in German or Latin -- "einen Gang gehen" (walk a walking), "einen
Kampf kaempfen" (fight a fight, 2Tim.4:7), "einen Schlaf schlafen" (sleep
a sleep) but you cannot walk, fight, or sleep anything else. Insofar all
these are *not* real objects. As I wrote, the correct term is "figura
etymologica"; or more specifically, "internal accusative". Of course, one
cannot infer that because these occur in Hebrew, Latin, German, and
English (the 2Tim example in the KJV), they would have the same meaning in
all languages -- this is not the case.
[1] After I wrote that, I found the statement dubious, given the fact that
the absolute infinitive is mostly before the verb while objects are mostly
after it -- both with exceptions. More accurate than "takes the syntactic
position of an object" would be "takes a syntactic position which
resembles the position of an object more than of anything else".
> >it is *always* translated by an intensifying particle like "indeed",
> >"surely", "definitely", "completely", and *never* as a participle
> >denoting an independent parallel action with the same verb.
>
> Older translations did not always do this. So, for example, the verse
> that started all this discussion is translated in the Douay-Rheims as:
>
> But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For
> in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the
> death. (Gen 2:17)
This is indeed a more literal translation than any translation discussed
before. If it is a better translation remains to be discussed. By the way,
Luther translated "des Todes sterben" with a genitive object which
predates Luther but is now obsolete; this object resembles causative
constructs "die OF death" like "die OF hunger" or "die BY the sword".
(This off-topic German sidetrack can be explored using
http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/dwb/wbgui?lemid=GS44146
).
> >Note also that it is an *absolute infinitive*, not a participle
> >(although a *construct* infinitive can indeed take the role of an
> >English participle).
>
> And this _is_ the most likely rationale for the "dying you will die"
> translation. As rationales go, it is not one of the best. But it is
> only by slavishly following Masoretic points that you can claim that
> this must be an absolute infinitive (in Gen 2:27). The Vulgage, LXX
> and Douay-Rheims did not feel obliged to follow the Masoretic points.
One could read "mawet" (death) instead of "mot" (dying) but it does not
make so much of a difference. Now, as such internal accusatives are not so
rare, I consider it the most straigthfoward assumption that this is just
an additional example of one.
> That sounds strange in English, but is common in Greek ('internal
> accusative'). However, it does not have the intensive effect, [...]
Right. This is why I wrote that the meaning is not the same.
> But I could do better than that example: I could observe that Jerome
> did not regularly translate it as an intensive (as the NIV
> does). Rather he translated it "you will die by death (morte moriatur
> Gen 2:17)", just as the LXX did.
See above for Luther, perhaps under influence of these two.
Is there any other example in the Hebrew Bible where someone dies *of* or
*by* something where the "of" or "by" is not "b-" in Hebrew (e.g.
Jer.14:15)?
> Now please don't forget that Jerome _did_ learn Hebrew from a
> Rabbi. If, as you propose, this construction _always_ has this
> intensifying effect, why didn't the Rabbi teach him? Or if he did, why
> doesn't it show up in Jerome's translation?
>
> >To sum up: as the meaning of such figures in Hebrew is regularly
something
> >different, to wit an intensification of the action, I consider this
> >translation as more than far-fetched.
>
> But WHY are you so sure that it is _always_ an intensification of the
> action? Even Weingreen didn't go this far. And no, the NIV's example
> (of always translating it as intensifying) is not convincing.
I had only the KJV and the NIV, and they do not disagree in *this* point.
In one example, the NIV translated not as intensification but as
repetition. Intensification is at least one of the most frequent meanings,
though. Now, to assign a very specific different meaning to the construct
in one passage (Gen.2), one would like to see at least one example where
an analogous meaning is plausible in another passage.
--
Helmut Richter
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