Touche girl. Nice work. I need to spend a bit of time with all of this before I profer a professional comment. Suffice it to say…good, solid, scholarly, literary work. Robert Alter would likely be proud. Now to dig a few layers deeper and I shall report. Thanks for giving me a heads up on the post. A

Again, thanks for the lesson.

You’ve long since demonstrated your above average intelligence. You’re totally off the hook forever.

I didn’t compare to all extant versions, time being a limited factor, but I did compare to one other I’ve been told by an expert is an excellent translation of overall meaning (as opposed to word-by-word meaning), and it backed up my understanding throughout my analysis here. I’m open to the possibility that both translations are mistaken, of course, from all takers, given solid evidence.

I’m not sure that “more translation = more accurate,” though. Most are based on the Vulgate, among other things, which was originally rejected. But to be fair, I’d be just as skeptical of presumed “translations from the original Hebrew,” as the language died–meaning the nuances of words as well as idioms had to have been lost–then “revived.” I think we can have at least a pretty good idea of what was meant by the authors, but a specific provable translation? No.

d

Diana,

It’s late. Can I demonstrate it on Monday? (grin)

I appreciate how you’re able to see different interpretations for passages that seem contradictory, and point out some that make sense when taken all together. To some people it may seem like splitting hairs (like differentiating between what the narrator said versus what was reported to David), but when you consider most of the Scripture we have access to has been translated, no matter how carefully, it’s a good skill to have. ‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.

Another technique I’ve found helpful, if you don’t read the original language, is to compare different translations of the same passage. Like looking through the slits in a partially closed window blind, by changing your viewpoint you get a more complete picture of the actual scene outside. If most of the translations you can access say substantially the same thing, you can have better confidence that it’s accurate. If there’s a good deal of variation, you may have to dig a bit more to find an interpretation that’s consistent across the entire body of text.

Dave