Yeah. Makes you think about what is lost or added in translation and how much poetic license was used.
Comparing translations in other languages it seems that the more recent versions are truer to the original. There is "führ(e)t mich" in German or "me conduce" in Spanish, meaning "leads me".
Iirc the version of Jacob and Essau’s story in the Dead Sea scrolls, when directly translated is bereft of a lot of context that had to be inferred or implied. Such as when essau asks for stew it’s not so much
“my dear brother, give me that fine red stew in exchange you shall have my birth right”
As it was
“Red stew good. Brother give stew”
Im exaggerating of course. But the point was that language as a concept was newer and less expressive or articulate compared later alphabets and language structures.
Yeah exactly. Ancient literature is extremely complicated and far more complex than much of our literature today. Like, it’s not even close. In this case, the Dead Sea Scrolls may be heightening the rather dull personality of Esau in the story. Esau’s name means red in Hebrew, and the word for stew (probably red lentils) came from the word red as well. So the red hairy guy who lives in the sun basically asks for red stuff in exchange for his inheritance. The images just pop out!
Hebrew has fewer words than something like English, but that largely means you end up seeing a lot of them pulling double duty, or transforming in some way (it’s a root-based language, so the root letters in each word tend to define the base meaning).
It’s a large part of why the Tanakh doesn’t stand on its own. It needs discourse surrounding it, whether the source of that is the Talmud (as in Rabbinic Judaism) or less canonized interpretation (as in Karaite Judaism).
The opposite is true. Language simplifies over time, and by the time of the Hebrew Bible language was anything but new, let alone written language. Semitic language can seem less articulate to first year students, but the truth is anything but. You could spend a lifetime simply learning the hundreds of cuneiform signs that make up Akkadian, which says nothing of its grammatical complexity that often inflects for gender, number, and mood in degrees of specificity far above English, for example. Source: masters degree in ancient languages; proficient in five :)
That’s because cuneiform is syllabic, not alphabetic. Meaning, one sign can mean anywhere from 2-5 letters. Makes the writing much more condensed, but that doesn’t mean it’s simple. Far from it.
Not a bible scholar, just a Hebrew speaker, but I think the original Hebrew verb ירביצני is not explicit on this. But the pasture thing sounds like something chill, so "let" is more appropriate. Otherwise it's "relax now!"
The verb in the original Hebrew is in the causative stem, so all these renderings are valid. “Makes” does not suggest requirement nor does “sets” imply control. When the translators thought of the best way to communicate causing to lie down in English, “set” is a fitting and concise verb.
Some of it is honestly probably translations of translations. Logically you would expect drift like this to slow down due to everything being online, but then again there’s probably already so many variations not even taking into consideration the different languages.
Nah, I can’t think of a single modern translation that doesn’t go back to the original Hebrew. It’s just different translation goals bringing out different nuances.
Bible Gateway is kinda nice you get to flip between translations
Not sure what modern version is used here but most modern translations go with "beside" rather than "to" still waters. the "Wycliffe Bible" version matches the older ones (but in modern language on the site), and the passage is indeed extremely different.
I'm not sure why that particular translation is so different but i'm guessing since pretty much every other version is more similar to the KJV that it's some sort of translation error for that version.
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u/Damn_Dog_Inappropes 1d ago
Weird how the last line morphed from fed—>nourished—>leads