Idiomatic Biblical translation

[lethargic_man]

In some respects, Biblical Hebrew is very well endowed with vocabulary—there are three separate terms for "sin", for example—however, in other areas, it is greatly lacking compared to modern languages, and conveys concepts that may be expressed in English in a single word with phrases. Traditional translations tend to render these literally, such as Deut 17:8, which in the KJV reads:

If there arise a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates: then shall you arise, and get you up into the place which the Lord your God shall choose; [etc]

כִּי יִפָּלֵא מִמְּךָ דָבָר לַמִּשְׁפָּט בֵּין־דָּם לְדָם בֵּין־דִּין לְדִין וּבֵין נֶגַע לָנֶגַע דִּבְרֵי רִיבֹת בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ וְקַמְתָּ וְעָלִיתָ אֶל־הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ בּוֹ׃

The Etz Chayim chumash, by contrast, translates idiomatically, and nowhere, I feel, is this better displayed than in the above verse, which it renders:

If a case is too baffling for you to decide, be it a contoversy over homicide, civil law, or assault—matters of dispute in your courts—you shall promptly repair to the place that the Lord your God will have chosen [etc]

For someone brought up on the KJV-influenced JPS 1917 translation, it's refreshingly different.

Comments

[liv]

I agree, that's a nice idiomatic translation. Did I tell you I saw a random leaflet for some Evangelical church that was presenting "spiritual recycling" as a metaphor for the concept we usually translate as "redemption"? That seems like another example of this sort of thing; modern people don't really have any context for redeem other than religious, the financial sense of the word is totally unfamiliar, and anyway recycling has much better connotations than pawn shops and emergency loans.

[lethargic_man]

No you didn't.

I think many modern people do understand what "redeem" means thanks to cereal packets, but non-religious people probably don't understand the religious sense. I had difficulty when I was young relating the cereal-packet sense to the religious one, though.

I'm not sure I can my head around how recycling = redemption.