That could have been accomplished by a vav. These are a pair of pillars at the commencement of a set of poems. So I repeat – it’s not a matter of what it means – it’s a matter of what it does. Pairs of ci-im are relatively rare – I found about 3 in the TNK. The Hebrew is clearly a special poetic construction. Then a translation I saw had ‘But’ for the first and a circumlocution including the phrase ‘in contrast’ for the second. the Anglican BAS) leave the first one out. I came across several translations of psalm 1 recently while discussing the impact of the pair of structuring words ci-im – some translations into English ()e.g. It is not only the word-for-worder or phrase-for-phraser that misses things. One might want to ask: how long does it take to establish communications across the centuries to the poet and the culture that wrote the poem? It takes time – and word-for-word is part of the journey. Also the terms “hot” and “lukewarm” as above. This tells me something about my life here in the USA. PS I just noticed how I used “cool” above. It would be of interest if other languages/societies do similar things or do they find other ways of expressing their thoughts? I think it is “cool” to be able to get a glimpse into the thought processes of our forefathers. From this one can gather that various body parts were important during biblical/redacting times,in helping people express themselves.
#Another word for things you value plus#
Also the panah, face, is often use as above plus many words are built upon it. Sometimes for its literal meaning and sometimes as part of an idiom. For example the word yad, hand, is frequently used. Knowing the what the words used mean gives the challenge as above but also gives us glimpses into the life and values of the time. Yes idioms are tricky but that is what makes trying to find out exactly what Torah meant to say so fascinating. What other value can you find for a word-for-word translation?
So it’s not a crazy idea to suggest that the words themselves are what’s important. (The early-first-millennium collection of Jewish writing known as the Midrash does the same thing.) Modern readers sometimes see this approach as deceptive, but ancient readers would probably be baffled by our modern insistence on quoting meaning instead of quoting words.
This is why, for example, the NT frequently quotes the words of the OT out of context. In fact, the evidence we have from antiquity is that the words were more important than what they meant. I have always tacitly assumed that the primary point of the Bible’s narrative text was to convey meaning, the point of the poetry to be poetic, and so forth. then a word-for-word translation is better than a translation that captures the meaning and poetry and so forth. The best answer I can think of is this: if the importance of the Bible lies in the actual words and not in what those words do - meaning, poetry, etc. So what might the value of a word-for-word translation of the Bible be? Still, I also believe that it’s important to understand both sides of a debate. It has superficial appeal in that intuitively it seems to bring a reader closer to a foreign text, but, in fact, it misconveys the original text. All of my training and experience has taught me that a word-for-word translation is a siren.
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