Say Now Shibboleth: and He Said Sibboleth:

Saturday, July 23, 2011

3:45 PM

Say what?  Translating, putting something into your own words from something someone else said, in a language that is not yours, how hard would it be?  Translations.   It makes my head spin just thinking about it. 

Would you be biased when you translated it?  Would you translate it correctly? What is "correctly"? These are all difficult questions that deserve honest answers. 

Let's take the Bible for example. Would it be hard to translate the Hebrew text into English, the prevalent language of the world? What if you were born & raised in an English speaking country and the only language you spoke was English. Let's say for our example,  Isaac, was born and raised in Israel, and doesn't read English. Now let's suppose that Jacob, who was also born and raised in Israel, speaks both Hebrew and English. Suppose I were to use him as my translator.  Isaac reads a passage from the Hebrew Torah, and then Jacob translates it for me. How do I know Jacob translated it correctly? As you can see, this could be a big dilemma.

I'm trying to learn Hebrew, as I would like to read the Bible in the original language it was written in. It is hard, but I have a little experience in learning a foreign language, as I lived in Europe and South America.  The first language I tried to learn was Danish, followed by Swedish. I didn't learn too much of either language, as, believe me, they were very difficult.  When I moved to France, the first thing I did was to get a French/English dictionary. I took it with me wherever I went. At this time, (1977), it seemed most Frenchmen and French women did not speak any English. I was forced to learn to speak it. This is the same thing a baby does, going from a few words, to whole sentences.  After about what seemed like months, I could hold a "first person" conversation with  Frenchmen(and French women).  I stayed in France for almost a year, then moved to Spain.  I had to start all over learning a new language. Every time I would try to say something in Spanish, French would come out of my mouth. I found myself having to put French out of my mind, and just concentrate on learning Spanish.  After that  I moved somewhere else, Italy to be exact, and of course, I had to start learning Italian. Why?? Simply put, English was not so much of a wide spread language at that time in southern Europe.  If you wanted to communicate with anyone, you had to learn the language of the country you were in at that time.

Bear with me, all of this has a point.

I then moved back to the states to south Texas across from the Mexican border. I soon realized  that even though I spoke fairly good Spanish, the Mexicans had their own way to communicate the same idea.  In Spanish if you wanted to say "I don't have change", you would say "No tango cambio"; while in Mexico you would hear them say, "No traigo feria".  This is actually slang,  and I'm not even sure I'm spelling it  correctly.   Wow, this was getting confusing. Later, I went to South America, and although Spanish is the prevalent language throughout  the continent, there is a huge disparity  from country to country, in the way they will say the same thing.  In one country a word would mean one thing while in another country it had a totally different meaning. You can get in trouble, because in one place it could be a compliment while in another  the same word would be an insult. 

In his book, "Learn to Read Biblical Hebrew" by Jeff A. Benner  in the introduction he has this to say.

Why Learn Hebrew?

"A translation of the Biblical text is a translators 'interpretation' of the text. The translator's beliefs will often influence how the text will be translated and anyone using his translation is seeing it through his eyes rather than the original authors. Only by studying the original language of the Bible can one see the text in its original state."

OK, back to square one. So, in my quest  to learn Hebrew, how do I know that whoever I learn it from has it correct?  On the subject of speaking it correctly, I'd like to share this amazing passage from the Book of Judges in the King James Version of the Bible.

Judges 12:5  And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;

Judges 12:6  Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

Judges 12:7  And Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.

(Robert Young in his concordance says  "Shibboleth" means "Stream, or ear of corn". James Strong concurs in his concordance.)You can read the whole story beginning in Judges 10:17 to 12:7. The point I want to bring out has to do with the correct way to pronounce a word. Since the Ephraimites could not say "Shibboleth" the way the men of Gilead said it, they were slain. They must have looked the same  (think American and Canadians as an example) and spoke the same language, except the men of Gilead said this particular word differently.  It seems like it is of the utmost importance to learn all the little nuances of a language, otherwise it might cost you your life.  When I lived in Tennessee I was working at a construction job and the first day I heard the head boss say me, "Get hit right!" I said, excuse me? He said it again. Come to find out, what he meant was, "Get it right!"

Steven E. Dill, D.V.M. wrote what I thought was an excellent book, "In the Beginnings". It discusses the gap theory, which we won't get into at this time.  I would like to share a few paragraphs from his book. On page 128-131 he said the following:

"Isn't it amazing how many different translations of Genesis 1:1-2 there are? [He had just showed 27 different ways they were translated].  I don't know what it says about mankind, but we can't even finish the first sentence of the first paragraph of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible without creating a controversy.  There seems to be about as many translations as there are Hebrew scholars. I suppose it's only human nature for each Hebrew scholar to come out with the best translation ever. I've also noticed that nearly all of these scholars are the world's foremost authority in ancient Hebrew, but very few totally agree with how the others translate. They all tend to say things like, 'Yes, it can be translated the way Dr. So-And-So puts it, but …' At this point they show you how wrong Dr. So-And-So is and how right they are by translating it the way they believe."

It seems like most Hebrew scholars don't agree on the way something is translated. So what are my chances going to be? Continuing on he says this:

"As I said, I've made two deductions about the translations of the Genesis account. My first deduction is that Hebrew must be a 'rubber' language. Evidently, its rules of grammar and varied word definitions make it highly flexible. Meanings, seemingly, can be stretched to define almost anything. In truth, every one of the above listed translations (excluding mine, of course) can be defended by the rules of Hebrew grammar. Every one of those translations was made by knowledgeable and fully qualified Hebrew scholars. We  non-scholars must tread lightly. We are at the mercy of the scholars, so I ask my readers to be wary. Don't let anyone tell you that even one of those translations of Genesis 1:1-2 is without grammatical support. He who makes such a statement is a liar. Every one of those translations has ardent supporters who are noted and well-educated Hebrew scholars. This doesn't mean they reveal the exact same information. While they are all grammatically correct, they cannot all be informationally correct. My second deduction is about Hebrew scholars. I'm sure this isn't true of all Hebrew scholars, but it probably describes the majority. I have concluded that each scholar translates the text based on what he believes the Bible says. This may not seem like a startling statement, but if you'll think about it for a minute or two, you'll see the significance. If a translator has a preconceived idea of what the text is suppose to say, then it shouldn't be a big surprise when he translates it the way it's suppose to be. I would venture to guess that most biblical Hebrew scholars studied the Bible during the process of becoming biblical Hebrew scholars competent enough to translate the Bible. The question then arises, 'How did they get the knowledge it takes to become a biblical Hebrew scholar?' I suspect they studied biblical Hebrew in a seminary, a university, a Bible college, or some other establishment of higher education. This being the case, it seems only natural that scholars would tend to know what they've been

taught."

 (He goes on to say if a scholar was trained in a southern Baptist seminary, he would translate it the way southern Baptist would. The same goes for Presbyterian, Catholic,  etc. )

" If you were taught Hebrew by scholars who believed the King James Version was the only valid translation, then it would make sense that you'd translate Genesis in a way that would compare favorably with the King James Version."….

"Now I'm not accusing Hebrew scholars of being academically dishonest;  just of being human. We all tend to think and believe what we were taught to think and believe, and we all tend to defend our thoughts and beliefs. We all tend to get upset when others challenge the things we believe. Nobody likes to have his opinions disproved or ridiculed. This is especially true for those of us with academic initials following our names. We don't like to admit that our interpretations could possible be wrong. However, if we are Christians, then we should be more than willing to let truth prove or disprove our opinions. If we are wrong, then we should reject our false opinions and willingly accept the truth."

Furthermore he says:

"How many times have you heard biblical scholars say that we need to let Scripture interpret Scripture? You probably have been bombarded with that phrase a gazillion times. Everybody claims they want to let Scripture interpret Scripture, but what they really mean is to let THEIR interpretation of Scripture interpreted Scripture.   What they're saying is, 'If your interpretation of Scripture looks like it's going to disprove my interpretation of Scripture, then you must be taking it out of context.'"

So, where do we go from here? Good question!  Where do we choose a place to learn Biblical Hebrew?  I have three sites I go to all the time that I think are great. One site is:  http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/index.html    The next site is:http://www.hebrew4christians.com/     Finally the last  site is Michael Heisers : http://www.michaelsheiser.com/

Now I'm reminded of something Jesus said to us.

John 16:13  Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

We truly need to tune into the "Spirit of Truth" and let Him guide us all to where we should go to learn what to us will be important. Like learning Hebrew.

 In the book of Isaiah it says :

Isaiah  30:21  And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

Paul in I Corinthians chapter 13, verse 11 says :

1Co 13:12  For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

We might not be able to see everything clearly, but that doesn't mean we stop living and do nothing. We just need to pray, make a choice, trust that the choice we made was the right one, and go on from there.

I hope this has been a help to any who are struggling  with learning a foreign language, especially Hebrew.  Then I think the next obvious question will be "What Bible translation is the best? " What a loaded question.  But I will save that for the next installment.

Joseph Bruni