Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Multiple Isaiahs Message-ID: Date: 17 Sep 90 07:54:04 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 71 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , wcsa@cbnewsc.att.com writes: > Robert Firth asserts that the Isaiah passages in the BoM represent a > an inaccurate translation of the AV (suggesting that it was lifted from > the AV) rather than an older and more accurate text, such as the > Massoretic. Again, I suggest that Robert's approach to the problem, based > on Isa 5:25 - 2 Ne 15:25, is far too simplistic. While most biblical > scholars might agree that the Massoretic text *gernerally* represents an > older and thus more accurate text, I sincerely doubt that they hold to the > notion that *all* the Massoretic text is older and thus more accurate. If There are two questions here which you are conflating to the confusion of both. Yes, scholars will sometimes find a rendition in the Septugint or elsewhere good evidence for an earlier textform than is present in the Masoretic text. If one were to take seriously the contention that the Book of Mormon is based on some independent text tradition, it would in fact be necessary to examine the whole corpus of such crucial readings. However, the case Robert cites is rather different in character. You see, the translators empanelled by King James *intended* to use the Masoretic text -- as may be inferred from the translators' preface and confirmed in a number of ways. The trouble is that these earnest and scholarly men were not all that far from the beginnings of Hebrew schol- arship by Europeans, and they simply bobbled the translation in this case. It is NOT a question of variant readings in manuscript attestation of the text. Precisely BECAUSE the KJV scholars *intended* to use the Masoretic text, *their* readings have *no* significance textually. However, they *do* have substantial value as signs of those who take their readings *from* the KJV -- an egregious error in one source is a pointer that those who later repeat the same error have seen that source. This does not completely eliminate the case where the KJV is used as a purely conventional substitution for what is "recognized" as the same text elsewhere -- but one must then wonder at the integrity of such a usage in biblical translation, where people have been known to make a big deal out of very small points. As I said in this context elsewhere, biblical translation is one field where conventional substitutions are NOT practiced as they are in secular translation, just because of the amibguities that practice would introduce. > May I submit simply the tip of the iceburg, 12 cases: > > 1 - Isa 3:26 = 2 Ne 13:26 > KJV: and she *being* desolate > BoM: and she shall be desolate > (MT Hebrew favors BoM) May I humbly submit, from a *very* limited knowledge of Hebrew, that it is preposterous, in view of Hebrew verb usage, to MAKE any distinction between the forced renderings into English here? *If* (and it's a nice if of typographical history) the rendering of auxiliary verb forms in italics was the common practice in Smith's day for English bibles, then the italics *signal* to anyone reading them a possibility for variation of the English phrasing, specifically in regard to verb forms. Because the KJV translators, terribly concerned for a word-by-word translation, *deliberately* pointed to places where *they* made an arbitrary decision in order to "get" English out of Hebrew. There will be many situations where *conventional* modern translation of a particular Hebrew form will differ from the convention adopted by the KJV scholars (again, their knowledge of Hebrew was limited); given that some arbitrary rendering into English *is* necessary, the acutal choice may be dictated more by the development of English syntax (the obsolesence of the form used in the KJV) than by any reference to an ancient text. I don't mean to be snottily dismissive; the *kind* of study you point to *is* relevant to the issue you raise. But the exerpts you post seem so linguistically unsophisticated that I despair of seeing any usable treatment of the problem.