Posted on 06/18/2010 12:16:49 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
NEW YORK, June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ten Commandments don't forbid coveting or killing, claims Dr. Joel M. Hoffman, a noted Bible scholar and linguist who has applied modern translation techniques to the Bible.
Hoffman reports that the commandment commonly quoted as "thou shalt not covet" is more accurately translated as "do not take," and that the commandment applies only to actions, not to states of mind.
"We now know that the Ten Commandments take no position on how you feel, only on what you do," he says.
Hoffman claims that flawed translation techniques led to the familiar but inaccurate rendering of the Hebrew in this case. His evidence comes from how the Hebrew verb in the commandment is used elsewhere in the Bible.
"Perhaps more than any other part of the Bible, the Ten Commandments have shaped Western culture," Hoffman suggests. "The good news is that most of the commandments have been translated accurately. The bad news is that two have not."
According to Hoffman, the other mistranslated commandment is the one that concerns killing. (It's the sixth commandment for most Protestants and Jews, the fifth for Catholics.)
One familiar rendering, "do not kill," is too broad, he says, because the original Hebrew did not prohibit all kinds of killing. So recent high-profile political claims that the Bible categorically forbids killing are in error, says Hoffman.
But the other common variation, "do not murder," is too narrow, because the commandment included not just murder but also the equivalent of manslaughter and other illegal homicide.
The Ten Commandments are not the only parts of the Bible to be misrepresented in translation, Hoffman argues.
The well-known opening of Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd," is misleading, Hoffman says, because shepherds in the Bible were "brave, strong, valiant," and "regal," while the modern shepherd is "a marginalized loner who spends more time with sheep than with people." Hoffman explains that using the word "shepherd" to translate Psalm 23 "suggests all of the wrong images and none of the right ones."
Other translation gaffs include the prophesy of the virgin birth in the book of Isaiah --- Hoffman translates the word there as "woman," not "virgin" --- and the exhortation from Deuteronomy (quoted in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul," which is considered theologically central by Christians and Jews alike.
The words "heart" and "soul" there are mistranslations, Hoffman says. The first Hebrew word refers to all of the intangible aspects of life, including emotions and intellect, while the second connotes the physical flesh, blood, and breath.
Unlike most others who study the Bible, Hoffman's training is in linguistics and translation. "English speakers who read Ovid or Aristotle or Pushkin in translation have a better sense of the original texts than do readers of any existing English translation of the Bible," claims Hoffman, who has taught graduate-level translation courses in both religious and secular university settings.
Most Bible translations are produced by theologians, not translators, and their training doesn't generally include modern translation techniques.
Hoffman published his findings in his latest book, And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning (www.AndGodSaid.com). The book, released in February by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, is already in its second printing.
People in my synagogue's Bible class, for starters.
So if “Thou shalt not covet” really means “Thous halt not take,” how is that distinguished from “Thou shalt not steal?”
Who was it who said, “Ah have lusted in mah heart...”
You should check out Bill Clinton's big Bible with the Nine Commandments.
Art Linkletter once covered the 10 Commandments in his “Kids Say the Darnedest Things” segment. He asked each child for one of the commandments. Says small boy: “Don’t hover over your neighbor’s wife”.
The Christ most decidedly touched upon feelings, as in, "you have heard it said, thou shall not," etc., "but I say to you," thus and such.
In the latter formulations, e.g., with regard to adultery, Jesus was crystal clear about sins of the inner self, the core being, or "cardia," for the human heart.
I am suspicious of all scholars who make grand, sweeping statements about the scriptures, and those who approach the subject without allowing for the possibility of their being inspired by the Living God, Friend of Abraham and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, creator of Heaven and Earth. (Who spoke and not-a-thing became everything.
The ancient Hebrew vocabulary was succinct, consisting of 500 words in the record surviving to the present age, and yes, it's possible there were less shades of meaning, less ambiguity than we are used to in the English-speaking world of the 21st century. But thought proceeded action then as now, and it is out of the heart, Jesus is reliably reported to have said, that proceeds the plethora of human failings, or evils, for the less politically correct.
ML/NJ
That would be Jimmah Cahtah.
Give me a break! (I know something about synagogue Torah classes. Most of us don't speak of the "Bible," BTW.)
ML/NJ
Good old Jimmy Carter. I'm kinda glad our current Prez hasn't been interviewed by Playboy - I fear he might say the same thing, but not be talking about women...
I believe he makes no suggestion to replace “Shepherd” in the 23d Psalm.
“The Lord is my Shepherd” has comforted me for my many years. There’s no better translation that I can think of.
To covet is to commit an action; it suggests dwelling on a desire, inflaming one’s urges.
If you want to find out how many translation errors/mistakes there are just go study Hebrew.
On Alleged Flaws in the Ten Commandments
http://www.tektonics.org/af/bark10c.html
The Ten Recommendations ping!
I think that one was direct at bureaucrats.
It is “do not murder.” Yes, “kill” is too broad.
That warning is specifically regarding the prophecy of Revelation.
The adultery one is that many commit many times. I had a discussion with an acquaintance once and said it was one I definitely had to confess, because there are some guys.... He said, “Women think like that, too?”
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