A Bible Translation I Do Not Recommend …
MSH| May 21, 2008 10:52 pm.. And I’m hardly alone.
My thanks to Claude Mariottini’s blog for this. At this link Claude shares his thoughts about something called “The Ancient Roots Translinear Bible.” It’s basically something like the Concordant Bible, which I also cannot recommend. Both have the same kinds of flaws. Thankfully, only the OT exists. Hopefully they’ll stop. You can read Claude’s criticisms, but I have a few thoughts as well.
By way of example, let me first ask you a question: When you, or any other writer or speaker, use a particular word, do you always use that word with the same meaning? I’m betting (because it’s painfully obvious) that the answer is no. If you’ve ever watched Jay Leno display ads with typos or double-meanings, you know how obvious this is. Every time you or I use words like “move”; “right”; or “fly” we don’t have the same meaning in mind for each use.
This is precisely the assumption that guides “The Ancient Roots Translinear Bible.” Using numbers from Strong’s English concordance, this translation aims to use the same English word to translate any given Hebrew every time. Too odd to believe? From the translation website:
“Each English word matches a unique Hebrew root and the Strong’s number 99+% of the time.”
Here’s a picture:
Strong’s # 5315 is the Hebrew word nephesh. I picked this one deliberately because it is one of the most notoriously elastic words in biblical Hebrew. It frequently means “soul” as this translation has it (100% of the time!), but in some places it is actually used of corpses:
Lev. 21:11 - He shall not go in to any dead bodies (nephesh) nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother.
Lev. 22:4 - None of the offspring of Aaron who has a leprous disease or a discharge may eat of the holy things until he is clean. Whoever touches anything that is unclean through contact with the dead (nephesh) or a man who has had an emission of semen…
Now insert “soul” as a translation choice and see how silly it sounds (wonder how you come into contact with a soul). And I thought when you died your soul and body were separated, so how can “soul” be an accurate translation here? It can’t.
