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.
That is a totally accurate statement. Note that he says "in his heart" and does not say "in reality" or "is a sin". He warns us of the consequences of thinking something as the first step to actually doing something.
There are also plenty of places in the bible where God commands his people to kill.
The prohibition on murder is the way I understood, though I am no Hebrew scholar and did not stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. I did, however, graduate from a Christian College with such scholars as room mates and resources. The use of covet (unbalanced desire) was also my understanding. Wanting something like what your neighbor has, and willingness to earn it is fine. Wanting to tax it, err steal it, from your neighbor is not.
But everyone knows that the Bible was written in Old English. How could there possibly be translation problems./sarcasm
The first place that is in Deuteronomy.
Do we throw out every thing past that?
Wow. A woman would conceive and have a child? Amazing prophesy.
Which translation are you quoting?
Ping.
Click here and scroll down to the 10th commandment on "coveting" and see why women weren't mentioned:
On Alleged Flaws in the Ten Commandments
http://www.tektonics.org/af/bark10c.html
My wife brought the book home last week from the library. He's got other goodies in there about how the "virgin birth" wasn't really virgin because the word could refer to any young girl. I couldn't take him seriously after that.
Some of it is good, but most of it is just populist pablum with a Jewish apologetic barely concealed in the editorializing. I have nothing against Jewish apologetics and think that all Christians should be ready and able to respond to any challenges to the truth of the gospel from any source, but I generally prefer the challenges to be out in the open rather than hidden behind a veil of faux reasonableness.
I guess 100% of the male population is damned. No overt act no crime, except for scattering ones seed while thinking about the possibilities late at night hunkered beneath the sheets.
After re-reading your quote I started to laugh because you actually had a typo in it. I would love to have a plaque from G-d. I don't however wish to receive a plague. That single typo proves how easy it is for a translation to go astray.
I think every preacher we have ever had, has said it means not to murder which would also include any illegal or immoral killing. I suspect the English or whoever the King James Version was translated for, also understood it didn’t mean killing in self defense etc. Some things are just obvious.
Not sure about the other one. My Grandfather was an ordained minister and something unusual in his day, he was trained at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary way back in the early 1900s. He also could translate several languages.
I always remember him saying the King James Version was an excellent translation.
“Auto de Fe? What’s an Auto de Fe?”
Actually the bad news is we can not keep them... the GOOD NEWS is that Jesus kept them for us..
Good question ..
Even “wise men” can be wrong sometimes
No. 100% of all human beings are worthy of death. There is only one sinless person, and that is Christ. He has taken the "hit" for all of us. If some want to reject it, that's their business.
“Even wishing somebody dead is just as bad as actually spilling their guts.”
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Well, if I am to be the object of their malice I greatly prefer the former over the latter. I suspect that you would too.
Even wishing somebody dead is just as bad as actually spilling their guts.really? really?
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