Sven

Yup. I knew spin as a reasonable person up to now who knows how to argue. This thread is simply hilarious. So much bickering over two letters, while an interesting question simply got buried under irrelevant snide remarks.

spin

Thanks for the reductionism. Of course you can make most things absurd through such reduction. Language when specifically used for the purpose can be highly manipulative. It should be plain to any freethinking [in the non-religious sense] person that calling the Hebrew literature (which they refer to as the Tanakh) something like the "old testament" is inflammatory to Jews from whose culture the literature is derived. Much of the scholarly world has come to grips with this problem.


spin

Epinoia

I need a couple points of clarification:

1) Should it properly be called Torah/Tanakh (TT for short)? Or does Tanakh include Torah? Does Tanakh also include what is known as the Jewish apocrypha, some of which is in the Catholic OT?

2) Would Hebrew Bible be technically correct in referring to that which the Xtian Bible calls the "Old Testament"? I ask because I thought this "OT" (mislabeled as it may be) originated from a badly edited Greek version (what is that again?) of the Hebrew Bible.

If in fact Torah/Tanakh or Tanakh and/or Hebrew Bible refer to a different thing than is represented in the Xtian "OT," that would be an argument for making the "OT" distinction. But I'm not sure if such is the case, so hence the questions above.

rlogan

Thank you. (You used HB)

greyline

Because I'm fed up with the spankings. There's a time and a place for everything.

Magdlyn

Yes, as the prev poster just said. That is the T in Tanakh.

No.

They are similar. First of all, Tanakh is in Hebrew. So you lose a lot when translating it into another modern language. Secondly, some of the books are in a different order and categorized slightly differently.

The Septuagint. But it wouldn't have been called the OT in 300 BCE b/c the "new" one hadn't been written yet.

Epinoia

If the Xtian OT is the same as the HB/T, then for purposes of referral, "HB/T" could substitute. However, this reference would not be immediately clear to many readers, particularly casual Christian types new to higher criticism. Clarifying the reference with "HB/T (i.e. Xtian OT)" works but also fails as the type of quick abbreviation that is so useful around here.

When I was in Germany, I bought one of the Green Mile novellas for the train. Having just read it in English, I was able to follow the deutsch easily, to the point that I detected at least one translation error (it was "weeks" in German, "months" in English, I believe). Despite the different languages and the one content error, I would say these books were the same thing, different translations.

Just because translation occurred doesn't make one book different enough from the next to be called something else. What does matter, though, are the number and type of inaccuracies inserted during the process.Whether wording was deliberately added or omitted, or passages toned down and/or exaggerated is especially relevant. For these reasons, KJV =! NIV or NRSV, which themselves are quite distinct from the Living Bible and, particularly the egregious Schoenfeld Reference Bible.

Which books, and in what order? The order could arguably be an issue. One reason given for noninclusion of Enoch in the XTian OT is that the book might have to come before Genesis. (I'm not saying the History Channel is right, I'm just repeating what they said.) Also, what do you mean by "categorized slightly differently"?
When I brought up Enoch, I remembered the fact that his book's in some Bibles (both Jew and Xtian) and not in others. It's probably a good idea to verify that we are in fact talking the same books in the HB/T as in Xtian-OT. Would you or anyone with a HB/T mind listing the books it contains? I can do the same for Xtian-OT in either RSV, KJV or Living Bible if anyone wants.

Magdlyn

I think quite a few folks here at least on this forum are quite familiar with the terms HB or Tanakh.


Keep in mind I am not Jewish but your example is not particularly relevant. First of all, English and German are both modern languages and share roots. Hebrew is an ancient language and you miss out on the puns and poetry, idioms and gematria when it is translated.[/quote]


To Jews, it does. At least to the Orthodox ones I have spoken to.

Right.

http://www.jewfaq.org/torah.htm



The Tonakh is divided into the Torah (law), Prophets and Writings. A few of the books Xtians consider Prophets and not included in this category by Jews. There might be other discrepancies as well.

Epinoia

Me too. But for someone just getting into biblical textual criticism, the terms "HB" and "Tanakh" might very possibly not see as obvious as "OT," particularly if he's coming from a casual Christian viewpoint. Enough do to warrant concern.


Very true. The fact that English and Deutsch are related, and that "The Green Mile, Part 4" is a really short book with elementary ideas, heighten confidence that "The Green Mile, Part 4" = "The Green Mile, Part 4" in either English or German. Hebrew is as you said linguistically unrelated, and as such may be subject to faulty translation. Even more problematic, however, is that the the Septuigant became the OT, and the Sep itself may be not just a faulty translation but, it has been argued, a corrupt one. To the extent that it is, this would provide the strongest argument that T/HB =! OT.

I'm reading that they would probably agree that T/HB=OT, which would indeed support that argument. But if T/HB=OT, that then implies the Septuigant that made the OT was not corrupt, or at least that if it was, it didn't matter. I'm not overly familiar with the issues around the Septuigant. If people here are, can they briefly state?

If, especially, the Septuigant is merely translation of T/HB, that's the strongest argument yet for calling OT by T/HB. Sensitivity has nothing to do with it; that just makes sense. If, however, the Septuigant was corrupted to the point where it merely resembled HB, the OT doesn't deserve to be called HB or T. Maybe something else, but not T/HB.

Magdlyn

Not sure why you are going on about the Septuagint. Modern Bibles reflect the Hebrew language of the Tanakh.

IIRC, when Jerome translated the Greek HB into Latin, he also used the original Hebrew when he had it.