sotto voce

Yes, it could be. The hard thing about that, of course, is proving mistranslation. As we have learned here.

And which, despite efforts strenuous and ingenious, has never been done. Yet.

But you never know, maybe, despite 2000 years of the most clever forensic minds trying to track down mistranslation, everyone has missed something.

semiopen

In this case I got confused after the third post here, so I stopped following that part of the discussion.

My feeling was that -

Where the second (capital H) He is obviously God and the first is Abram.

It turns out that there is a Jewish discussion of this:

WHO COUNTED RIGHTEOUSNESS TO WHOM?

However, Klein goes on to point out

I think this article states the issues pretty clearly. The translation given above seems to be the correct one and the theological issues have to be worked out.

As Bart Simpson said in Bart the Genius

The question about Xian mistranslation or misanalysis is interesting. It seems many posters here attribute it to LXX. Seems to me that excuse might have worked 1900 years ago or so, but I really don't understand the subject.

Onias

A note from your article states:
"2. It should be noted that in the original Hebrew, ve-he’emin ba-adonai va-yahshevehah lo
tzedakah, no equivalent of the pronoun "he" actually appears; there are merely two verbs in the
masculine singular form. However, the pronoun "him [lo]" does appear."

As I understand it, there is only one 'he' in the Hebrew text.

Could you provide a word-for-word translation with the implied words in brackets?

Thanks!

Onias

If there is only one 'he' in the original Hebrew, wouldn't the translation be:

And he believed in the LORD and counted it to him for righteousness.

Onias

Note also that Nehemiah's praise of God for his righteousness in fulfilling the promises made to Abram affirm a translation of Gen 15:6 that shows Abram praising the righteousness of God rather than God praising Abram for trusting in God's promises.

Neh 9:7 Thou [art] the LORD the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham;


Neh 9:8 And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give [it, I say], to his seed, and hast performed thy words; for thou [art] righteous:

semiopen

Shesh knows Hebrew, which is more than I can say for myself, but allow me to try.

http://biblos.com/genesis/15-6.htm

Shows the Biblos' opinion. Note they don't don't translate לּ֖וֹ (lamed vav). Lamed Aleph (pronounced Low) means no, lamed vav is also pronounced Low and means "to him." I think the scribes fucked up these words a lot which is hard to imagine because it's only two letters.

My THE SCHOTTENSTEIN EDITION INTERLINEAR CHUMASH VOLUME 1: BEREISHIS / GENESIS goes

וְהֶאֱמִ֖ן - and he trusted
בַּֽיהוָ֑ה - in YHWH
וַיַּחְשְׁבֶ֥הָ - and He reckoned it
לּ֖וֹ - to him
צְדָקָֽה - as righteousness

Onias

Thanks, but there is only one 'he' in this verse. So I will continue to ask others.
Best,
Onias

Onias

Your biblios site appears to say the only actual words are

"believed the Lord reckoned righteousness"

Apparently, the other words in the 'full' translation are implied and really should be in brackets, IMO/

Sheshbazzar

The first 'he' in Gen 15:6 should have been set in brackets, as it is not part of the actual Hebrew text and was only supplied to assist with English syntax.

The Hebrew text of this verse properly contains only ONE 'he' and that is in the construct ויחשבה where the י 'Yod' (the second letter from the right) is the masculine singular indicator translatable as 'he'.
This was already pointed out back in post #10.

Here again is Gen 15:6 in a word-for-word transliteration and translation with any implied words placed within brackets.

והאמן ביהוה ויחשבה לו צדקה׃

6. Veh'heh'amin - ba' Yahweh - veh'yah'kah'sheve'ha - leh'O - tz'edakah:

"And the [he] believed - in Yahweh - and he imputed it - to Him - [for] rightiousness:"


Actually this verse, when read -in context- does not even require that first 'he' that appears within our English translations, because the referent clearly identified in 15:4-5 is is that 'he' identified as being Abraham.

So lets reassemble these verses of Genesis -in their context- in plain English.
A little more technical information. In the construct והאמן 'Veh'heh'amin' the ה 'heh' serves as the direct object indicator which in this usage would refer back to that final 'him' of Gen 15:5. as the direct object of the statement.

Note to semiopen. You may note that I distinctly transliterated לו as leh'-O 'to-Him' as this prevents any confusion with the common 'low' having the meaning 'not'.

In as much as it is a well established fact that I despise Christianity, I would in no way attempt to deliberately render this verse in a manner favorable to Christian claims, if I found it any way possible to do otherwise.

semiopen

That seems to be reading more into the Nehemiah than is actually there.

Allow me to give thee a clearer translation.

I think you are saying that because of word צַדִּ֖יק - Righteous is applied to God, this means that the verse is related to Gen 15:6 which applies צדקה righteous to Abram (or whoever). That is pretty shaky.