over in the
basic reading of genesis 1:1 thread, ICANT has made the following assertion numerous times:
ICANT writes:
Moses did not know anything about the method we have decided he was writing the text in. (
Message 41)
ICANT writes:
When I meet Moses I will ask him what he meant when he wrote Genesis 1:1. (
Message 80)
ICANT writes:
I was under the impression that preposition was an English word. English did not exist in Moses lifetime. So how would he have any knowledge of a preposition? (
Message 115)
ICANT writes:
I am quite sure Moses did not know what an infinitive was as they used prefixes and suffixes to make different words out of the simple words. (
Message 159)
now, these are mostly nonsense, of course. he doesn't seem to understand that other languages have grammatical rules also, and that many of the functions described in english grammar are also seen in other languages, and whether or not an author understood grammar isn't particularly relevant when all you're looking at is how they
used grammar. the proof is on the page, so to speak.
further, i have replied to him numerous times to this effect, and stated repeatedly that the
authorship of the torah is not the topic, and really should have no bearing on
what the torah actually says. i think that's fairly common sense. this one is particularly and painfully ironic, as he is essentially assuming mosaic authorship, and using his traditions to "read moses mind" about what moses did or did not know:
ICANT writes:
Moses wrote according to what he had learned in the house of Pharoah being raised as the son of his daughter.
He also learned from his mother.
Now some 3500 years after he wrote the Torah we are trying to figure out what he wrote in Hebrew according to the rules of our language.
We don't have a book describing how Moses wrote handed down from his days on earth.
We do know the Ancient Hebrew is composed of around 1100 words which are modified by prefixes and suffixes creating new words. We have applied our termanology to what has been discovered. Giving our meanings to the words Moses used. And applying the rules we choose to apply to his writings.
You may be a mind reader and can read Moses mind even though he has been dead a long time.
I can not read his mind or think his thoughts. All I can do is take what he wrote down and try to understand what he said.
(
Message 170)
of course, i pointed out the hilarity to him. but this one raises a potentially legitimate question:
ICANT writes:
Moses lived most of his life in a tent. So what word do you think he would have used in his writing for the covering of the Earth that was translated firmament?
Do you think he would have described it as a hammered out dome or a streached out sheet, or canvas to hold back the water? This is just food for thought. (
Message 180)
now, i made the obvious lexical reply: nearly every time the word is used in the bible, other than in reference to the heavens, it describes either literal metalwork, the action of pounding metal, or dispersal. and the other obvious reply: though
"moses" never referred to the heavens as a tent,
isaiah did. and isaiah didn't live in a tent.
but the question is this: can assumptions or traditions be validly used as input in a translation? if so, how? and when? can we find some examples of acceptable and unacceptable uses?
i'd also like to state that, just like the other thread, this thread is not about
whether moses wrote the torah. there are multiple threads on that topic, and will be many more. the thread is asking whether traditions regarding authorship, or lets say even known facts, should have an influence on how a translation is done,
for any document.
אָרַח
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