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Getting The Bible Back To Its Roots

From CNN:

New Pentateuch translation from original Hebrew meanings

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- It is considered the most magisterial opening in English literature: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

But now a major revisionist translation of the Bible would have the cosmos begin with a more conversational clause: "When God began to create heaven and earth ... "

And where the King James translation of Genesis had the earth begin "without form and void," the new translation of the Hebrew Bible says that the earth was "welter and waste."

Biblical scholar Robert Alter's major new English translation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible -- alternately called the Five Books of Moses, the Torah or Pentateuch -- has some critics manning the barricades while others are applauding his efforts to return the work to its original Hebrew meanings and majestic repetitions...

https://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/11/1...reut/index.html

Roots To Bible Getting

Another quotation from the same article:

"Alter said he was especially pleased with restoring all the "ands" back in a passage where Abraham's servant is sent on a mission to find a wife for Isaac and encounters Rebekah:

"And she came down to the spring and filled her jug and came back up. And the servant ran toward her and said, 'Pray, let me sip a bit of water from your jug.' And she said, 'Drink, my lord,' and she hurried and tipped down her jug on one hand and let him drink. And she let him drink his fill and said, 'For your camels, too, I shall draw water until they drink their fill.' And she hurried and emptied her jug into the trough, and she ran again to the well to draw water and drew water for all his camels."



This language closely resembles the structure of the sentences in the Book of Mormon. Some people make fun of all the occurrences of 'and' and 'and it came to pass' in the Book of Mormon, but they are part of the natural language of a truly Semitic document. Thanks for the interesting post!

Edited: howe6079 on 19th Nov, 2004 - 9:23pm