F.Franz in court - english meaning

mineralogist

(Q): Can you, yourself, translate that into Hebrew?
(A): Which?
(Q): That fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis?
(A): You mean here?
(Q). Yes?
(A): No, I won't attempt to do that.
What Franz "wouldn't attempt" to translate into Hebrew is what many have said as a simple exercise an average first or second-year Hebrew student in seminary would be able to do. (Quelle [16]
question: does it mean he could not translate or would you say he did not want to do?

Legolas

It means he 'couldn't'!

The question was 'Can you'!

What do I win!

mineralogist

In the german wikipedia a JW tries to remove this sentence. I as a german would translate as "couldn't" but wanted to be sure of it. Thanks

Mary

does it mean he could not translate or would you say he did not want to do?

It means he couldn't translate it.

fullofdoubtnow

So the principal "scholar" on the nwt translation committee couldn't manage a simple translation? Makes you think....

Amazing

Hi Mineralogist,

I posted extensively on this topic on the Channel C forum. Fred Franz could read Hebrew and understand what he was reading. However, earlier in the testimony you quote from, (which is the 1954 Walsh trial in Scotland), he stated that he was competant in Hebrew by having a "substantial linguistic apparatus" in the language. In this question, he was asked to translate English back into Hebrew, which is admitedly a more difficult task to do. However, I contended against the other posters, that since he had just finished translating the first few books of the Hebrew scriptures in the first volume of the NWT in 1953, he should have been able to take a stab at it. In that same verse, Fred Franz should have at least been able to take the term Jehovah God and translate that into Elohim (God) Yahweh (Jehovah). Hebrew is read from right to left. The rest of the sentence was simple enough that he could have recognized a couple of small words, like "the" "a" and "and". He then could have stated that translating back into Hebrew is more difficult without his translating tools.

Among those who strongly debated against me was Jim Penton. He felt that those of us who use the Walsh trial testimony to prove that Franz could not speak Hebrew do not understand the processes of translation and difficulties of on the spot demands to translate. In stating this he is partially correct. Jim Penton himself is fluent in English and Spanish, so he understands the problems of back and forth translation. He tried to turn the tables on me by stating that I was ignorant of other languages besides English. I was actually raised in a tri-lingual home of English, French, and German, as well as I grew up in a Spanish speaking school. As a young person, I could say some short sentences in the non-English languages, but I cuold more easily understand what was being said in those languages. I am well aware of translation difficulties, such that some languages have no equivalent word or even concept of that stated in another language. I no longer speak French or German, and can only speak a little Spanish today, but I can still read and understand some French and Spanish. I am not as much of an idiot as Jim Penton likes to make me out to be.

Nonetheless, as I contended on Channel C, the debate was not about me, but about Fred Franz. I still contend that he was not competant enough to properly translate Hebrew into English using a "substantial linguistic aparatus" as promised in Court and in the foreword of the 1953 edition of the NWT.

Jim Whitney

Reefton Jack

Why else would F.W. Franz decline to translate from Hebrew into English - if for no other reason that that he could not?

As for the claim that translating your own native language into another is more difficult than the reverse:

- all I can say is that I use a foreign language in my everyday work; and have at no time found it any more difficult to translate English into Tok Pisin, than I have at translating Tok Pisin into English.

Mi ting ting Frederick Franz, em tok giaman - em tok giaman tru!

If, as some claim, the NWT is a reasonably accurate translation - then F.W. Franz must have got that right in spite of himself.

Jack.

VM44

It sounds like to me that Fred Franz _could_ translate some Biblical Hebrew text into English, and that he could understand some of the Hebrew written on an ancient tablet in a museum he visited.

However, I do not believe he could speak the language, and that he could not translate English into Biblical Hebrew.

I have recently obtained a book, "Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew", by R.K Harrison. Many of the exercises in this book have to do with TRANSLATING ENGLISH PARAGRAPHS INTO BIBLICAL HEBREW!

Thus, I do not see why it would be too much to expect an "expert" to be able to what is expected of a beginning student.

--VM44

VM44

Fred Franz was self taught in Biblical Hebrew. From his testimony in the Walsh case, it appears that he had some gaps and deficiencies in his knowledge and use of the language.

--VM44

F.Franz in court - english meaning

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