by Alleymom 76 Replies latest watchtower bible
I wonder if he's going to say that it is not infinitive because in English it's not translated in the NWT as an infinitive:
Leolaia ---
I suspect you are correct. You posted the above while I was composing the message in which I asked Scholar:
Since you do not read Hebrew, may I ask where you got the idea that mel'oth in Lev. 25:30 is not an infinitive? If you are inferring that on your own by comparing various English translations, you are making a mistake.
Marjorie
Alleymom
Thank you for your pleasant remarks and I hope you are now better. It seems that I have goofed in claiming that meloth in Leviticus 25:30 is not an infinitive but I am correct in saying that the NWT renders these infinitives differently. I base my exegesis on the NWT because I cannot read Hebrew but I do have several Hebrew reference works to hand. Ideally, I should learn Hebrew and read the Hebrew first and then read it into English. That would be ideal but most do not have the time to do this and that is why the NWT was produced so that as a literal translation it has made thos original languages accessible to Bible Students. I am sur that you would agree that is truly a noble aim.
Now you say that you read Hebrew, would you pleas give me your personal opinion as to whether in the case of Jeremiah 29:10 that NWT rendering of 'le' is impossible and that the NWT has violated some Hebrew rule of grammar?
I am not miffed about Leolaia's intervention but surely amused by it. The matter of Jenni is somewhat puzzling because despite my repeated requests no-one has presented in full the original letter to Jenni from it is claimed form Carl Jonsson but the original letter came from Germany. Until that letter is posted I believe that some suspicion about Jenni remains justifiable despite the fact that Jenni is a well recognized scholar. I am somewhat surprised that none has commented on Jenni's original journal article on Jeremiah 3:17 and I would have thought that in any discussion of le affixed to a place that this article is a must read.
I agree with you absolutely that regardles of the meaning of the preposition which was elevated and continuosly objectified that the letter was sent to the early exiles, ten yeras prior to the Fall. However, this does not or prove that the seventy years began then or earlier because nothing is said about its beginning. The focus of this chapter is on the end of the period or its fulfillment not its beginning. This is easily proved by the fact that the beginning of the seventy years is subject to so much dispute including Jonsson.
scholar JW
In addition to Leviticus 8:33; 12:4, 25:30, and Jeremiah 29:10 (displayed above), there are other examples of the word mel'oth as well: 2 Kings 4:6, Ezekiel 5:2, Daniel 10:3.
In all of these examples, mel'oth is a Qal infinitive construct.
(Edited to say --- I tried to upload a jpeg image of the first four verses, and it displayed ok in my reply box but apparently disappeared when I clicked "send". )
Marjorie
It seems that I have goofed in claiming that meloth in Leviticus 25:30 is not an infinitive but I am correct in saying that the NWT renders these infinitives differently. I base my exegesis on the NWT because I cannot read Hebrew but I do have several Hebrew reference works to hand. Ideally, I should learn Hebrew and read the Hebrew first and then read it into English. That would be ideal but most do not have the time to do this and that is why the NWT was produced so that as a literal translation it has made thos original languages accessible to Bible Students.I am sur that you would agree that is truly a noble aim.
Scholar,
Heartfelt congrats for this late admission.
Particularly interesting is the fact that -- on a detail -- you admitted to having been mislead by the NWT. Which means that it has failed in making "thos[e] original languages accessible to" you. Even if the "aim" was "noble" it was not attained and is subsequently not worth any claim.
And this is very natural, because there is no such thing as "exegesis through translation". For no translation in another language can provide an exact reflection of the original -- in meanings and forms. In any academic cursus (at least in France) you cannot be accepted in an exegesis course if you have not first met the language requirements.
Thanks for all of you scholars input! I find this all very interesting!
Tor
1. The fact is that 'le' has a wide semantic range of meaning and it is up to the transalor to decide what English preposition should best represent the particular Hebrew phrase in its semantic context.
That is precisely why you cannot toss aside the grammatical construction the preposition occurs in, as if it doesn't exist. What you can't do is use the "wide semantic range of meaning" to your advantage and willy-willy pick whatever meaning you want, regardless of construction. But by insisting on a static locative rendering inappropriate for the given construction, you are doing just that.
2, Jeremiah 29:10 contains an infinitive translated and recognized by the NWT as 'the fulfilling of' and is a semantic unit.
The infinitive is the same as in Leviticus 25:20. Yet you refuse to see the parallelism (On edit: Edited to acknowledge scholar's admission of error. Now that he recognizes that both are qal infinitive constructs, what does he say about the parallelism between the two?).
3. Jenni and his supporters have not quoted any published grammatical rule that dogmatically nullifies a locative meaning 'at' or 'to' in this example.
Again you operate under an inappropriate burden of proof. One could say that until one completely nullifies any possibility that Santa Claus exists, we must concede that he may well exist and one could even argue and accept that he does exist. It's not much different from arguing and endorsing the NWT rendering as the correct one. The evidence that Narkissos, Jenni, and I have presented shows that it is exceedingly unlikely that the preposition is a static locative in Jeremiah 29:10. Even without paying attention to the kind of construction involved, it is clear that the static locative usage is quite rare in Hebrew (whereas directional locatives are not); these are instead expressed with be- or without an overt preposition. Taking into account the specific data from the verse itself, the static locative rendering raises a whole host of problems (not least the statistical patterns in le usage that Jenni has reported, which is pretty much decisive), whereas the non-locative rendering perfectly accounts for the grammatical construction and properties of the verse. The job of the linguist or philologist is to determine the most probable sense of a given word or phrase, not to insist on the least probable sense if the most probable one cannot be established with 100% certainty. You remind me of Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber when the girl he likes tells him that his chances with her are "more like one in a million," and he says, "So you're telling me there's a chance".
4, In Jeremiah 3:17; 29:10; 51:49 these texts appear with le before a place and are translated by the NWT by the English locative 'at'. These examples appear as a dative which was alocative case and thus these phrases must be locative.
The slipperiness in your thought amazes me. You again have no clue what dative case expresses, despite my clear delineation of it in this thread (and are you talking about dative in Greek or dative senses in Hebrew?); a static locative sense of "at" is not what "must" be conveyed through the dative (which instead involves the very senses you are denying, e.g. "to, for, with respect to, belonging to, etc."). And you exhibit fallacious reasoning by supposing that "le before a place" must involve static locatives. This omits all the directional locatives (going "to Babylon") and all the non-locative uses of le, such as in Jeremiah 51:49 or in these texts:
"Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city (h-mlk l-'yr) of Sepharvaim" (2 Kings 19:13).
"Now after this he built the outer wall of the city of David (l-'yr dwyd)" (2 Chronicles 33:14).
"I did not tell anyone what my God was putting into my mind to do for Jerusalem (l-yrwslm)" (Nehemiah 2:12).
"It is I who says of Jerusalem (l-yrwslm), 'She shall be inhabited!' And of the cities of Judah (l-'ry yhwdh), 'They shall be built' " (Isaiah 44:26).
"The remainder, 5,000 cubits in width and 25,000 in length, shall be for common use for the city (l-'yr), for dwellings (l-mwshb) and for open spaces (l-mtsrs)" (Ezekiel 48:15)
"I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem (l-yrwshlm) and Zion" (Zechariah 1:14).
Moreover, "Babylon" is not just a place name but a political entity, a kingdom.
5. It is impossible to understand that if a place has a prepostion which can have a locative meaning that in the majority of instances that that locative cannot be conveyed by the Engkish locative 'at' to convey the natural meaning.
This is not even coherent...I can only guess what you are trying to say. The vast majority of locative instances of le with places is with a directional meaning, not a static locative meaning. You again seem to be confusing the two.
6. No one yet has stepped forward with the original query from Jenni in full and no one has quoted from any Hebrew grammar a rule that would render the impossibility of 'at' in the forementioned three examples.
Ask Jonsson for his original query, if you need it so badly. But this should not substitute for actually coming to grips with what Jenni actually has to say. On your insistance for a rule rendering the NWT translation impossible, see my comment above for #3.
7. The textual tradition beginning with the LXX demonstrates that the dative used in the above text is locative as it is understood by the conventions of Greek grammar.
Again you demonstrate your inability learn from your errors. The dative used in the LXX (without a preposition en) cannot be interpreted as a local static locative and means exactly what you DON'T want le to mean: "to for, with respect to, belonging to", etc. Do you have any grasp of the "conventions of Greek grammar," such as delineated in my post #4256 regarding the senses of the Greek dative?
8.Jenni published his research on lamedh in 2000 so what were the grammatical conventions that existed prior to that time that would rule out the possibibility of rendering le as locative in the above examples.
I think you need only to look at how most translations have handled the verse to know that scholars have long understood that this verse fits with the usual dative senses of lamed (and thus variously translate as "70 years for Babylon", "Babylon's 70 years", "70 years of Babylon" etc.) and does not constitute an static locative exception.
Are then to argue that it is only now with Jenni's canon that scholars can properly transate le in the Jeremianic examples.
LMAO!!
leolaia: Moreover, "Babylon" is not just a place name but a political entity, a kingdom.
A key point. Just from the standpoint of deductive reasoning, without knowing Hebrew, it makes sense that there was no intent to convey static-locative.
The exiled Jews were notified of their liberation throughout the entire Kingdom, not just the city of Babylon. The text couldn't have referred to a locale that was separate from Judea and Israel, as Judea and Israel were part of the Kingdom of Babylon/Persia throughout the exile. (2 Chronicles 36:22-23)
Guess I'm just showing my lack of intellectual integrity again.
Respectfully,
OldSoul
It seems that I have goofed in claiming that meloth in Leviticus 25:30 is not an infinitive but I am correct in saying that the NWT renders these infinitives differently. I base my exegesis on the NWT because I cannot read Hebrew but I do have several Hebrew reference works to hand. Ideally, I should learn Hebrew and read the Hebrew first and then read it into English. That would be ideal but most do not have the time to do this and that is why the NWT was produced so that as a literal translation it has made thos original languages accessible to Bible Students. I am sur that you would agree that is truly a noble aim.
Neil --
But as this incident has shown, one can't hope to do detailed textual or linguistic analysis by relying on an English translation. It's simply not possible to look at an English translation, no matter how literal it may be, and say with certainty that the Hebrew word must be such-and-such a form.
What perplexes me is that you say you own several Hebrew reference works, but you apparently did not consult any of them when you made the claim that mel'oth in Lev. 25:30 was not an infinitive. Even after you were challenged on your claim, you apparently did not consult a parsing guide, because you continued to insist that Lev. 25:30 was not an infinitve.
would you pleas give me your personal opinion as to whether in the case of Jeremiah 29:10 that NWT rendering of 'le' is impossible and that the NWT has violated some Hebrew rule of grammar?
I read Hebrew and studied it at the university level (many years ago), but I am not a Hebrew scholar. Why would you value my opinion on this when you can consult the opinion of real experts in the field? However, since you did ask, my opinion is that the ordinary and expected way to say "in" Babylon would be to use the Hebrew preposition "beth" rather than the preposition "lamed". It is very, very common in Biblical Hebrew to see the expression "b + placename".
To me the important point is that as a Christian I have faith that Jesus loves me and died for me. I do not think that my eternal salvation depends upon whether the Hebrew preposition lamed in Jeremiah 29:10 means "in + placename" or "for + placename".
I am not miffed about Leolaia's intervention but surely amused by it. The matter of Jenni is somewhat puzzling because despite my repeated requests no-one has presented in full the original letter to Jenni from it is claimed form Carl Jonsson but the original letter came from Germany. Until that letter is posted I believe that some suspicion about Jenni remains justifiable despite the fact that Jenni is a well recognized scholar. I am somewhat surprised that none has commented on Jenni's original journal article on Jeremiah 3:17 and I would have thought that in any discussion of le affixed to a place that this article is a must read.
I don't understand this. Why do you think that anyone here would have a copy of the original correspondence between Carl Jonsson and Dr. Jenni? And what difference does it make, since you wrote to him yourself and he told you the same thing?
As to the German journal article on Jeremiah 3:17 which Dr. Jenni referenced in his reply to you, I have put in an interlibrary loan request for it. But, as my husband asked me, do you think Dr. Jenni would have referenced the article if it did NOT support what he told you in his letter? He told you that Jeremiah 29:10 means "for Babylon" and he cited his earlier article as giving additional support.
And I still don't understand how you could say: "Until that letter is posted I believe that some suspicion about Jenni remains justifiable despite the fact that Jenni is a well recognized scholar." What exactly is it that you suspect Dr. Jenni of doing wrong? And if you don't trust his scholarship or his integrity why do you think it is important to look at his earlier article? Why would that article be any more trustworthy in your eyes than Dr. Jenni's recent book on lamed, which represents a lifetime of learning?
I agree with you absolutely that regardles of the meaning of the preposition which was elevated and continuosly objectified that the letter was sent to the early exiles, ten yeras prior to the Fall. However, this does not or prove that the seventy years began then or earlier because nothing is said about its beginning. The focus of this chapter is on the end of the period or its fulfillment not its beginning. This is easily proved by the fact that the beginning of the seventy years is subject to so much dispute including Jonsson.
Since the letter was sent to the exiles who were already in Babylon, it must apply to them, not to the exiles-of-the-future who were still in Jerusalem. The Hebrew word mel'oth is used, from the root ML' meaning "to fill up" and the promise is clearly made to the exiles who were already there:
"For thus says the Lord, 'When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit YOU and fulfill My good word to YOU, to bring YOU back to this place.' "
The verse says YOU three times. And it says "seventy years" even though, by your reckoning, it would be at least eighty years that the exiles were "in Babylon".
Sincerely,
Marjorie
Marjorie,
Thank you for starting this very important thread.
You seem genuinely puzzled at certain reactions that Scholar has shown in dealing with the issues on this thread. I believe that you have never been a Jehovah's Witness and this is possibly the reason why you find it so hard to comprehend why a grown man would embarrass himself intellectually quite so completely as Scholar, and yet still persist in claiming some sort of theological high-ground over this matter.
I am quite sure that Scholar is aware at a certain level that he is incorrect in his understanding of this argument but cognitive dissonance as many of us who once walked in Scholar's shoes well knows, muddles scholarship with issues of loyalty and truth with a fear of a wasted life. It is impossible to become angry with the man, as he is what we all once were.
Quite simply Marjorie, you are not discussing this issue with a man, you are discussing it with an agenda who happens to have a man attached to it.
Best regards - HS
Another important datum is the semantics of the verb ml' "fulfill, complete". In the OT, it often occurs with a stated time period (DURATION) as its theme/patient (i.e. the entity that is fulfilled) which has been allotted to someone or experienced by someone. It may be an interval which one has to do something or which must transpire until something can be done. It also occurs in an expression ("fulfilling one's days") which refers to living out one's life -- a lifetime which by definition represents an individual's allotment of life from God (cf. Job 14:5: "His days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and his limits you have set so that he cannot pass"). Here are some good examples of this:
"Then Jacob said to Laban, 'Give me my wife, for my days are completed (ml'w ymy), that I may go in to her' " (Genesis 29:21).
"Complete the week of this one (ml' shb' z't), and we will give you the other also for the service which you shall serve with me for another seven years" (Genesis 29:27).
"There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will "There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days ('t-mspr ymyk 'ml')" (Exodus 23:26).
"You shall not go outside the doorway of the tent of meeting for seven days, until the day that the period of your ordination is fulfilled (ywm ml't ymy ml'ykm); for he will ordain you through seven days" (Leviticus 8:33).
"She shall not touch any consecrated thing, nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed ('d-ml't ymy thrh)" (Leviticus 12:4).
"He shall be holy until the days are fulfilled ('d-ml't h-ymm) for which he separated himself to Yahweh ('shr-ytsyr l-yhwh); he shall let the locks of hair on his head grow long" (Numbers 6:5).
"Now this is the law of the Nazirite when the days of his separation are fulfilled (ml't ymy ntsrw), he shall bring the offering to the doorway of the tent of meeting" (Numbers 6:13).
"When your days are complete (ky yml'w ymyk), and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendent after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom" (2 Samuel 7:12).
"No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not complete his days" (l'-yml' 't-ymym)" (Isaiah 65:20).
In all these instances of ml' + TIME UNIT, the duration that is fulfilled has been appointed or allotted to some person or entity: the "days" in Genesis 29:21 are those belonging to Jacob, the "number of days" fulfilled in Exodus 23:26, 2 Samuel 7:12 are those of Israel, the "days" of Leviticus 8:33, 12:4 are those experienced by those being consecrated or purified, the days of Numbers 6:5, 13 that are to be fulfilled are those of the Nazirites, and the "days" of Isaiah 65:20 are those of a hypothetical "old man". This entity is variously expressed through a pronominal suffix (e.g. -y in Genesis 29:21, -k in Exodus 23:26, 2 Samuel 7:12, -w in Numbers 6:13), a demonstrative pronoun z't "this one" in Genesis 29:27, or stated elsewhere in the sentence as in Isaiah 65:20. Jeremiah 29:10 similarly refers to a completion or fulfilling of a TIME UNIT (duration), and the l-bbl "to/for Babylon" would fit with these above examples by expressing the entity which experiences the duration, or to whom the duration has been allotted. These would be 70 years allotted to Babylon, or 70 years possessed by Babylon or experienced by Babylon, and the lamed-phrase fills the X slot of the FULFILL X's TIME UNIT pattern. Indicating the X is by no means obligatory (witness 2 Chronicles 36:21, which must look to the previous sentence for an antecedent for X, namely "land"), yet it does occur most of the time, and thus we would be justified in anticipating its presence in Jeremiah 29:10. Treating the l-bbl as locating an event spatially would make 29:10 into an anomaly to this pattern, whereas treating it as indicating the entity that has been allotted the 70 years would make it fall right into this well-attested pattern.
