Scholar to Alleymom:
Your personal translation of Jeremiah 29:10 is important becsause you read and understand Hebrew and you do not have to be a scholar to do this. The matter at hand should be rather simple because a little preposition is involve and you simply have to carry that little meaning into English. I have checked many commentaries on this passage and not one commentator has raised the matter of any exegetical difficulty. So , it should be a straight forward transaltion but you to be either incapable or unwilling to do this. I suspect with all the linguistics posted on this subject and Jenni's opinions that this is a very complex linguistic matter and that the NWT is fully correct.
Neil ---
Incapable or unwilling? I gave you my opinion the other night.
In my message #423 I said:
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".
You want Jeremiah 29:10 to mean:
"Jerusalem will be destroyed in about ten years. And seventy years after Jerusalem has been destroyed, when seventy years of exile have been completed for the exiles-to-come, who are now still in Jerusalem but who will join you at Babylon after Jerusalem has been destroyed, then I will visit you (and the exiles who will join you) and fulfill My good word to you (and to the exiles of the future), to bring you (and the exiles of the future) back to this place."
But that's not what the Hebrew text says.
It doesn't say anything at all about Jerusalem being destroyed.
You want it to say "at Babylon" so as to construe the verse as speaking about the time the exiles spend in captivity in Babylon. But you ignore the fact that the letter is being written to the thousands of people (including the king, the king's mother, the nobles, the craftsmen, etc.) who are already there, along with the sacred vessels which have been taken from the temple. For all of these thousands of people, who would surely seem to count as the most important of the exiles, the period of captivity is not going to be 70 years, but roughly 80 years. So by insisting on "at Babylon," you are distorting the plain meaning of the letter, which was a promise to the exiles who were already there.
I said:
the ordinary and expected way to say "in" Babylon would be to use the Hebrew preposition "beth" rather than the preposition "lamed".
If you read Hebrew, you would find that this is a very, very common expression. The preposition b + placename means "in" or "at" a place. But the text does not have b + placename, it has verb [mel'oth - qal infinitve construct] + l + placename. Your own source, Jack Lundbom, says the 70 years refers to Babylon's tenure as a world power.
You said:
I have checked many commentaries on this passage and not one commentator has raised the matter of any exegetical difficulty.
Well, Neil, doesn't that tell you something? Commentators love to discuss the difficult passages, those which are notorious "cruxes". The fact that you have checked "many" commentaries and "not one commentator" has said there is "any exegtical difficulty" or disagreement means that your suspicion is incorrect:
"I suspect with all the linguistics posted on this subject and Jenni's opinions that this is a very complex linguistic matter ..."
It's not a complex linguistic matter at all. The only reason that people here have been posting details of Hebrew grammar is because you keep insisting that all of the modern translations and all of the scholars and commentators are wrong.
That you would continue to say this when you have now heard from the man who is the world's foremost authority on the use of the Hebrew preposition (and when you yourself admit that after consulting many commentaries you have not even come across a hint of exegetical difficulty in the verse), seems to indicate that your adherence to the NWT is fideistic and not based on scholarly grounds.
Marjorie
