I have had quite a bit of feedback on the question of how to translated the very first verse of the Hebrew Bible–Genesis 1:1. It is so familiar to English ears the world over, in its traditional rendering, that any variation seems to immediately raise a flag with people. The Transparent English Bible has:
Chapter 1:1 At the first of (bereshit) ELOHIM creating the skies and the land—

The traditional translation, known and loved by so many, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” ignores an important grammatical element in Hebrew. The first word is in a special grammatical form in Hebrew called the construct. This means it implies a prepositional phrase in relation to what follows. The precise phrase occurs in Jeremiah. 26:1: At the first of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, came this word from Jehovah, saying…

The meaning here is clear and the two verses are quite parallel. The TEB has opted for a fairly literal reading, but one could actually even be more literal since the feminine form of the world “first” comes from the Hebrew word Rosh or “head.” So one might translate the phrase: “At the head of…” Either way, the meaning is clear. When Elohim began to create the skies and the land–this was the state of things, namely “desolation and emptiness.” The whole point of the verse is not to tell us about when or how things began, but rather, what was the state of the “land and skies” when God began to create or bring order and form to the chaos.

Also, even though the definite article is not present in the first word, bereshit, we have added “the” in lower italics, because the subject of this preposition, namely “God” or ELOHIM, justifies the “definite” sense here. We could have just as easily said “When ELOHIM began to create the skies and the land,” as many other modern translations have done, but thought it better to be as “transparent” with the original words as possible. Also, there is a tiny Hebrew word before the object of the verbal phrase: ’et, that we have left untranslated. This is not because we are trying to remove any words from the original, but this, in Classical (and even Modern) Hebrew, is a sign of a Direct Object to follow, and in this form is simply not translated. It functions as a kind of signal for what follows. This first verse, if read as we have it, finally connects with verse 3—when God says, “Let there be light.” If you read it aloud as we have it, from verse one through verse 3, you will see the idea. Verse two is actually describing the “state of things” when God began, but before the declaration, “Let there be light.” It is a very powerful and moving opening to the first verses of the Bible.

One recent Blog reviewer of the Transparent English Bible translation sample was lamenting that it was choppy and difficult to read, especially aloud. Here are his comments:

…if an important quality of a good English translation involves being able to be read aloud, then this may be the TEB’s Achilles heel. Scripture has only been the object of personal, silent reading in relatively recent times. In synagogue and church the Bible has always been read aloud, reflecting the reality of our largely illiterate forebears. Arguably these books were written to be read aloud rather than pored over by individuals – that’s how it was supposed to happen when they were first set down. By this criteria TEB looks shaky. Try rolling this text off the tongue:

These are the bringings-forth of the skies and the land in their being created. In the day of the making of YHVH ELOHIM, land and skies, and no shrub of the field was before that on the land, and no plant of the field had before that sprouted – for YHVH ELOHIM had not made rain on the land, and there was no soil-man to service the soil (2: 4-5)

This may be true to the Hebrew, but it’s not the way lucid English works.

I found this comment particularly interesting since I had just written in my previous post that one of the most valued features of the TEB is in fact its unusual cadence and rhythm, and that one could only appreciate this by reading it aloud! Even though the example this reviewer chose is one place where they Hebrew is actually “run on” making it more difficult to follow, I maintain it can indeed be read aloud, even in the case of a more difficult example like this, with a resulting beauty and power that is unavailable in “lucid English.” The rhythm of the TEB is often staccato and choppy, awkward rather than smooth, with exclamations and disjunctives. One might call it primitive but that assumes that lucid, polished English is the best way to communicate. In fact, part of the choppiness comes from the underlying “oral” nature of the original. I challenge readers to give it a try. One might stumble at first, but it is a stumbling that comes from unfamiliarity. One has to actually “warm up” to the process. I have tried it in classes and in groups and the effect has been quite amazing. Another striking feature of the original Hebrew, brought out consistently in the TEB, are the plays on words and colorful idioms, often completely missing in most standard English translations. These work well when read aloud. They seem to reflect a flavor of the original, much like listening to different regional styles of English can convey a certain flavor. Think of what Mark Twain tried to pick up on with Huck Finn or Faulkner with his various southern characters. Just as an example, try reading aloud the cry of Cain over his pronounced exile:

And Cain said toward YHVH, “Large is my crookedness  from  being lifted.  Look!—you have driven me out, today, from upon the face of the soil, and from your face I will be hidden, and I will be one moving to-and-fro, and one fluttering in the land, and it will be—everyone finding me will kill me.

Nonsense is nonsense and there are places in the Hebrew Bible where we must attempt a bit of smoothing out, or where an idiom does not come over in English, so we use a footnote to explain the more “literal, or even places where one has no idea what the original means. Still, our method and approach with the TEB is to work with and reflect as closely as possible the contours of the original.

Happy reading…

There are easily more than 100 major translations of the Bible in English, including separate translations of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the Torah, and the New Testament. There is an amazingly complete Web site provided by Tyndale House in Cambridge that lists most of them, characterizes their translation theory, and offers a sample translation. Theories of translation are enthusiastically and even “hotly” debated among both non-specialists and the scholars. There are entire sessions devoted to discussions of the issues involved in Bible translation at professional meetings, such as the Society for Biblical Literature. The debate largely focuses around whether a translation should be “word for word” equivalent (“literal”) to the original or what is called dynamic or “functionally” equivalent. A good overview of this issue is an article written by Richard Van Leeuwen in Christianity Today some years ago, titled “We Really Do Need Another Translation?” Van Leeuwen points out how so many of the newer translations (NIV, NRSV, REB) are influenced by the “dynamic equivalence” method of translation, that departs from the “literal” approach to make understanding easier for modern readers. Here is a chart showing the range of some of the major translations based upon this criterion:

In trying to evaluate which translation is the “best” or the “most accurate” one’s conclusion really turns on what one is looking for in a translation. If one wants a readable overview of the story-line of the Bible one of the less literal translations can be quite helpful. On the other hand, for close and careful study, with full attention to original text and its style, rhythm, and idiom, a “word for word” translation is essential. The Transparent English Bible is certainly at the far, far, end of the “word for word” spectrum, but it is really much more than just “literal.” We have adopted a method unlike that of any other major translation, including the more “literal” ones such as the King James Version, New American Standard, New King James, and the English Standard Version. The problem with these is that they still do not show the meticulous care to reflect the original text that is possible, but more important, they are completely saturated with traditional Christian theological language. The idea behind the TEB is to carry over the literal words of the text, and this includes details such as singulars and plurals, definite articles, and our effort to consistently reflect the root meaning of words to the extent that is possible in English without the theological overlay so common in almost all English Bibles.

One result of this method is that the idioms, rhythm, cadence, and “feel” of the original languages also begins to come through in the English. This can seem a bit awkward to the reader at first, but once one becomes used to it the literary and verbal power of this method begins to come through. This is best experienced if one reads the translation out loud. Here are comments from two readers that get at this very point:

“I’ve only read the first thee chapters, but I have to tell you, it’s at once familiar but also like reading something I’ve not read before. There’s an ancient, mysterious quality about it that makes me want to, like Moses, take off my shoes while standing on holy ground. Obviously, I’m having a hard time describing the experience. The ungrammatical, strange cadence to the language may have something to do with it, but there’s also the feeling that I’ve discovered something that’s been hidden for ages.”

“It has an unusual nostalgia that makes it exciting, yet biblically sound with an unusual cadence…I feel the excitement a child would have with a new story book!”

This is precisely the effect that we intend. There is no doubt that the TEB takes some time getting used to. It is so radically different from any other version of the Bible that at first it might even come across crude and uneven to the reader used to the easy and familiar cadences of traditional English translations.

One thing that I think readers of the TEB might find interesting is the translation method I have used over the years. It is only possible through the use of sophisticated Bible software. For years I worked on a standard PC platform and used Bibleworks, which I found to be the absolute best for Microsoft Windows users. Back in 2004 I switched to Apple and have used a Mac laptop every since and I use the software program Accordance, that I consider to be the absolute gold standard in the Bible software business. Rather than simply beginning in Genesis, and working through verse by verse, one book after the other,  from beginning to end, I have used an entirely unique approach.  What I have done is to translate each key verb, and its associated nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, throughout the entire Hebrew Bible, one by one, as consistently and literally as possible. The Hebrew language is mostly based on these verbal roots.  For example, the word “create” in Genesis 1:1 (bara’ in Hebrew) occurs precisely 54 times in 46 different verses in the Hebrew Bible.  In order to obtain the most consistency possible, I have gone to all 46 of these verses, stretching from Genesis 1:1 to Malachi 2:10, and translated each occurrence.  For example, in Joshua 17:15 the King James Version has translated the verb as “cut down” in the sense of clearing a forest—but it is the same verb, bara’ in Hebrew.  In Ezekiel 21:19 this verb is translated by the KJV as “choose.” The noun, beri’ah, based on this very same verb, found in Numbers 16:30, is translated “a new thing,” which carries an entirely different verbal meaning—that of “newness” rather than “creation.”  I believe it is important to be as consistent as possible, so in each and every occurrence I have tried to use the same English term—to create, even though in many places it appears that verbs like “do” “make” “put” or even “cut” might be appropriate. I am not suggesting that words in Hebrew, or in any language for that matter, never vary in their usage and meaning, and one can adopt a completely mindless and wooden method of translation. What we have attempted to do, however, is to reflect a more consistent pattern for a given verbal root, and try to get at the “heart” of the concept or meaning that the verbal root/word carries.

I have identified hundreds of these important “conceptual verbal roots,” some of which occur many hundreds of times, and followed them through the entire Bible.  What this means is that my translation has grown like a giant grid, with more and more words being fit into the overall product all the time, and more and more verses of the Bible being included.  Common words like eat, sleep, walk, run, and so  forth,  present little difficulty, in any language.  The problem comes with trying to be accurate and consistent with the conceptual terms.  For example, there are five main Hebrew verbal roots dealing with the concept of “sin,” but the common English translations use a long list of terms such as blame, fault, trespass, offense, wrong, iniquity, perversion, crookedness, wickedness, etc. These are just mixed together in a totally arbitrary manner, as if there is no distinction, and the English reader has no sense of what the original term conveys.  In fact, one Hebrew word carries more the meaning of “missing the mark” or failing to meet a standard, while another has to do with “twisting” or perverting the standard, and the third deals with rebelling or actually going against, or that is opposing, the standard.  Since each of these verbs, and their associated nouns and adjectives, occur hundreds of times all through the Hebrew Bible, the task of being consistent throughout is greatly compounded.

In the first Genesis sample just released some have already written to ask, “Why did you use the English word ‘bad’ in Genesis 2:9, rather than the more traditional term ‘evil’ with reference to the ‘knowledge of good and evil?” The answer has to do with my attempt to get at the root meaning of the term, and to avoid standard translations that often have more of a theological than a linguistic basis. This can be a very difficult task, and there is no way anyone can carry out such an ideal method perfectly. There are always ambiguities and exceptions. Still, the general attempt is really amazing in terms of how it changes the way English readers can follow and understand the original–hence the name of this translation–the transparent English Bible.

Then there is the matter of the New Testament, written in Greek, rather than Hebrew.  However, since we have an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Septuagint (done in the 2nd century B.C.E.), we actually have a record of precisely how all the key Hebrew terms were first rendered into Greek.  In addition we have literally thousands of quotations and allusions from the Hebrew Bible, in Greek, within the New Testament itself.  This offers us the possibility to carry over, into the New Testament writings, the same conceptual consistency, that has been established for the Hebrew Bible.  So, in my example above, with the three terms for sin, we can search for approximate Greek equivalents, and when they exist, attempt to maintain that same consistency throughout the New Testament as well.

In future posts I will illustrate this method and discuss some of the problems we have faced along the way in this regard, and the solutions we have come up with.

We welcome feedback and input from readers. From the start of this Project, over a decade ago, we have greatly benefited from the views of hundreds of interested students of the Bible, both Jewish and Christian, on every aspect of the translation.

If you do want to provide a comment or ask a question the method we are using is e-mail. You should send your message to:

originalbible@earthlink.net

We have disabled the “Comment” feature on the Web site itself because in our experience it is too difficult to properly monitor a public comment forum on the world-wide Web, particularly one dealing with religion. The range and volume of input one gets, both sincere and questionable in motive and agenda, can be overwhelming, so much so that I would have to spend large chunks of my time just going through and monitoring and responding to embedded comments on the Web site. Only a small percentage of visitors to the Web site take have the time or inclination to work through vast lists of comments back and forth.

A much more effective way to handle questions and feedback is in the Blog itself. I find that people tend to ask many of the same, or related questions, and they can then be grouped together, sorted for relevance and priority, and then properly addressed. We will have a new category on the Blog called “Reader Response” in which I will begin to feature key questions and issues people are asking and raising. This also serves to put the issues right “up front” in terms of visibility and allows the hundreds of visitors to our site to easily follow the ongoing discussion in an organized and concentrated way.

All e-mail messages are read and most are sorted and archived, so you can be sure your response was noted, even if what you asked might not immediately be covered in the Blog. In some cases I will respond directly to e-mails from individuals asking something that can be dealt with quickly.

Let us known what you think of the first TEB Translation Sample…

James D. Tabor