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

As long-time viewers of this site will recognize we have inaugurated a complete overhaul of the Original Bible Project Website with new software that will support a wide range of new features. This will include updated Translation Sample releases, news items and information related to the Project, and lots of discussion of translation issues along the way. Rather than carry on our main communication through periodic newsletters as we have done over the past decade this new Web site will allow us to be in touch with those interested in the Transparent English Bible on a frequent and regular basis. We are particularly pleased that through the Web we will be able to easily reach people living in any country in the world, whereas in the past, sending surface/air mail reports through conventional means to those outside the United States was becoming prohibitive financially.

If you have not already subscribed our e-mail list please go to our contact page and sign up. This will allow us to reach all of our interested readers with more immediate news items and special alerts related to the Project. You may also use that page to offer us feeback via e-mail and to pose whatever questions you have.

I am completely committed to seeing this wonderful Project through to the end. I just looked up some dates. The OBP was officially incorporated on September 11, 1991. It came to me through the inspiration of the late and beloved Dr. Ernest L. Martin who had visited me here in Charlotte in early 1991 and invited me to Portland in May of that year to discuss his beginning ideas. I actually began work in May, 1992. At the time I remember telling Dr. Martin that I was sure it would be a five-year Project. Of course I had no idea of what would turn out to be the complexity of the task. Moreover, I did not anticipate the ways my academic and professional career would require so much of my time, particularly in the areas of archaeology, research, publishing, and now serving as Chair of a growing Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Martin always had faith that the OBP would come out at the “right time” and he encouraged me along the way to take advantage of the opportunities that were before me as a scholar. I think he saw everything working out eventually as a harmonious whole-even if things did not unfold according to the timetable we initially anticipated. I would like to think he was correct in that positive faith he always maintained.

I should point out for those who are fairly new to the Project that much of it depends on one person-me. That was our deliberative decision from the beginning. Many translations have teams of scholars working on various books with the final product synthesized by editorial deliberation. What we decided was that the basic translation, of both the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament would come first from one editor, in consultation with others, and then be reviewed by teams of scholars. Our decision was based on our desire to achieve an absolute consistency in our method and approach to the translation. If I were completely free to work on this and only this, and did not have a job or career, I suppose I could have met my original five-year projection. I still believe our decision was correct and I am thoroughly committed both to the concept and the task before us.

For reasons of cost and efficiency we want to move most of our operations to the Internet and handle things electronically through e-mail and the Web site. If some of you do not personally use the Web or e-mail I imagine one of your children or grandchildren or a friend or relative would be more than pleased to assist you in this. Our plans are to put our current Translation Samples on the Web site so anyone can download them and print them out and our new releases will be handled the same way. Material can then be released more quickly and efficiently and everyone on our e-mail sign-up list will be regularly informed of new materials and major news of the project. If there are any of our long-term supporters who absolutely have no way to access the Internet or the Web we will of course mail you these materials. However, we anticipate almost everyone can move to this new medium with a bit of help from friends or relatives.

I should also want to be sure that everyone knows that we have moved our OBP editorial and administrative office to Charlotte, NC. For all the years of the Project we have never really had an “office” per se, but Bob Ellsworth, who has done so much for us over the years has allowed us to use his own business office in Pasadena and has voluntarily carried on all our administrative duties single-handedly. I have now secured shared office space at a very economical cost here in Charlotte The office, which houses the David Horowitz Memorial Library, is lovely and has room for all my books and research materials. This growing library, focused on biblical and historical research, is perfect match for us in terms of space. Having our own dedicated place is a first for us and I think it will make a tremendous difference in our operational efficiency. The new address to which you should now direct all correspondence is: 2124 Crown Centre Drive, Suite 200, Charlotte, NC 28227. The telephone number is 704-841-3689. Your can reach us via e-mail at the Web site under “Contact.”

As we begin to ramp things up again we will continue our work as previously planned with our outside editors and consulting academic readers working with us. I recently met informally with Dr. Haak in Washington, D.C. at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting. Dr. Haak has served as our general Hebrew Bible editor and he remains fully committed to our concept and task.

I want to thank all of you who have loyally been with us all these years. We are getting new people every day through the Web site. The interest in this kind of translation, and the publication of the Bible with the books in the manuscript order as originally arranged is high. I know of no other translation like this one and I have an unwavering commitment to seeing it through to the end.