"says the LORD"
Dear all:
I have a question for those of you who have expertise with Bible translation in francophone Africa. A number of French Bible translations translate ne'um YHWH / נְאֻם־יְהוָ֡ה as oracle du SEIGNEUR (TOB), oracle de l'Éternel (Nouvelle version Segond révisée), or oracle de Yahvé (La Bible de Jérusalem) (see this entry: https://tips.translation.bible/tip_verse/hos-221/ in TIPs).
While the French “oracle” also means “saying with authority” vs only the traditional meaning of the English “oracle,” it still is a phrasing that elevates ne’um YHWH to more than the typical English “thus says the LORD.” (I’m also looking at Timothy Lloyd Wilt’s "Oracle of Yahweh": translating a highly marked expression in TBT of 1999.)
This leads me to my question: What impact did that have on francophone African translations? Are there examples that you can think of where a phrasing was chosen in some of those translations that similarly elevates this? And, if so, was that mostly in Catholic translation projects?
Thanks so much!
Jost
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Dear Joel to me I really do agree that be um yhwh is very marked tho haven't read Andy's blurb What I want to day is some African languages have word like ne um tho some only use WORD which is in some langs is pretty heavy in itself In some langs thus says the lord feels pretty heavy this a good topic ... I would dig around francophonie and ask the TCS for data all my old projects in west Africa are interconfessional prot cat I am Giving u new consultant in ivory coast Good luck
Timothy Wilt provides good information in his paper, but to my mind he views the espression ne'um YHWH in isolation and also approaches it from an etymological (diachronic) viewpoint instead of surveing its function. Thus he arrives at the conclusion that it is "a highly marked expression." I do not agree with this conclusion. This prophetic formula occurs in g
Jost, the phrase נאם יהוה in Hebrew is itself elevated and carries a sense stronger than just "says the LORD." Most Modern English translations typically use phrases like "declares the LORD" or very occasionally "Thus says the Lord" which do carry a stronger sense in English. The exception seems to be the KJV (and NKJV which is strongly based on the KJV) and in the case of the KJV one must consider what the phra
You said, "One should also note that during the copying process of prophetic scrolls, the formula ne'um YHWH became ever more frequent."
What is the evidence for this claim? I did a quick comparison between the DSS and the MT and the only instances I could find where נאם יהוה did not occur in the DSS were in the sections that are lacunae. I could find no instances where נאם יהוה occurred in the DSS where it did not also occur in the MT.
I think the paper makes a good point here:
"Translating ne'um YHWH in the first person with YHWH as speaker is uncritically accepted in the UBS Handbook on Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah.i The handbook also supports TEV's use of two different clauses ("The LORD said" and "I, the LORD have spoken") to translate ne'um YHWH in Zeph 1.2-3, making the highly questionable claim: "This is more appropriate in English, both to avoid dull repetition and to mark the close of the subsection." The handbook does not consider the formulaic nature of the phrase, whether or not its use was literarily "dull" in the Hebrew, the function ofits repetition in Hebrew, or how the repetition could be represented in English in a way that is not "dull""