Ship of Fools: New LXX+NT translation

Thread: New LXX+NT translation Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

I was alerted by this blog post to the completion of a new translation of the Septuagint. It was all done by a single person, Fr Nicholas King, SJ, whose blog is here. He's a lecturer at Oxford.

This translation is available in various editions here (I've linked to the most expensive version). At the link, you can also find an excerpt.

Anyway, I was wondering if anybody had come across this translation, or perhaps other work by Fr King, and could comment on it?

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Just looking at the extract on the webpage it seems to me that he's just used alternative words for the sake of it and they don't read right, IMHO.

From Genesis 1:

"The Spirit of God was rushing upon the water."??
Why, was he late?!

"Let the earth produce herbage of grass."
... herbage of grass??

What is HERBAGE OF GRASS??

And the best of all!!!:
"Let the waters bring forth creepy-crawlies, that have living souls."??

"And winged birds."
Those will be different to the birds that don't have wings at all, I'll guess...

WTH?

[Ultra confused]

If you can't translate sensibly Father, don't bother!

...I haven't dared to look at the New Testament yet!

[ 05. March 2015, 16:56: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :

Fr. King came to give a talk here at TurquoiseTastic Towers several years ago, just after completing his NT translation (of which I have a copy). I think he completed the NT translation before starting on the LXX. Thinking back on it, I seem to remember getting the impression that he had done it mainly because he had really enjoyed doing it and saw it as a kind of personal devotional exercise, and that if anyone else found the translation interesting or helpful that was an added bonus. Certainly he was an affable and lively speaker, an enthusiast for Bible study among the Catholic laity.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

I can't confirm this easily, since I do not speak (Koine) Greek. However, the stated translation principle is

quote:
Nicholas King’s aim has been to keep as close to the original Greek as possible, frequently incorporating idiomatic or grammatical peculiarities.

So the intention apparently was to make it basically as close to an "interlinear" as one can make it without losing all meaning.

A brief check with the old Brenton translation here suggests that the passage you find so ridiculous are likely due to this.

King: "herbage of grass"
Brenton "the herb of grass"

King makes better sense (herbage actually is an English word, meaning "herbaceous vegetation"), and clearly both are trying to stick to a Greek expression.

King "creepy-crawlies, that have living souls"
Brenton: "reptiles (Lit. of living souls) having life"

King is obviously going for the more literal version as far as the "souls" are concerned. Whether "creepy-crawlies" is a better representation than "reptiles" of what the Greek word typically means I do not know. But it is certainly possible. For example, when did God create worms or spiders? If the Greek word used could indicate such creatures, then "creepy-crawlies", while it sounds childish/funny, may actually be better than "reptiles" by indicating a wider range of animals.

King: "winged birds"
Brenton: "winged creatures"

Here the question would simply be whether the noun used without the "winged" by itself would mean creature, or bird. If taken on its own it means "bird", then King's expression simply mirrors the Greek in the "useless" (poetic? emphatic? idiomatic?) doubling.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

Forgot one in the above:

The "rushing upon" is actually covered in a translator's note, which can be read in the excerpt. Fr. King explains that the Hebrew original uses a rare word that probably means "hover over". But that the word used in Greek is similar to that in Acts 2:2 (I note from the RSV-CE: "...a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind..."). Brenton also has motion, but less dramatic "moved over". Once more, this seems to make sense as an attempt to faithfully capture the Greek.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

The emphatic redoubling is there in the original. I take it to be a semitic carry-through - Jesus used it sometimes.

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :

This is somewhat off-topic, but one wanting a decent English translation of the Septuagint would do well to consider Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, A New English Translation of the Septuaint: And the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under that Title (Oxford University Press, 2007). "NETS" for short. Brenton is so century-before-last.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

It's the one I normally use, TSA. It's also available online (albeit in pdf form) here.

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