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Dead Sea Scrolls Translation Question


Whiskeypete

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There is something I am confused about when people translate records that are fragmentary. For example in the 4Q22 Paleo Exodus it is translated as:

30 [And] the children of Levi [did] according to the wor[d

of M]oses: and there fell of the people that [da]y about

[three thousand] 31 men.

For [Mo]ses had s[aid], Consecrate your[selves]3

to day to the Lord, even [every man] 32 upon his son and

upon [his bro]th[er; that he may bestow upon] you

a blessing this day.

i understand that the word that translates to "[And]" and the word that translates to "[did]" were missing in the fragment. And so the translator indicates that by the [brackets] around the word.

But in the case of the phrase "wor[d of M]oses", I am assuming that there is a gap in the text that is assumed to be the missing letters. And that the gap appears partway through "Word" and the text is available partway through "Moses"

But since there isn't a 1 to 1 letter correspondence between Hebrew and English, how does the translator decide whether to put: W[ord] or Wo[rd] or Wor[d]?

It is even more confusing in the second to last line where the word "Brother" is only partially there. Why would you have the letters [bro] and [er] implied and the letters "th" indicated as really there. Why wouldn't it be [br]oth[er] or rothe[r]? How do we know that the "th" are the letters to include.

Not an earth-shaking question, but it is something I have always wondered.

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There is something I am confused about when people translate records that are fragmentary. For example in the 4Q22 Paleo Exodus it is translated as:

i understand that the word that translates to "[And]" and the word that translates to "[did]" were missing in the fragment. And so the translator indicates that by the [brackets] around the word.

But in the case of the phrase "wor[d of M]oses", I am assuming that there is a gap in the text that is assumed to be the missing letters. And that the gap appears partway through "Word" and the text is available partway through "Moses"

But since there isn't a 1 to 1 letter correspondence between Hebrew and English, how does the translator decide whether to put: W[ord] or Wo[rd] or Wor[d]?

It is even more confusing in the second to last line where the word "Brother" is only partially there. Why would you have the letters [bro] and [er] implied and the letters "th" indicated as really there. Why wouldn't it be [br]oth[er] or rothe[r]? How do we know that the "th" are the letters to include.

Not an earth-shaking question, but it is something I have always wondered.

Basically what I do is look at how many letters are in the English as compared to the Hebrew and try to make the division as corresponding as possible. It's not an exact science, of course, unless you're dealing with specific prefixes and suffixes and morphological elements that have formal equivalents in English (like "his," "the," or something that specifically marks number or gender).

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There is something I am confused about when people translate records that are fragmentary. For example in the 4Q22 Paleo Exodus it is translated as:

i understand that the word that translates to "[And]" and the word that translates to "[did]" were missing in the fragment. And so the translator indicates that by the [brackets] around the word.

But in the case of the phrase "wor[d of M]oses", I am assuming that there is a gap in the text that is assumed to be the missing letters. And that the gap appears partway through "Word" and the text is available partway through "Moses"

But since there isn't a 1 to 1 letter correspondence between Hebrew and English, how does the translator decide whether to put: W[ord] or Wo[rd] or Wor[d]?

It is even more confusing in the second to last line where the word "Brother" is only partially there. Why would you have the letters [bro] and [er] implied and the letters "th" indicated as really there. Why wouldn't it be [br]oth[er] or rothe[r]? How do we know that the "th" are the letters to include.

Not an earth-shaking question, but it is something I have always wondered.

In addition to what Maklelan said: the bracketed portion indicates that the beginning, or middle, or end letters of a word were missing and the others present. Keep in mind that very often the missing portions have been supplied, not by guesswork (which many scholars prefer to regard as "brilliance" ) but by comparison with other manuscripts.

Regards,

Pahoran

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There is something I am confused about when people translate records that are fragmentary. For example in the 4Q22 Paleo Exodus it is translated as:

i understand that the word that translates to "[And]" and the word that translates to "[did]" were missing in the fragment. And so the translator indicates that by the [brackets] around the word.

But in the case of the phrase "wor[d of M]oses", I am assuming that there is a gap in the text that is assumed to be the missing letters. And that the gap appears partway through "Word" and the text is available partway through "Moses"

But since there isn't a 1 to 1 letter correspondence between Hebrew and English, how does the translator decide whether to put: W[ord] or Wo[rd] or Wor[d]?

It is even more confusing in the second to last line where the word "Brother" is only partially there. Why would you have the letters [bro] and [er] implied and the letters "th" indicated as really there. Why wouldn't it be [br]oth[er] or rothe[r]? How do we know that the "th" are the letters to include.

Not an earth-shaking question, but it is something I have always wondered.

B.Y.U has a computer program that directly correlates missing text according to the things it can see both before the missing and after; they can do it in hebrew,greek,english or anything else. and it does work very well!

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