Prodigal wrote:I'm trying to get the hang of translating by doing some passages that James/Yada had done. I started with the first few Psalms after hearing Mizmowr 1 amplified on the radio (absolutely amazing). When I got to 2:4, however, I was expecting to see a YHWH in place of the Adowni, but the DSS had Adowni as well (actually, it had an additional "wa" in the middle, but otherwise the same). In ITG, Yada claims this was an example of the MT replacing Yah's name with Lord, but I can't find it. What am I missing?
Sorry I took so long to get back to you Matt, but I wanted to research it before I replied. I actually checked this verse and found that you are right, so I let Yada no, and he is going to rewrite that part. What happened is The DSS bible shows that there is a difference between the DSS and the MT in that verse with regard to LORD, and Yada assumed that it was an example of where the MT replaced Yahowah with Lord, but what it actually was, was just a different spelling of Lord, as you pointed out Alef Dalet Waw Nun Aiyn instead of Alef Dalet Nun Aiyn. Yada doesn’t have the DSS database add in for Logos, and so is reliant on the DSS bible, or at least he didn’t at the time he wrote that, I think he has since purchased it.
This is one of the reasons Yada encourages people to check his work, he is prone to mistakes.
Prodigal wrote:Also, what's the reasoning behind translating 'asher as (for example) "by way of relationship", or "relationally", instead of just "which" or "that"? I get that it's a relational word, linking other words together, but I don't see why the interjection of the relationship to it. Wouldn't you need beryith or something of the sort?
Because ‘asher is a relational term, not just in linking words but in linking ideas and concepts as well, translating it as “which by way of relationship” or “which relationally” is an accurate translation, although a simple “which” would also be acceptable. Adding relationally most every time I translate ‘asher is more a style decision, I think it sounds better. By way of relationship doesn’t fit in every circumstance, the context and the way the word is modified dictate when that is an acceptable translation.
Prodigal wrote:Finally, how do I look up roots of words? I tried eliminating letters, but it just kept bringing me back to the original word.
Logos breaks it down to the simplest form of the word if you do an exegetical search (i.e. stripped of its gender, tense, stem, etc. modifications). If you mean how do you find what the root word for a given word is, this is where I find Strong’s to be useful, if you look up a word in Strong’s it will give you the root word/words for that word. So if you look up in Strong’s it will tell you that it is from and then give you another Strong’s number, which is the root word.
Hope that helps.