English has the concept of an endless “forever.” Hebrew does not. As Gary reminded us, the actual concept of עולם is a very long time. But the normal English translation of עד עולם is “forever,” unless context prevents such an open-ended statement.
When I was involved in translation work, I happened to work in a language that, like Hebrew, did not have the “forever” concept. But their equivalent preposition phrase, “adde noka,” was well understood by people to normally refer to an endless time unless otherwise prevented. Just out of curiosity, what would you suggest as a more “correct” meaning? Paul Zellmer From: fred burlingame [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 4:43 PM To: Paul Zellmer Cc: B-Hebrew Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Song of Songs 1:12 Hello Paul: Thanks for your nice and explanatory comments. The question remains however. The niv committee, in its wisdom, instructs that the little phrase עד עולם means "forever." http://www.biblestudytools.com/1-chronicles/23-13.html http://www.biblegateway.com/niv/translators-notes/ Is that meaning of the hebrew phrase correct?... I await your advices. regards, fred burlingame _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
