Otto Procksch described Genesis 4:7 as the most obscure verse in Genesis, and he may well be right. One of the more curious things to note about this verse is that it is clearly intended to remind the reader of Genesis 3:16, the punishment of the woman. This is clear because the syntax and terminology…
Category: hebrew
using apple’s pages app for hebrew
Apple’s Pages word processing/document editing/layout program is appealing in many ways: it is easy to use, powerful, and produces very nice looking documents. One big problem for those of us who want to include Hebrew or other right-to-left language text within our documents, however, is that Pages on Mac OS X simply cannot handle it….
why all is not fleeting in qohelet/ecclesiastes
Translators and scholars have long debated the best translation for the term הבל (hebel, traditionally “vanity”) in Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). The term refers to vapour, something intangible, but is almost always used metaphorically in the Hebrew Bible. Now rather than discuss all possible meanings, in this post I’d like to examine one particular proposal: that הבל…
mac os x 10.7.3 improves hebrew support
Apple has just released Mac OS X 10.7.3 which normally wouldn’t warrant a mention here except that it includes improved Hebrew support. Apple’s update notes include the following: Add Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian language support. Of course it would be nice if they told us exactly what this means for…
deut 32:8–9 and the ancient israelite pantheon?
During a recent online debate the question of the meaning of Deut 32:8–9 was raised as evidence of the Bible’s affirmation of polytheism and the subordinate status of the God of Israel, Yhwh. The essence of the claim is that the version of this passage preserved in the DSS identifies El Elyon as head of…
should the word ‘trinity’ appear in an english bible?
Opponents of the doctrine of the Trinity occasionally throw up the assertion that the word ‘Trinity’ never appears in the Bible as a supposed problem for the doctrine. The objection is, however, largely without merit. Read below the link for an assessment of this contention!
the silence of god
On a recent Q&A one of the viewers asked about God’s silence: My question is: why has God gone so quiet? Just a few thousand years ago he appeared to people quite regularly. He turned rivers to blood, he parted seas, he flooded the world etc. He provided us with people like Moses, Jesus &…
biblical pronouncements
There’s a new app for iOS called “Biblical Audio Pronunciations” (also available in “Lite” version) which aims to offer “correct” pronunciation of biblical terms. The web page claims: We carefully researched and recorded the pronunciations of important terms, names, and places, to help you embrace the Word of God more easily. Does it live up…
reviewing cbmw’s review of the 2011 niv
CBMW (an organisation which stridently opposed the TNIV) has posted a preliminary evaluation of the 2011 NIV. Unsurprisingly they conclude that “we still cannot commend the new NIV(2011) for most of the same reasons we could not commend the TNIV.” However, I think there are a number of problems with their analysis which I’d like…
niv 2011/tniv and ecclesiastes 11:1–2
John Hobbins raised the 2011 NIV’s rendering of Eccl 11:1–2 (although it really just retains the TNIV’s translation and so isn’t a new feature of this translation). The 2011 NIV/TNIV render these verses as follows: Ship your grain across the sea; after many days you may receive a return. Invest in seven ventures, yes, in…