1 reply to this topic

[Danny Jackson]

I have been wondering about this for a while: if there is a Bible translation out there which uses the original spellings on all of the names of people and places. I know of Messianic Bibles that attempt at giving the names of people and places in the Bible if they are Hebrew or just suspected to be Hebrew, but their approaches have been flawed. For example, the Complete Jewish Bible transliterates the name Matthaios (Matthew) as Mattityahu, but according to the best scholarship the more accurate transliteration of Matthaios is Mattai. There is already a Greek transliteration for Mattityahu (more accurately Mattithyahu)-- it is Mattithias. Franz Delitsch did a great job at determining what the Hebrew and Aramaic names in the New Testament actually looked like. For the name of Matthias (Judas Iscariot's replacement) he suggests Mattiyah which agrees with the Greek spelling more closely and also has been found on ossuaries in Jerusalem. Also, I would love to see the Greek names in their original Greek spellings and not their Latin spellings-- names like Nikodemos (Nicodemus), Onēsimos (Onesimus), and Andreas (Andrew). Do any of you know of any English translations that do this?

Edited by Danny Jackson, 08 February 2015 - 08:38 PM.

[MARCR]

Danny,

 

The British have historically been very arrogant in their treatment of personal and place names.

 

Rabbi J. H. Hertz, in his Pentateuch and Haftorahs  (Soncino Press, London 1952) is another excellent source for the proper pronunciation of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Hebraized Persian names of people and places .

The book is generally available from used bookstores at modest cost, since it has always been published without copyright at close to publisher's cost.  McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia, and Jamieson Fausset and Brown's commentary, both of which are available for download here do a good job of accurately transliterating the Greek.

 

If you want a Bible with personal and place names properly transliterated, you will probably need to compile it yourself.  It is a major undertaking!  If you take it on please share it!

Edited by MARCR, 09 February 2015 - 04:53 AM.