Need Hebrew translation that has been taken to the absurd

I have LITV, YLT, NASB, Transparent Version, The Five Books of Moses by E. Fox and The Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter. None of these are literal enough. I am looking for some translation that has been taken to the absurd level of literalness. I don’t mind if it is just for one chapter or one book, although the complete Hebrew Bible would be ideal. Can someone recommend something more literal than these I have listed? I suppose that what I am looking for is an interlinear type literalness but with English (or Spanish would work just as well) word flow. So that, for example, “מִתַּ֤חַת הַשָּׁמַ֙יִם֙” would be rendered “from under the heavens” rather than “under the heavens.”

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Lee

I'm guessing you want something like The Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible. Anything with English word flow is not nearly absurd enough.

Gregorio Billikopf

I have several interlinears such as LHI (I use it all the time) and Young's to mention two. And this might be as good as it gets. Although I would like to see if there is something that uses English (or Spanish) word order.

DMB

I have several interlinears such as LHI (I use it all the time) and Young's to mention two. And this might be as good as it gets. Although I would like to see if there is something that uses English (or Spanish) word order.

I don't think I'd use english glosses for a translation, no matter how absurd ... LHI doesn't even try hard.

In the mid-1800s, there was frustration with not-real-original-languages. Young, as mentioned above survived, if only because he didn't go to the absurd.

Julia Smith set out to do a raw translation. She did the hebrew first, if I remember, then the greek. And it's pretty raw. Metzger, in his review of translations, thought she had achieved the absurd, especially in the handling of tenses. There is also another; I've forgotten, but starts with an 'S' also.

The problem with a raw translation is two-fold. For example in Smith's, she didn't try to out-guess words having limited examples. This was before Ugarit, Mari, and the large Mesopotamian archeological digs. So, she stuck with the common guesses (lexicons). Secondly, for a true raw translation, you'd almost have to use explanatory parens (similar to Amplified). Semitic is just not a good place for literal. Greek maybe.

Gregorio Billikopf

Denise, I have spent several hours today in this effort and quite a bit of time on Julia's translation. I actually found the PDF and downloaded it and it is quite interesting and will be useful to me, for which I am most grateful. Yes, the tenses are very strange. And so is her desire to use the same English word for Hebrew words (that is quite absurd in itself). I have well over forty translations, so I am not looking for a version to use on a regular basis. I love the KJV for that. What I am looking for is something that gives the idioms in Hebrew and while retaining an English order to the words, includes the extra words used in the Hebrew even though they would not be used in English. Does that make sense? And something that retains Hebrew expressions that would not mean anything to us today. (I found the Concordant Bible which comes close to what I want for this particular purpose, but still not absurd enough. And I realize that the theological outlook of the authors can be a problem, but for this purpose, that is ok if they are from a very different outlook than mine.) In summary, you have been of great help in suggesting Julia Smith. Thanks!