Any thoughts on this resource? "Genesis 1-11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Trans

Does any one have this resource? Can you offer any criticism, constructive or otherwise on the book?

Snip-its from a couple Amazon reviews below...look's interesting but all of the previews I can find so far only show the translated text and none of the translator's notes (which is the 'real' reason to purchase the text).

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This book is close to 320 pages from cover to cover, but there are 19 pages of pure translated text. The rest of this work is their research and explanation for the word and grammar decisions they made. This is one of those rare moments in understanding how translation choices are made. This can provide some great information for teachers/preachers/researchers who are dealing with the Genesis text.

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John Hobbins' book Genesis 1-11:A New Old Translation is the book I wish I had read at he beginning of my Hebrew studies and I am glad to be reading it now. It is more than a translation; every passage (sometimes every word) is studied, various meanings in Hebrew, the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Targumin (and more) are analyzed and case made for Rev. Hobbins' choice.

https://www.logos.com/product/171292/genesis-1-11-a-new-old-translation-for-readers-scholars-and-translators

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MJ. Smith

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2:16–17 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of all the trees of the garden you may surely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—you shall not eat of it, for on the day you eat of it you must surely die.”

“You may surely eat” (’aḵol to’ḵel) and “you must surely die” (mot tamut) are instances of a Hebrew construction called the tautological infinitive. Woodenly literal renderings would be “to eat you shall eat” and “to die you shall die.” The tautological infinitive is best understood not as a way of expressing emphasis, but rather as a way of asserting factuality (it is really the case that) and marking the speaker’s focus (pay attention to the fact that).173 Some translations capture this in both verses, with “you may certainly eat” and “you shall certainly die” (Fisher), or “You may surely eat” and “you shall surely die” (ESV). But many translations do not consistently express this note of factuality and focus. Instead, they follow the lead of KJV, which offered the paraphrase “Of euery tree of the garden thou mayest freely eate” for the first instance of the construction.174

At three places in this passage, an English translation must supply a modal auxiliary, such as may, will, must, or shall.
“May” is traditionally supplied in the first instance: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden” (ESV).
“Shall” is traditionally supplied in the second and third instances: “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (ESV).

This translation supplies “may,” “shall,” and “must”: “Of all the trees of the garden you may surely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—you shall not eat of it, for on the day you eat of it you must surely die.”

In English, with an affirmative permission, “may” works well. That is not true for “shall,” “must,” and “will.”

With a negative command, the traditional “shall” is easily retained. “Must not” also qualifies as a good rendering for negative commands in the apodictic style (lo’ tiqtol in Hebrew). But the traditional “shall not” is likewise satisfactory. “May not” could indicate lack of permission, but it would introduce a note of ambiguity, since in English it may suggest an uncertain prediction (= “might not”).

The question is more difficult with a prescription of punishment. “May” can be quickly rejected; again it would suggest uncertain prediction. The traditionally supplied “shall” also seems to offer a prediction, but one that will inexorably come to pass. The same is true of “will,” supplied in this clause by some translations.175 Yet for this Hebrew verb form (yiqtol), the point seems not to be about prediction but rather about necessity. Put together, the force of the negative command and prescription of punishment in verse 17 (both using the yiqtol form) could be paraphrased thus: “you must not eat of it, for on the day you eat of it is the case that you must needs die.”

In short, this translation renders positive prescriptions of action with “may,” negative commands such as that in verse 17 with “you shall not,” and prescriptions of punishment (often with the tautological infinitive) with “you must” and “he must,” as in “you must surely die,” and “he must surely be put to death.”

From antiquity readers of Genesis have perceived a difficulty in these verses. The LORD says that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil must bring death, but when the man and woman eat of the tree, they do not die, at least not right away, at least not in the physical sense. The difficulty is smoothed away by the Greek translation of Symmachus, which has the LORD telling the man that if he eats of the tree: “you shall become mortal.”176 NLT does not say when the man and woman would die: “If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

These paraphrases remove the apparent inconsistency. They deny the reader the chance to see the tension between the sentence of death announced by God and what follows. But for many Jewish and Christian interpreters, this tension is central to the story of the garden and to the presentation of God in the Book of Genesis. Many interpreters have seen divine mercy at work: the man and the woman are still judged, but not immediately, for the sentence of death is postponed. For example, Saadiah Gaon noted the difficulty, and he rejected interpretations that would “depart from the literal meaning,” such as “You shall surely be iniquitous” and “You shall surely be punished.”177 His own interpretation was that the phrase meant “You shall be deserving of death,” which tells the man “what he deserves” though “God may pay him immediately or delay it or may [altogether] forgive him if he repents.”178 More recently, some interpreters have suggested that God simply failed to carry out his threat.179

Still others have noted that in biblical usage “life” and “death” may refer not (only) to physical life and death but to life with God and death apart from him, as in Deuteronomy 30:15–20.180 The man and woman do in fact experience death in the sense of existence apart from God. On this view, the conflict with the divine word is only apparent.

Yet the apparent conflict should not be set aside too quickly. It may be a crucial point that there does seem to be an inconsistency. Perhaps, as one scholar has put it,

the writer’s concern is with the fact that, in general, disobedience to God does not meet with any such penalty, and therefore the relationship between human disobedience and divine judgment is to most appearances ambiguous. This problem was often faced by the prophets, and is indeed inherent in the whole understanding of a God whose way of life for man has been expressed in the gift of Torah. The point, therefore, is precisely that it is often the case that apparently God is wrong and the serpent is right, that is that Torah can be disregarded and disobeyed with impunity. The Genesis writer wants this to be fully appreciated. None the less he also wants to show that such impunity is in fact superficial and illusory. This he achieves by inviting the reader to see that death may be real in a qualitative sense in both the personal and public life of man.181

All of these lines of interpretation are obscured if a translation chooses a harmonizing paraphrase.

Samuel L. Bray and John F. Hobbins, Genesis 1–11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Translators: Notes (Wilmore, KY: GlossaHouse, 2017), 100–103.

Ben

I can't speak to the translation itself, but John Hobbins has fantastic training, and I used to read his blog all the time. Some fairly technical Semitics, poetics, etc.

Roy

Thanks MJ. That helped. I decided to go ahead and pick the volume up. Now I just need to find (make) the time to actually read it.

And thank you also Ben for taking the time to offer your input. I'm not familiar with the author but look forward to going through the book.

Thanks again!