Help with a textual problem please Job 31:35

I was speaking with a Mormon and he was doing the "the bible is full of contradictions" routine on me, and he mentioned Job 31:35 where Job uses the term "book" before it was ever coined...

Now...aside from the fact that his criticism is about an English rendering of a Hebrew word....It got me to studying this particular passage...

The KJV does indeed say "book" but no other modern translation does; it APPEARS TO ME (non scholar) that there is a word in the KJV interlinear that's not found in the other translations...

Is there any textual information that I can read on this particular passage? The KJV and modern translations seem to be based on different Hebrew Texts for the Old Testament; is this true?

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Jack Caviness

Robert

Here is the beginning of the BDB article on the word in question. Also from the NAC comments on this verse:

Job probably was literate, however, because in the last line he asked for a written “indictment”⁹³ from his “accuser.”

Is there any textual information that I can read on this particular passage? The KJV and modern translations seem to be based on different Hebrew Texts for the Old Testament; is this true?

Not different Hebrew Texts, just different rendering of the same Hebrew word. Where the KJV and NKJV use "book", ESV, NIV, NAS all use "indictment".

Graham Criddle

Hi Robert

As another non-scholar it seems to me that the Hebrew text is the same in both cases, but it is just the English translation that differs (I have just used the ESV for comparison.

(I am just showing surface, manuscript, manuscript transliterated and Strongs).

The first diagram is from the KJV, the second is from ESV

From this it seems that the same Hebrew word is used as the basis for both translations.

Am I missing what you are saying?

Graham

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146370#Comment_146370

Ahh...

Darn that reverse interlinear!

Because the word order is changed, I missed that the word seder was IN the ESV! I thought it was missing!

Thanks guys....

spitzerpl

This is the beauty of having the interlinears in multiple translations. you can find out exactly what word the translation is using to arrive at their word choice. Here is my suggestion. Open up the translations side by side you want to compare. highlight the word you want to test in one of those translations. I would recommend going a few words before and a few words after. If sympathetic highlighting highlights the word in the other translations they have the same underlying original word. If it doesn't I would display the interlinear information to see what's under the hood.

Assuming the word is the same (in this case it is, as it will be in most Old testament cases I believe) now you can right click the word and do a Bible word study on the original word. In this case it seems to be most often translated book, regardless of the translation you are using. The way I check this is to open the Bible word study from one translation, look a the word ring to get a visual of how that translation translates the word, close it and open the Bible Word Study from another translation to see that word ring. <shameless plug>May I strongly advocate for being able to change the translation from within the Word Study! :-) I would love to be able to create a BWS template that is nothing but a bunch of word ring sections set to different translations!</shameless plug>

With that done there are three options. 1)The Bible is wrong. I always rule this one out. 2)There actually were books around at the time of Job. 3)Translating it "book" was contextualizing their concept of a written document with something that we would understand. 4)The use of "book" was in some way prophetic. E.G. Job wished it would happen and it eventually was. There may be more options but I'll leave that to you to think up.

The best way to find the option you will stand on is through your lexicons, Bible Dictionaries, Commentaries, and other resources. I would say in that order too. BWS will get you your commentaries. Bible Things for "Book" might help you pull some of your Bible Dictionaries together. Passage guide will get your your commentaries. For finding those "other resources" I would suggestion creating a collection that removes lexicons, Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries, then doing a search for Job 31:35 in that collection. For John 3:16 this probably wouldn't be helpful because of the number of hits you will get. But for a verse like Job 31:35 a lot of the reason it might be mentioned in a resource is because of the very issue you are addressing.

Another thing I did that was not fruitful in this endeavor but may be in the next was to open the search box, type in the verse, and then type a word in the find box that pops up in you click "all resources" that limits the resources you want to check into. for instance in this instance I typed in Mormon. That gave me a list of three resources that deal specifically with Mormonism. Then I clicked on each of those resources 1 by 1 to see if any hits were returned. Nothing came up, but it was worth the try.

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146375#Comment_146375

Philip...

thanks for the suggestions....I didn't think about the sympathetic highlighting....I'll try and remember that for next time.

As it turns out...the KJV translators were just not that great in translating certain words in certain books and Job is one that's not fantastic...

that's according to "The complete guide to bible versions"

All of the translations use the same underlying basic text..by the way...(for the OT)

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146378#Comment_146378

and the Word Biblical commentary has an interesting perspective:

"Job here represents his protestation of innocence as a written legal document. It is of course, within the world of the story, a purely oral statement, like all the speeches in the book; but it has also become, in the book of Job, a written text. So, though the character Job does not know it, his oral text that is metaphorically a written text has become eventually a written text literally, and his signature, which was originally no more than a gesture, is now a physical reality, an appendage to a written text.

His “signature” may not be exactly his name, as it is for us, but his “sign.” The word is taw (תו), the name of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in the form of an X in the old Hebrew (paleo-Hebrew) script. Presumably illiterate people marked documents with their X. Whether the character Job is represented as illiterate or not is of little account; perhaps he simply refers to his signature poetically as a sign. For the sign of taw marking the foreheads of those who are to be spared punishment, see Ezek 9:4, 6 (and cf. Rev. 7:3; 13:16). Though taw is the last letter of the alphabet, Job does not mean that this is his last word (as JB “I have had my say, from A to Z,” NJB “I have said my last word”; see further Note 31:35.c); though indeed his speeches have drawn to a close, his emphasis here lies rather on the formality with which he certifies his innocence, and his attestation that he stands by what he has said in this speech.

In turn, Job challenges God as his legal opponent (as he is in 9:15–16; 10:2; 13:3, 18–22; 23:4–7) to “answer” (ענה) him as his respondent: he requires God to do that by delivering to him a document, the bill of charges against him, which might correspond to Job’s own affidavit of innocence. (Diodorus Siculus speaks of both accuser and accused in Egypt presenting a written document to the court [1.75.6]; see also H. Richter, Studien zu Hiob: Der Aufbau des Hiobbuches, dargestellt an den Gattungen des Rechtslebens [Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1959] 38, 90–92). Job calls the document he demands from God a ספר, generally translated, anachronistically, as “book,” but also the term for a legal document at Deut 24:1, 3; Isa 50:1 (a deed of divorce) or at Jer 32:11–12, 14, 16 (a deed of purchase); here it is an indictment. It is a document already written (as the perfect tense suggests), for, to continue the metaphor, God has already made his judgment against Job on the basis of that bill of indictment, and has by now been long in the process of executing it. It is not a document that Job hopes will soon be written (as NIV “let my accuser put his indictment in writing”), nor is it a document of acquittal (as Pope) or writ of release (Habel, comparing the “deed of renunciation” in the Elephantine papyri [A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1923] 16–18 [6.22; ANET, 491])."

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146389#Comment_146389

Word Biblical commentary has an interesting perspective:

thanks for sharing this

Ron

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146378#Comment_146378

All of the translations use the same underlying basic text..by the way...(for the OT)

A fact that will soon change (at least partially). The almost completed ISV OT has translated Isaiah completely from the Dead Sea Scrolls (with extensive footnotes detailing variants from the MT and LXX).

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146803#Comment_146803

A fact that will soon change (at least partially). The almost completed ISV OT has translated Isaiah completely from the Dead Sea Scrolls (with extensive footnotes detailing variants from the MT and LXX).

Interesting!

Ron

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146806#Comment_146806

A fact that will soon change (at least partially). The almost completed ISV OT has translated Isaiah completely from the Dead Sea Scrolls (with extensive footnotes detailing variants from the MT and LXX).

Interesting!

I've been following the ISV for several years and have been reading through it this year (I'm currently in Job) and have been very impressed. Anyway, I ran to their website and grabbed the relevant quote from their "Principles of Translation" page (emphasis mine):

For the Tanakh, or Old
Testament, the Masoretic text as published in the
latest editions of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Quinta is used
as the
base text, in consultation with other ancient Hebrew texts such as
the Dead
Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and a select number of
ancient
versions (the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Syriac Peshitta, and the
Targums). All significant departures from the base text, as well as
all
significant textual variants, are indicated in footnotes. With
respect to
the book of Isaiah, Qumran Cave 1's Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa) was
used,
along with other Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts, as
the base text for translation, with the MT secondarily consulted for

variants to 1QIsa.

They've also created an extensive textual apparatus that they plan to release after they finish with translation.