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Aramaic Learning Tips?
#13
Here are some e-mails we exchanged:

Me- Hello, Brother. I am user of your translation and Interlinear. I find your work to be very useful. I'm working on my revising the Etheridge Translation of the New Testament. I was wanting to see if I could have permission to use your translation, Interlinear and your footnotes in my own footnotes. God bless you and your work on the Peshitta Tanakh! I'll credit you by name every time I use your footnotes or reference your translation work. You're not the only translator I'm emailing about this :-P

Bauscher- How can you revise Etheridge? Only Etheridge can revise Etheridge. I don't want my translation used to revise a dead man's translation, nor do I think Etheridge would appreciate it. I could see modernizing the English, but you don't need any other translation to do that, and you certainly don't need my notes for that. How can you expect to use Etheridge's name to benefit yourself in good conscience?

The answer is no.

Me- Brother, I'm doing a lot of work with this. I'm just trying to make an old translation better and cater to the needs and dreams of other Aramaic primacists and enthusiasts. What I meant was using your footnotes and translation in the form of quotation in the footnotes with the fact that they came from you mentioned by name. How is revising Etheridge's translation different from using the 1905 Critical Peshitto text, which is also in the public domain? You didn't compile the text or buy copyright privileges in order to make your translations. Forgive me if I do not appreciate the attitude of your reply. If you would rather I just not use your translation as a reference that's fine, but do not reply in a rude fashion.

Bauscher- What qualifies you to make Etheridge better? And did he give you permission to use his name to promote a "revision" of his translation, or are you simply taking advantage of the fact that he is not here to consult? I have no problem with you presenting his translation with his name on it, as long as you are not profiting by it, since it is not your work, but you will profit from a revision of his work because his name is to be on it, and you have not indicated that you are revising it from reference to the original Aramaic, but by simply using other translations selectively.

How will you know the final result is better?
What authoritative reason will anyone have to believe the revision is better?

Sorry if I come off as rude.

I think you come off as dishonest.

Maybe I am wrong. If so, please tell me how long you have been reading Aramaic and how much Aramaic you have personally translated.

Me- Right now I am in the process of learning Aramaic and I am hoping to use this as a learning experience. Didn't you, yourself, quote Scripture that says that God uses the foolish things of this world to do His work? You also didn't exactly ask me what my process was. Right now what I am doing is updating the English and any obvious mistranslations (see John 3:33 in Etheridge). Then I am checking it word-for-word against the Aramaic with the help of Interlinears and concordances. Several people who know Aramaic better than I am are also encouraging me and helping me out. Do not be so quick to judge me as dishonest, as I never claimed to be an expert in Aramaic. What I can say is that I know the Word of God. You also act as if J.W. Etheridge is a well known person, and he isn't! I'm not starting out with this with the illusion that my revision will sell well. As a matter of fact, your help and advise in the revision would have been helpful.

Bauscher-Dylan,

What value does a revision have if the person doing it does not know the original language? If the King James revisers had not known Hebrew and Greek, what value would their work have had? The KJV is a revision of William Tyndale's translation. Tyndale knew Hebrew and Greek very well. If the King James team did not know Hebrew and Greek, they would have been incompetent to revise Tyndale's translation, pure and simple, and no one would have authorized it.

Anyone who can read English can do what you are doing. That is basically editorial work, not translation revision. To revise a translation, you have to be able to translate, and you must do actual translation, comparing the translation to the original Aramaic, not simply to other translations of it, interlinear or otherwise.

If you want my advice, it is that you learn Aramaic first and do the translation or revision afterward. To call what you are doing a translation revision is highly deceptive at the very least, if not downright dishonest.

I never portrayed myself as an expert in Aramaic. I also try to avoid calling my project "my translation", as it is John Wesley Etheridge' s translation (only a new version of it).
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Messages In This Thread
Aramaic Learning Tips? - by ScorpioSniper2 - 09-28-2013, 05:50 PM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by SteveCaruso - 09-29-2013, 05:37 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by Thirdwoe - 09-29-2013, 06:28 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by Paul Younan - 10-01-2013, 03:06 PM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by Thirdwoe - 10-02-2013, 07:41 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by ScorpioSniper2 - 10-02-2013, 08:50 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by Paul Younan - 10-02-2013, 06:22 PM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by ScorpioSniper2 - 10-04-2013, 12:24 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by distazo - 10-04-2013, 01:16 PM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by Lars Lindgren - 10-05-2013, 03:55 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by ScorpioSniper2 - 10-05-2013, 07:09 PM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by SteveCaruso - 10-05-2013, 08:17 PM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by ScorpioSniper2 - 10-05-2013, 11:58 PM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by Thirdwoe - 10-06-2013, 01:09 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by ScorpioSniper2 - 10-06-2013, 02:09 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by Thirdwoe - 10-06-2013, 05:58 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by distazo - 10-07-2013, 03:17 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by ScorpioSniper2 - 10-07-2013, 06:18 AM
Re: Aramaic Learning Tips? - by Thirdwoe - 10-07-2013, 07:43 AM

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