4 ms·

> After several repetitions of this, Samson decides that being shaved, blinded and crushed will be less exasperating than listening to any more of Delilah's nag

> After several repetitions of this, Samson decides that being shaved, blinded and crushed will be less exasperating than listening to any more of Delilah's nagging. A very off-tangent note, but I recently learned that Samson's last words, "ἀποθανέτω ἡ ψυχή μου μετὰ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων"/"moriatur anima mea cum Philisthiim", pretty much have never been translated into English literally; it's always "Let me die with the Philistines" for some reason.

ivrit-tirvi 2mo ago
I always look it up in the original Hebrew if I really want to understand, and the difference is sometimes really HUGE (or simply wrong in modern translations). It's also worth noting that some books of the Hebrew Bible are poetry (Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Song of Songs), which doesn't show at all after translation. Hebrew poetry is unique! As they say, reading the Bible in translation is like "kissing your spouse through a veil".
- 1123581321 2mo ago
  Through a glass darkly, if you will. :)
  - agaj-nimm 2mo ago
    Have you read Patton's poem by that title? It's not great but it's a fascinating window into the beliefs of a major historical figure. In my experience there's a lot of support for reincarnation in judeo-christian scripture, when you read it open to that interpretation.
    - 1123581321 2mo ago
      I hadn't read it until now. Interesting find! I wonder why he chose that title as the teleology of I Cor 13:12 seems straightforward.
      - agaj-nimm 2mo ago
        My read is that cor 13:12 is about seeing life from both sides, flesh and spirit. Some things are clearer on either side, and we learn from alternating.
- Ardren 2mo ago
  > I always look it up in the original Hebrew if I really want to understand Why do you assume a entire team of biblical scholars, working for years to translate the Old Testement for the NIV didn't know what they were doing? But you do?
  - archonis 2mo ago
    The Gell-Mann amnesia effect also applies to the majority of translations.
  - rurp 2mo ago
    Translations are inherently lossy, especially for cases like the bible that use less common dialects and have conflicting source versions. Are any biblical translators claiming that their work is a 100% reproduction of the original? I doubt it. Most I'm familiar with readily acknowledge that it's a very messy process and two experts acting in good faith will produce different translations in many cases.
  - jibal 2mo ago
    > Why do you assume a (sic) entire team of biblical scholars, working for years to translate the Old Testement (sic) for the NIV didn't know what they were doing? That assumption does not appear anywhere in their comment. Your rude strawman question only makes sense if assuming that ivrit-tirvi is not a fluent speaker of Hebrew and is somehow translating the Hebrew into something else that they understand ... which is quite unlikely, since ivrit (עִבְרִית) is the Hebrew word for the English word "Hebrew". And the NIV translation into English reflects ideological interpretation that one can avoid by reading the original Hebrew if one understands it.
  - dev_dan_2 2mo ago
    For starters, there are simply many possible goals one can achieve with a translation: Translating it as literal as possible (which can result in barely readable results in the target language, if the languages are far enough apart), translating it so that what thinks its meaning is is understandable, translating it assuming a particular worldview that might shape which alternatives to pick and so on. A very loose translation could be how the "same program", as defined in its lambda calculus form, or as assembly code, is equivalent to dozens of programming languages, all with different goals and ways to reach their goal (declarative vs. imperative, functional vs. OOP, readable for beginners like Python versus APL, ...)
wofo 2mo ago
I'm curious, what would you be your translation?
- jeffbee 2mo ago
  Yeah the comment is a bit of a cliffhanger. Wish they had given us their preferred translation.
  - schoen 2mo ago
    That's funny, I (not the poster) didn't stop to think that other readers might not understand the Latin and Greek here! Both of those forms are third-person and say "may my soul" ( ψυχή/anima) "die with the Philistines". (Definite article in Greek but not in Latin because Latin doesn't have them.) The original Hebrew has תָּמוֹת נַפְשִׁי עִם-פְּלִשְׁתִּים which is also third person "may my soul" (נַפְשִׁי) "die with (the) Philistines".
    - schoen 2mo ago
      (Another poster also pointed out that the Philistines are replaced with "foreigners" or "outgroup" in the Greek, which I overlooked.)
- andrewdea 2mo ago
  "let my soul die with the Philistines" is the literal translation of the Latin. I'm not an expert on Greek but I'd translate that as "let my soul die with the foreigners." ἀλλοφύλων more literally means something like "different people / people belonging to another group"
  - jibal 2mo ago
    But the original Hebrew word is "פְּלִשְׁתִּים֒" which is "Philistines", not "foreigners". The Greek has already suffered a translation.
- Mtinie 2mo ago
  I can't speak for the OP, but in my research, the translation works out to be: "Let me die with the foreigners" I usually see "foreigners" replaced with "Philistines" (as noted above). It's Samson's line just before he braces against the pillars and brings the building down on himself and the thousands of Philistines inside, so I understand why it is usually translated that way. Also, ψυχή here renders Hebrew nephesh, which is closer to "life" or "self", but when I think about the attributed statement it just reads better with the personal attachment (vs. "Let my self|life|soul die with..."). Which is the fun of translation, as each translator seeks to reveal a meaningful rendition which will resonate with their audience.
blharr 2mo ago
"Let my soul die with the Philistines" being the literal translation?
SegfaultSeagull 2mo ago
The Hebrew is תָּמ֣וֹת נַפְשִׁי֮ עִם־פְּלִשְׁתִּים֒, which literally translates to "You shall die, my soul, with the Philistines."
- m463 2mo ago
  That sounds like a person resigned to his death. The other line sounds like a plea to others. I can't help but wonder about LLM translations... will they do it better or worse or just different? I can wonder if it might be with less bias, or with a better body to pull from, but I can see it can be slop too.
  - Joker_vD 2mo ago
    > That sounds like a person resigned to his death. Well, yes, precisely. Just two verses earlier Samson prayed to God, asking to grant him a last bout of strength to take revenge at the Philistines for blinding him: "And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes."
- schoen 2mo ago
  My Hebrew education didn't extend to the future tense, but according to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%AA#Conjugation https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%AA#Conjugation תָּמוּת is either second person masculine future, or third person feminine future. But according to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A0%D7%A4%D7%A9 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A0%D7%A4%D7%A9 נֶפֶשׁ is feminine. So it seems that only the third person form could agree with the subject noun, right?
  - Joker_vD 2mo ago
    Apparently, that's how Biblical Hebrew expressed the jussive. German uses 3rd person subjunctive ("Meine Seele sterbe mit den Philistern"), Polish (and other Slavic languages, I imagine) also uses 3rd person future but with explicit "let" thrown in: "Niech umrze dusza moja z Filistynami". But those are the older translations — those quotes are from Luther Bible (1534) and Gdansk Bible (1632); you can find newer translations that use the wording of "let me perish with the Philistines" variety as well.

ivrit-tirvi 2mo ago

I always look it up in the original Hebrew if I really want to understand, and the difference is sometimes really HUGE (or simply wrong in modern translations). It's also worth noting that some books of the Hebrew Bible are poetry (Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Song of Songs), which doesn't show at all after translation. Hebrew poetry is unique! As they say, reading the Bible in translation is like "kissing your spouse through a veil".

1123581321 2mo ago
Through a glass darkly, if you will. :)
- agaj-nimm 2mo ago
  Have you read Patton's poem by that title? It's not great but it's a fascinating window into the beliefs of a major historical figure. In my experience there's a lot of support for reincarnation in judeo-christian scripture, when you read it open to that interpretation.
  - 1123581321 2mo ago
    I hadn't read it until now. Interesting find! I wonder why he chose that title as the teleology of I Cor 13:12 seems straightforward.
    - agaj-nimm 2mo ago
      My read is that cor 13:12 is about seeing life from both sides, flesh and spirit. Some things are clearer on either side, and we learn from alternating.
Ardren 2mo ago
> I always look it up in the original Hebrew if I really want to understand Why do you assume a entire team of biblical scholars, working for years to translate the Old Testement for the NIV didn't know what they were doing? But you do?
- archonis 2mo ago
  The Gell-Mann amnesia effect also applies to the majority of translations.
- rurp 2mo ago
  Translations are inherently lossy, especially for cases like the bible that use less common dialects and have conflicting source versions. Are any biblical translators claiming that their work is a 100% reproduction of the original? I doubt it. Most I'm familiar with readily acknowledge that it's a very messy process and two experts acting in good faith will produce different translations in many cases.
- jibal 2mo ago
  > Why do you assume a (sic) entire team of biblical scholars, working for years to translate the Old Testement (sic) for the NIV didn't know what they were doing? That assumption does not appear anywhere in their comment. Your rude strawman question only makes sense if assuming that ivrit-tirvi is not a fluent speaker of Hebrew and is somehow translating the Hebrew into something else that they understand ... which is quite unlikely, since ivrit (עִבְרִית) is the Hebrew word for the English word "Hebrew". And the NIV translation into English reflects ideological interpretation that one can avoid by reading the original Hebrew if one understands it.
- dev_dan_2 2mo ago
  For starters, there are simply many possible goals one can achieve with a translation: Translating it as literal as possible (which can result in barely readable results in the target language, if the languages are far enough apart), translating it so that what thinks its meaning is is understandable, translating it assuming a particular worldview that might shape which alternatives to pick and so on. A very loose translation could be how the "same program", as defined in its lambda calculus form, or as assembly code, is equivalent to dozens of programming languages, all with different goals and ways to reach their goal (declarative vs. imperative, functional vs. OOP, readable for beginners like Python versus APL, ...)

wofo 2mo ago

I'm curious, what would you be your translation?

jeffbee 2mo ago
Yeah the comment is a bit of a cliffhanger. Wish they had given us their preferred translation.
- schoen 2mo ago
  That's funny, I (not the poster) didn't stop to think that other readers might not understand the Latin and Greek here! Both of those forms are third-person and say "may my soul" ( ψυχή/anima) "die with the Philistines". (Definite article in Greek but not in Latin because Latin doesn't have them.) The original Hebrew has תָּמוֹת נַפְשִׁי עִם-פְּלִשְׁתִּים which is also third person "may my soul" (נַפְשִׁי) "die with (the) Philistines".
  - schoen 2mo ago
    (Another poster also pointed out that the Philistines are replaced with "foreigners" or "outgroup" in the Greek, which I overlooked.)
andrewdea 2mo ago
"let my soul die with the Philistines" is the literal translation of the Latin. I'm not an expert on Greek but I'd translate that as "let my soul die with the foreigners." ἀλλοφύλων more literally means something like "different people / people belonging to another group"
- jibal 2mo ago
  But the original Hebrew word is "פְּלִשְׁתִּים֒" which is "Philistines", not "foreigners". The Greek has already suffered a translation.
Mtinie 2mo ago
I can't speak for the OP, but in my research, the translation works out to be: "Let me die with the foreigners" I usually see "foreigners" replaced with "Philistines" (as noted above). It's Samson's line just before he braces against the pillars and brings the building down on himself and the thousands of Philistines inside, so I understand why it is usually translated that way. Also, ψυχή here renders Hebrew nephesh, which is closer to "life" or "self", but when I think about the attributed statement it just reads better with the personal attachment (vs. "Let my self|life|soul die with..."). Which is the fun of translation, as each translator seeks to reveal a meaningful rendition which will resonate with their audience.

blharr 2mo ago

"Let my soul die with the Philistines" being the literal translation?

SegfaultSeagull 2mo ago

The Hebrew is תָּמ֣וֹת נַפְשִׁי֮ עִם־פְּלִשְׁתִּים֒, which literally translates to "You shall die, my soul, with the Philistines."

m463 2mo ago
That sounds like a person resigned to his death. The other line sounds like a plea to others. I can't help but wonder about LLM translations... will they do it better or worse or just different? I can wonder if it might be with less bias, or with a better body to pull from, but I can see it can be slop too.
- Joker_vD 2mo ago
  > That sounds like a person resigned to his death. Well, yes, precisely. Just two verses earlier Samson prayed to God, asking to grant him a last bout of strength to take revenge at the Philistines for blinding him: "And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes."
schoen 2mo ago
My Hebrew education didn't extend to the future tense, but according to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%AA#Conjugation https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%AA#Conjugation תָּמוּת is either second person masculine future, or third person feminine future. But according to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A0%D7%A4%D7%A9 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A0%D7%A4%D7%A9 נֶפֶשׁ is feminine. So it seems that only the third person form could agree with the subject noun, right?
- Joker_vD 2mo ago
  Apparently, that's how Biblical Hebrew expressed the jussive. German uses 3rd person subjunctive ("Meine Seele sterbe mit den Philistern"), Polish (and other Slavic languages, I imagine) also uses 3rd person future but with explicit "let" thrown in: "Niech umrze dusza moja z Filistynami". But those are the older translations — those quotes are from Luther Bible (1534) and Gdansk Bible (1632); you can find newer translations that use the wording of "let me perish with the Philistines" variety as well.