By Charles Halton on Thursday, 9 July 2009 at 2:31 pm

Brandon Wason has provided very helpful clarification on the project to revise BDB.  It seems that the main focus of the effort will be to update the etymological sections of the entries along with providing limited bibliography.  These are very worthy goals and surely BDB is in sore need of this kind of update (for all the reasons Jim Getz outlines).  I think John Huehnergard is one of the best Semitists in the world and I will buy his rework of BDB for that reason.

However, part of me senses that this effort to revise BDB is really just a half-measure.  No where in the summary that Brandon provides (I don’t have access to the newly published piece he references) is there mention of touching the actual definitions or sub-definitions.  I would have to think that there would be changes made and presumably the changes would extend beyond mere contemporizing of language.  However, the silence on this matter makes is seem like these changes will not be extensive.  Why not?  Is the etymological data therefore useless since it wouldn’t substantially change glosses?  Why would these scholars spend that much effort and buyers spend that much money buying beefed up etymologies that are superfluous for definitions.  Or, are the definitions going to be substantially edited but this was not mentioned (maybe it is assumed)?  In this case is the Hackett-Huehnergard team up to the challenge?

The way that BDB is structured in an almost concordance-like manner by providing sub-definitions keyed with specific verses (and even occasional translations of phrases) means that BDB is more than just a lexicon–it is a translation.  In order to provide a close to exhaustive key for all of the Hebrew definitions Hackett-Huehnergard will basically be providing us with their translation of the Bible.  To bring this point home we should note that by using a concordance and a computer Wacholder and Abegg were able to reconstruct a close approximation of the text of the Dead Sea Scrolls before they were actually published.  Presumably, someone with more computer expertise than me would be able to do this with the revised BDB (however, there are the inevitable conflicts between different entries which already exist in BDB).

I have no doubt that this team is probably the best positioned to provide etymological updates but I wonder about providing a virtual translation through definitions.  After all, biblical translation takes many more skills than merely a finely honed knowledge of Semitics (let me reiterate my profound respect for Huehnergard in this area; he is one of the best of the very best–I haven’t followed Hackett’s work but from her blurb on Harvard’s page she has done work in Judges, Numbers, and such).   Most modern translations involve large teams and committees–this team encompasses two people only one of which apparently works with biblical interpretation.  Granted they are not providing much syntactical analysis but there will still be a tremendous amount of interpretation involved in providing definitions keyed with verses.  I just wonder if they have worked through all the philosophical, theological, historical, etc. aspects that it takes to translate this stuff.

What are your thoughts?

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Category: All,Biblical Hebrew Language,In the News

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