Translation talk:1 Samuel

Sources, 1-31

The first two verses were translated by user User:Yeminem, who is no longer active on the project. No word as to what sources he used.

The rest of chapter one I've done, using the Masoretic Text as my base. I did not make any text-critical deviations from it. Alephb (talk) 07:24, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Moving along, in line with my usual translation practice: I am working from the Masoretic text, but I feel free to borrow wording from the KJV, Gesenius, or any other pre-1923 (public domain) source where it seems appropriate. If I deviate from the Masoretic Text, I always footnote the deviation. Alephb (talk) 06:05, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

To be clear, this is through chapter 10. JustinCB (talk) 01:08, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Yep. I've got it updated now. Alephb (talk) 02:23, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

The sourcing comments above now apply to the entire book. Alephb (talk) 23:45, 24 November 2017 (UTC) Why did you strike that out? Did you miscount the number of chapters?

Yeah, I knew in my faulty memory that 2 Samuel had 24 chapters, and so I got it all mixed up in my head, and when I finished 1 Samuel 24, I thought I was finished. Alephb (talk) 20:20, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

And . . . that's all, folks! This section now contains the sourcing information for this whole book. Alephb (talk) 21:58, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

13:1

Just so you know, some readings in other bibles to help you translate.
Vulgate: Saul was the son of one year when he began to reign: and for two years he reigned over Israel.
Luther(German): Saul was king one year; and having ruled two years over Israel, ²he chose three thousand men from Israel.
Geneva(Modern Spelling): Saul now had been king one year, and he reigned two years over Israel.
The translation from the Luther Bible is mine(the part of verse 2 finishes the sentence). The translation from the Vulgate is also mine, as is the modern spelling of the Geneva bible.

The Vulgate is very close to literal here. Saul was son of [a] year is what the Hebrew says (Hebrew doesn't have a word equivalent to English "a"; the absence of its "the" implies it). The Vulgate just adds the word "one." Would it be possible to take "filius" in the Vulgate as "child"? If so, the Vulgate accurately captures the meaning of the Hebrew text as it stands: "a child of one year."

I can't go the Luther/Geneva/KJV route here for a couple reasons. One is that "ben X shanah" "son of X year[s]" is always used to measure a person's age in the Bible, not their amount of time in office in any verse I can remember. Outside of this verse, there's not a single clear example (I'm pretty sure) of it being used for anything other than measuring age. The second is that the structure of the sentence practically demands an age, for all the biblical kings, there's a statement to the effect of "Jehoshaphat/David/Hezekiah/whoever was ben X shanah when he began to reign, and he reigned over Israel/Judah X years." Other than the missing word(s), this sentence looks like it should be one of those sentences.

And reinforcing the idea that it is one of those sentences are three things. (1) We are missing any other sentence of this sort for Saul (while it is routinely supplied for other kings straight from David to the end of the monarchies). (2) It is missing in the Septuagint, as though the translators saw that something was wrong, couldn't fix it, and just cut out the verse. (3) If the idea was that Saul reigned one year, and then in the second year he chose three thousand men, the normal Hebrew way to express this would be to say, "Saul reigned one year, and in the second year of his reign . . ." It could be done very naturally.

However, if someone was absolutely determined to accept the Hebrew text as it stands, the Geneva/Luther route is probably the best way to force a sensible meaning out of it. But it would be forcing the text pretty hard. I think the Luther/Geneva/KJV option here says more about the strong desire of early Protestant interpreters to give the text a sensible literal meaning without amending it in any way than it does about the actual meaning of the verse.

For what it's worth, the other examples of the ben X year idiom are Genesis 5:32, 7:6, 11:10, 12:4, 16:16, 17:1, 17:17, 17:24, 17:25, 21:5, 25:20, 25:26, 26:34, 37:2, 41:46, 50:26; Exodus 7:7, 12:5, 29:38, 30:14, 38:26; Leviticus 9:3, 12:6, 23:12, 23:18, 23:19, 27:3, 27:5, 27:6, 27:7; Numbers 1:3, etc. So it's not an obscure idiom by any stretch. Alephb (talk) 01:57, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

According to footnotes in some modern bibles, some late manuscripts of the Septuagent say Saul was 30 years old. "Filius" is "a (male) child"(which is the same as the Hebrew, from what you say), and it can refer to a child in general(but referring to Saul, it's almost certainly "son"). Some people seem absurdly certain that this verse has an obscure idiom and that it isn't the reignal formula because Saul was the first monarch. The KJV says "son of a year", and the Geneva bible is probably getting its reading indirectly from the Luther bible(it takes readings from other English bibles when it hits hard stuff, and the only other English bibles with this part at that time were the Wycliffe[from the Vulgate], and a bible translated from the Vulgate and the Luther bible[a third bible was the same as the second for this part]). JustinCB (talk) 13:51, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible for the Hebrew to mean "his reign was the son of one year?" JustinCB (talk) 19:50, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

No, that's further out than the "he had reigned one year" interpretation. In Hebrew, we have ben shanah Shaul bemalko: ben, son of, shanah, [a] year], Shaul [Saul], be [when, in] malk [reigning] o [his]." Because Hebrew tends to lack a word for "was" in this kind of sentence, ben shanah Shaul is "Shaul was a year old." Now, what the KJV/Geneva option does is takes "Saul was a year old in his reign" as meaning "Saul was a year into being king," which is plausible if you're kind of working through an Englishy version of Hebrew syntax, but I (and all the living Hebrew grammar people, as far as I know) don't think it's really a live option here, for various reasons above.

But "his reign was the son of a year" is much more difficult to extract from ben shana shaul bemalko. To say something like that, you'd write something like ben shana malko, without the be. And even then, I don't know if Hebrew would even allow using an infinitive like that as a "ben." Definitely a more usual way of doing that would be to use a non-infinitive form, like "he reigned a year." Alephb (talk) 00:52, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

So it doesn't make sense for the Hebrew to mean "Saul reigned one year" or "Saul lived one year after annointing, then reigned for two years," but only "Saul was one year old?" JustinCB (talk) 03:25, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Would it make sense as "Saul was the son of another year" or a corruption of that? JustinCB (talk) 03:31, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, I'll admit that "Saul was a year old" doesn't really make sense. I think the "Saul was a year old as king = Saul reigned a year" is a stretch. At least as I see it (and almost all commentators, I think), trying to make a whole lot of sense of the passage is like trying to read a typo in English as intentional. I'm not sure where you're going with "Saul was a son of another year." What would "son of another year" mean? I don't think I'm familiar with that Hebrew idiom, if it exists. (Of course, due to the limited amount of ancient Hebrew that's been preserved, there's certainly going to be a bunch of idioms we just miss in Hebrew, so there is a certain amount of "anything is possible" to questions like this.) Alephb (talk) 02:38, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps we could translate the verse as "Saul was [ ] years old when he became king, and reigned two years," or even "Saul was [ ] years old when he became king, and reigned [ ] and two years." That might look weird, but it might more accurately signal that we're dealing with a typo to readers rather than with a verse that's crazy. Either one of those, I think, is at least as justifiable as the current wording. Alephb (talk) 02:42, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

With "son of another year", I was just thinking about it as "saul was another year old"(which would make sense as "one year later, Saul began to reign for two years, then he chose...", or "one year later, when Saul had reigned for two years, he chose..."), but that's probably not right either: a missing number in brackets might make more sense, or if the Quamran/dead sea scrolls have anything. JustinCB (talk) 00:05, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Also, do you know of an online edition of the vulgate with the general prologue? I'm planning on translating that now that I'm finished with the Wycliffite Prologue JustinCB (talk) 01:35, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the Qumran materials don't include anything for 1 Samuel 13 at all. (They don't include most verses. As a side note, if you totaled up all of the biblical material in all of the Qumran manuscripts found to date, including duplicates, the whole collection only has about a fifth or a quarter as much text as a full single copy of the Hebrew Bible, so it's always good to check Qumran but it doesn't have most of the Bible; just fragments of most books.) I'm also afraid I can't help you with a general prologue to the Vulgate. I wasn't even aware it had a general prologue.

For now, though, in light of our conversation, I think I'll alter 1 Samuel 13:1 to include brackets. Alephb (talk) 02:22, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Sounds alright. Most vulgates omit the prologues. Most of the prologues were letters sent with copies of the vulgate. Just in case it jogs your memory, the first sentence of the general prologue translated from the early version of the wycliffite bible(which is pretty much word for word from the latin[when it isn't, it's because there isn't a one word equivalent]) reads "Brother Ambrose, to me your(thy) little gifts perfectly bearing, have(hath) brought with and write(or right) sweet letters, which have showed truthfulness of now proved faith, from the beginning of friendships, and new things of old friendship." JustinCB (talk) 13:49, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

They were also known as the preferatory epistles JustinCB (talk) 11:33, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

That should be "prefatory" epistles, not "preferatory". JustinCB (talk) 12:25, 20 November 2017 (UTC)