Re: Hades, Tartarus, Gehenna all rendered "hell"--Loyal translation?

From: Steven Craig Miller (scmiller@www.plantnet.com)
Date: Thu Dec 30 1999 - 12:49:47 EST


<x-flowed>To: Solomon Landers,

<< Sounds logical and reasonable enough, as you suggest, to just
transliterate those words and footnote them. As for TARTAROW, why not
something like "thrust them down into Tartarus," as Kenneth Wuest
translates it? (Again, with a footnote, probably citing the LXX of Job
40:15, where the substantive form EN TWi TARTARWi ("in the deep," Brenton)
is found. >>

I have no substantial objection to such a method. I will note that Louw &
Nida, in their lexicon, make the plea:

<< In many cases it is confusing to add still another term for a
designation of hell by transliterating the Greek TARTAROS, and so most
translators have preferred to render TARTAROW as either 'to cast into hell'
or 'to keep in hell,' thus using for 'hell' the same term as employed for a
rendering the Greek term GEENNA >> (1.25).

Of course, once one uses "Gehenna" for GEENNA, it would be inappropriate to
translate TARTAROW with "to cast/keep in Gehenna." Using the term
"Tartarus" (with a footnote) is one option, but also using Benton's
solution ("the deep") is another possibility.

IMO it is a matter of personal taste, it is hard to argue that on this
issue one translation is necessarily better than another. My own preference
is that no matter what choice one makes, it should be footnoted.

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller@www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree),
what do I know?"

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