Numers 14:11 LXX

[Bert]

καὶ εἶπεν κύÏ￾ιος Ï€Ï￾ὸς Μωυσῆν á¼￾ως τίνος παÏ￾οξύνει με á½￾ λαὸς οὗτος καἰ ἔως τίνος οá½￾ πιστεύουσίν μοι á¼￾ν πᾶσιν τοῖς σημείοις, οἷς á¼￾ποίησα á¼￾ν αá½￾τοῖς;I am having a little difficulty with the prepositional phrase á¼￾ν πᾶσιν τοῖς σημείοις. Looking at translations is of some help but but not as useful as I'd like because even the Greek text is a translation.
Most translations have something like; "in spite of all the signs which I did among them." I found one Enlish translation that renders it; "in the face of all the signs..." and one Dutch translation that has something like; "by all the signs..."
"In the face of" has the same basic meaning as "in spite of" but it has to add the words; "the face of" to make an English prepositional phrase work.
"By all the signs" seems to correspond fairly close to the Greek text.
Is "in spite of all the signs" a valid rendering of á¼￾ν πᾶσιν τοῖς σημείοις or is this English text (along with the Greek) a more or less accurate translation of the Hebrew, but the Greek and English don't correspond that closely?

[Kopio]

"By all the signs" seems to correspond fairly close to the Greek text. Is "in spite of all the signs" a valid rendering of á¼￾ν πᾶσιν τοῖς σημείοις or is this English text (along with the Greek) a more or less accurate translation of the Hebrew, but the Greek and English don't correspond that closely?

Hmmmm...Well my Hebrew is a bit rusty, but a very word for word (and wooden) translation of the Hebrew text would be (mind you this is word for word sustaining the Hebrew word order)...

And he said the Lord unto Moses, “until where will they despise me, the people, these ones? And until where will they not trust in all the signs which I have made in their midstâ€￾

So...as far as the reflection of the Hebrew text it is a pretty darn good translation, not only does it follow word order fairly well, but they try to maintain the word for word correspondence (FWIW, the Pentateuch is one of the most strictly translated books in the LXX) × ×￾צ is typically translated as "to despise" I'm not sure if παÏ￾οζυνει is the best choice to reflect that....to provoke....to upset...these feel more active than passive to me, it is in the Piel which is a passive (if I remember right) and I think some other Greek term would have been better (just don't ask me what one).

The phrase "by all the signs" is a very accurate rendition of the Hebrew Text though...the Greek and Hebrew Prepositions are remarkably similar in their function. In spite of all the signs isn't very good as far as a word for word translation, but as far as a dynamic translation I think it is perfectly acceptable.

Sorry Bert....have I just rambled unendingly, or did I actually hit your question in there somewhere

I was just so excited to see someone post on the Koine forum, I didn't know what to do!

[Bert]

Hmmmm...Well my Hebrew is a bit rusty, but a very word for word (and wooden) translation of the Hebrew text would be (mind you this is word for word sustaining the Hebrew word order)...

And he said the Lord unto Moses, “until where will they despise me, the people, these ones? And until where will they not trust in all the signs which I have made in their midstâ€￾

Remarkable that a word for word translation is so understandable.

The phrase "by all the signs" is a very accurate rendition of the Hebrew Text though...the Greek and Hebrew Prepositions are remarkably similar in their function. In spite of all the signs isn't very good as far as a word for word translation, but as far as a dynamic translation I think it is perfectly acceptable.

Your translation; "...trust in all the signs..." to me seems to mean the same as; "believe all the signs." There is quite a difference between saying; "Why won't they believe me and my signs" and; "Why won't they believe me in spite of my signs." I agree that the dynamics are similar but it seems a bit of a stretch to use " in spite of" when there is a much closer option available.

Sorry Bert....have I just rambled unendingly, or did I actually hit your question in there somewhere

You did. Thank you.

I was just so excited to see someone post on the Koine forum, I didn't know what to do!

You did the right thing.

[IreneY]

Hmmm my Hebrew is not rusty, it is non existent but where does that "μοι" come from then? (mind you I rather mistrust the Greek translation than Kopio's). If it wasn't there (I think) things would be simpler and in accordance with i.e. πιστεύετε á¼￾ν Ï„á¿· εá½￾αγγελίῳ (Marc I,15) . Do you think it might be because someone confused the meaning of "πιστεÏ￾ω" as in "believe in God" and "πιστεÏ￾ω" as in "I believe = trust"?

By the way, the Byzantine tradition (translation if you wish) came up with οá½￾ πιστεύουσί μοι á¼￾πὶ πᾶσι τοῖς σημείοις which is a pretty good compromise between that "μοι" there and the original "believe in all signs" .To tell you the truth the first time I looked at it I got a "believe in me in all the points" and I bet those Byzantine "scholars" didn't read it twice

[Bert]

To tell you the truth the first time I looked at it I got a "believe in me in all the points"

That does make sense.

[IreneY]

That I won't deny Bert (I bet those scholars thought the same) but there's no "in me" in the original so why put it there? (plus, this "translation" doesn't "go well" with "that I made in their midst"

The "believe in me in all the points" does make sense but is different than "trust in all the signs which I have made [....]"

[Kopio]

I'm gonna have to ask my Hebrew Prof about this verse, more specifically about the word translated about "to believe"....it is in the Hiphil, and I think that might have a reflexive quality to it, Hebrew also does some funny stuff with it's verb endings that is very different from Greek. Like I said, my Hebrew skills are rusty at best. I've finally started to do a little work on Hebrew databases, which is encouraging, simply looking at it for 6 hours at a time helps it to stick a bit. I know it was interesting when I took 4th year Greek, I had spent about 200 hours working on the LXX, and I was amazed at how much vocabulary I had aquired. My classmates were fairly blown away too....mind you, my syntax and grammatical understanding hadn't excelled, but I'll take what I can get!