Peer review is consensus. What else can it be?
Richard
Analysis. Consensus means agreement, and peer review has little to do with agreement. Reviewers have checked the work of people they despised and totally disagreed with but approved the work for publication because it was sound work.
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Not in this case. It means validation which involves a judgement, and that judgement will either have a majority or not. The consensus is the majority viiew as to whether is is valid, not the precise content/
On what criteria?
I would find it insulting for my views to have to be validated by “experts”. Human experts! The only expert on my views is me. And the only other being who has a say in them is God.
Richard
I don’t get what the discrepancy is supposed to be. The Hebrew says Abram “trusted” or “believed” God. The LXX guys got it right.
- I’m pretty sure that “the discrepancy” is between “merit” and “righteousness”, not “trusted” and “believed”.
Only “untrue” if the translator or editor changes the meaning of who is initiating or receiving the action. Do we really need to clarify that? If one shifts into passive voice and keeps the intended meaning intact, it is quite indeed true, as I’d think you should know quite well:
active – Tom hit a rock.
passive – A rock was hit by Tom.
Another:
active – NASA built a rocket.
passive – A rocket was built by NASA.
A third:
active – Linda knocked over the vase.
passive – The Vase was knocked over by Linda.
I can’t believe I have to explain this explicitly, but so long as changing into passive voice doesn’t actually shift who is initiating or receiving actions, then no, the core meaning does not change.
sorry, have to roll my eyes one more time…
False comparison? It is precisely what is in the Bible that is being discussed!
“He reckoned it to him as righteousness,” (active, in Gen 15/MT/OT), and
"It was reckoned to him as righteousness. (passive, in LXX / NT)
Hence I’m not seeing this complete reversal of meaning intimated by the “mistranslation” into the passive voice here being claimed. Am I missing something?
Ahh, Google’s AI to the rescue to defend common sense once again….
Changing a sentence from active voice to passive voice can subtly alter the meaning, primarily by shifting emphasis and focus, but not necessarily the overall core meaning. The underlying event or relationship described in the sentence remains the same, but the perspective or highlighted aspect of it changes.
@St.Roymond is correct re passive/active voice.
Cheers,
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Respectfully, that is an assertion, not an argument. If we’re going to just resort to assertions, I’ll simply assert that Google AI is correct re passive/active voice….
changing between active and passive voice typically doesn’t change the fundamental meaning of a sentence, but it does shift the focus or emphasis.
It’s about the verb, which the LXX has saying that God counted Abraham righteous, but a strict reading of the Hebrew has Abraham counting God as “righteous”.
You’re switching the subject in order to get your version. That’s not what’s being said.
The two statements as you have them would be:
“Abraham reckoned it to God as righteousness” versus “it was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness”. By switching from active to passive, the one giving and the one receiving the action is changed.
Google is talking about this switch:
active: John ate a pizza.
passive: A pizza was eaten by John.
But that changes the subject and the object. The situation here leaves the object and the subject unchanged, which makes it:
active: John ate a pizza.
passive: John was eaten by a pizza.
Ahh… any chance you could show me this in the texts being discussed? even just cut and paste from the BHS and LXX, or even from an interlinear, to show me exactly where the texts themselves explicitly shift regarding who is receiving the action?
What you’re looking for is in the OP.
I did break down and read through the article, but my question still remains… could you show me in the original texts exactly where, by shifting from active to passive voice, the texts themselves explicitly or unambiguously shift regarding who is receiving the action?
If it is as straightforward, explicit, and obvious as @St.Roymond seems to be suggesting…
…then it should be easy to simply quote or paste the BHS & LXX (or even a very strict and literal translation of both) and show, explicitly and unambiguously, exactly how “by switching from active to passive, the one giving and the one receiving the action is changed,” no?
Also, back to @St.Roymond 's earlier claim…
I’d be very interested again if you could cut and paste the Hebrew text where a “strict reading” (by which I assume you mean a strict, literal reading) explicitly and unambiguously has “Abraham counting God as ‘righteous’”. Or I’d settle for a strictly literal translation that explicitly and unambiguously shows the same thing…
I’ll wait!
It’s in the article!
I don’t know how to make it clearer. It’s a matter of
. . . . . . . . . . . .subject . . . . . . . . . verb . . . . . . . . . . object
Greek: . . . . . Abraham . . . . . . was counted . . . righteous {by God}
Hebrew: . . . . Abraham . . . . . . counted . . . . . . . God {as righteous}
I’m not totally awake yet, so that may be muddled.
Then respectfully, you’re misunderstanding the article, or the article is unclear or misleading. I can tell you didn’t get this from the BHS or the LXX. I’m looking at the Hebrew and Greek right in front of me. Let me correct your chart and show you the actual nouns that are in the text:
. . . . . . . . . . . .subject . . . . . . . . . verb . . . . . . . . . . object
Greek: . . . . . HE. . . . . . was counted . . . righteous {by God}
Hebrew: . . . . HE. . . . . . counted . . . . . . . HIM {as righteous}
Somehow, perhaps from this article, you got the impression that the nouns “Abraham” and “God” are explicitly in the phrase in question and got explicitly reversed with the shift to passive in Greek? They simply are not. The phrase is grammatically vague (in both languages), as it only uses either pronouns or the noun as contained within the verb itself.
Point is, when we’re talking about nonspecific pronouns, there simply is no way that shifting to passive can change the meaning in the way you are suggesting. What you’re essentially trying to argue is that shifting from active to passive reverses the meaning of these two sentences:
He hit him.
He was hit by him.
To make it exactingly clear, let me offer a strictly literal translation keeping original word order and exact pronouns as much as I can:
BHS/Hebrew:
וְהֶאֱמִ֖ן בַּֽיהוָ֑ה וַיַּחְשְׁבֶ֥הָ לּ֖וֹ צְדָקָֽה
And he believed in Yahweh, and he reckoned to him righteousness.
LXX/Greek:
καὶ ἐπίστευσεν Αβραμ τῷ θεῷ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην.
And Abram believed in (the) God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.
The one receiving the righteousness is a nonspecific pronoun in both cases, so there simply is no way shifting from active to passive “mistranslated” anything by changing who was the object vs subject of this action.
In Hebrew, the one who was reckoned righteous is "“HIM”, and in Greek, the one who was reckoned righteous is “HIM”.
So where exactly is this changing meaning due to passive voice you see between the Hebrew and Greek of this sentence again?
Maybe this will clear things up:
וְהֶאֱמִן בַּיהוָה וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ לּוֹ צְדָקָה
NOTE: it(f) means the indefinite object pronoun refers to a female antecedent.
-
No translation: straight-up mechanical transliteration.
and-he-trusted in-the-LORD and-he-reckoned-it(f) to-him righteous. -
Now, we replace the indefinite pronouns of the subject verbs with their antecedents
and-trusted-Avram in-YHWH and Avram reckoned-it(f) to-YHWH righteous.
NOTE: As explained in the article Abram is the subject of both verbs by a Hebrew grammar rule called subject continuity - see the article for the references. It’s a bit technical but it applies to sequential clauses when the first takes the form of a simple perfect (like the English past-tense) and the second takes the form of a wayyiqtol.
- Now, replace all of the object indefinite pronouns with their antecedents.
and-trusted-Avram in-the-LORD and Avram-reckoned-sincerity to-YHWH righteous.
Righteous[ness] is usually translated as a feminine noun. But for reasons explained in the article isn’t the best choice for the antecedent of reckoned. A better antecedent is the truth or sincerity of YHWH’s promises (verse 15:5). Here’s the result.
and-trusted-Avram in-the-LORD and Avram-reckoned-{the promises] to-YHWH righteous.
or expressed less literally,
and trusted Avram in the LORD and Avram reckoned the truth of YHWH's words to be righteous.
In other words, Avram is saying that God’s promises are righteous because God is telling the truth (in spite of His failure to deliver on his promises). In other words, Abram still has faith in God’s sincerity. But note that a few verses later YHWH seems to have had enough of Avram’s nagging and is ordered to believe YHWH (verse 15:13 I seem to recall).
Cheers,
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Not in the least – the grammar is clear.
Which is exactly what it does when you don’t pay attention to who the subject is. In the Hebrew, as Michael has explained, the subject of the second verb has to be the same as the subject of the first verb, thus if it is (and it is) “Abraham believed God” then it is “Abraham counted as righteous”.