
Originally Posted by
ProDeo
I could only find one translation that translates it that way, the ISV. The interesting thing about the ISV is that
quote:
The International Standard Version (ISV) is the first modern Bible translation in any language to provide an exclusive textual apparatus comparing the text of the famed Dead Sea Scrolls with the traditional Masoretic text of the Hebrew Tanakh (i.e., the “Old Testament”).
I must say the ISV on Gen 4:26 makes much more sense (fits better) in regard how the story develops, the corruption of mankind and how that led to the destruction by Noah's flood. Reading the traditional translations always left me with the feeling: what happened, things were going so well.
Why is it that you are so sure?
Because it's the only thing that makes sense with the events happening. In Appendix 21 of the Companion Bible it says:
« What was really begun was the profanation of the Name of Jehovah . They began to call something by the Name of Jehovah. The A. V. suggests « themselves », in the margin. But the majority of the ancient Jewish commentators supply the Ellipsis by the words « their gods »; suggesting that they called the stars and idols their gods, and worshipped them.
The Targum of Onkelos explains it:
« then in his days the sons of men desisted from praying in the Name of the Lord ».
The Targum of Jonathan says:
« That was the generation in whose days they began to err, and to make themselves idols, and surnamed their idols by the Name of the Word of the Lord ».
Kimchi, Rashi, and other ancient Jewish commentators agree with this. Rashi says:
« Then was there profanation in calling on the Name of the Lord ».
Jerome says that this was the opinion of many Jews in his days. Maimonides, in his Commentary on the Mishna (a constituent part of the Talmud), A.D. 1168, in a long treatise on idolatry, gives the most probably account of the origin of idolatry in the days of Enos. The name Enos agrees with this, for his name means frail, weak, sickly, incurable ».
Aristarkos
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