A Handbook on Jeremiah
Overview
What if you were responsible for translating God's Word into a language that never had a Bible before? Can you imagine the burden you would feel to do a good job?
God takes His Word pretty seriously, and you would certainly do everything in your power to make sure that you were not putting words into God's mouth, but that you were providing a text that clearly communicated God's Word as closely to the original as possible.
This challenge to understand the heart of the original Scriptures, in order to put the original text into a new language, was the impetus for the United Bible Societies to create handbooks for Bible translators working on this very thing. The United Bible Societies' Handbook Series is a comprehensive verse-by-verse guide to understanding exactly what is being communicated by the author in the original Scriptures.
- Exegetical, historical, cultural, and linguistic information on the original text
- Verse-by-verse guides
- An essential tool for Bible translators
Top Highlights
“The sheer length of Jeremiah (longer than either Isaiah or Ezekiel) and the complexity of its composition combine to create enormous challenges for the translator. In fact, Jeremiah is not really a ‘book’ in the sense that most readers today would normally describe a book—it has neither an overall orderly arrangement nor clearly defined contextual settings for interpreting many of its individual parts.” (Page 1)
“I do not know how to speak must not be taken to indicate that Jeremiah could not speak. Among the translations the meaning is perhaps best expressed by Luther Revised (lu): ‘I am not fit to preach.’ Another good way to express it is ‘I don’t know how to speak in public.’” (Page 30)
“Call upon me should not be translated with a term that means simply to call the name of someone. The idea here is to call to the Lord in prayer, to turn to him for help.” (Page 592)
“As elsewhere in this book, Call to me does not mean simply to call out or shout the Lord’s name; rather, the meaning is to call upon him for help (see 29:12).” (Page 684)
“Gilead was a region east of the Jordan River; it was famous for plants that could be used for medicinal purposes.” (Page 250)
- Title: A Handbook on Jeremiah
- Authors: Barclay M. Newman and Philip C. Stine
- Series: The United Bible Societies' Handbook Series (UBSHS)
- Publisher: United Bible Societies
- Pages: 1,045