Reply To: English Translations of Seforim

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akuperma
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Most major Jewish books have been translated into English, though the quality of translations is poor, even if the translators didn’t deliberately leave things out on the theory that non-Hebrew readers are too simple to understand certain concepts, and assuming the translator had a solid command of both language (otherwise one gets a translation into Yeshivish or Brooklynese, not standard English). A major problem is that Hebrew had totally different syntax than English, and only two tenses (what we call the “present” in modern/zionist Hebrew is a gerund being used as a verb). As an example, if you say in Hebrew that Ha-Shem created the world, you are saying he not only did it at some point in the past, but he is still doing so. That has a profound difference in meaning, and can’t be translated. While translations are helplful tools, if you think you are getting “the whole story” you are deceiving yourself.