True Delitzsch Database Now Available

[Adelphos]

I have made available a much truer Delitzsch database for BibleWorks.

This new version is called DLT. Go to my website and follow the link for "Bible Tools" to download this new version.

Copy all the files in the ZIP file to your BibleWorks DATABASE folder and then restart BibleWorks. The new DLT will now show up in the Hebrew list right before the DLZ.

While I will continue to work on this database, you can follow the date on my weblink to ascertain if you have the latest version.

Some of the changes that have been made are --

1 Timothy 3:16
1 Corinthians 10:9
Hebrews 11:11
1 Peter 3:10-12
Galatians 3:17

-- as well as other minor changes.

I have made no emendations of my own, but rather, all changes conform to the true printed edtion of Delitzsch.

Michael, you are free to post this ZIP file, as well as ongoing updates, to your blog if you want.

Today begins the Feast Of Trumpets. Shalom.

[Adelphos]

As a further update, after investigating as much as I can, it appears that there is NO printed edition in existence that matches the Keran/DLZ so-called Delitzsch edition of the Hebrew New Testament. Rather, the online Keran/DLZ appears to be a lone-ranger online edition emeded according to the sheers whims of its creator(s).

Personally, I feel very strongly that that disqualifies it utterly as a "Delitzsch" translation, especially since several of the passages that have been altered are doctrinal alterations, not merely linguistic alterations.

Moreover, these doctrinal alterations were rejected outright by Delitzsch himself.

I don't suspect I'll get my way on this, but I think BibleWorks ought to rename this to the "Keran" edition and completely remove the name "Delitzsch" from it altogether, as it has been intentionally altered doctrinally, not merely linguistically, and in complete opposition to what Delitzsch persistently produced when he was alive.

[Adelphos]

I would also encourage BibleWorks to email Eric Browning, the General Secretary for the Society for Distributing Hebrew Scriptures and get his take on it. If you read the email from him that I posed in the other thread, I'll suspect you'll find him very much agreeing with me.

[Adelphos]

There is a "Koren" publisher in Jerusalem, and a friend of mine recently brought me back one of their Bibles, which is only the Tanach in Hebrew. They don't make New Testaments, as far as I can discover.

There is no record that I can find of a Keran publisher who makes printed editions.

Thus, in essence and in fact, the DLZ in BibleWorks is based on a text with absolutely no provenance and no historical pedigree whatsoever.

On the other hand, there are printed, legitimate Delitzsch translations, printed by publishers of repute, with legitimate pedigrees.

It seems to me that an electronic Bible version purported to be based on a historical Bible translation, in order to be legitimate, ought to have a legitimate provenance, based on a legitimate printed edition, with a legitimate pedigree of that historical translation.

The DLZ fits nowhere in those categories.

And with that, I'll leave it there. I've found out what I wanted to know about the real Delitzsch translation.

Although, at present, it is still my intention to continue to update, as I see necessary, the DLT I have made available to conform to the true Delitzsch. Just check the weblink for the dates.

[Adelphos]

Just to put the nail in the coffin, the DLZ also contains the absurd, blasphemous corruption in Matthew 27:49 which says that Jesus was killed by someone with a spear instead of dying supernaturally as he promised, following B and Aleph, but nevertheless a blasphemy that not even the Critical Text was brazen enough to adopt.

Needless to say, the TRUE printed edition of Delitzsch knows nothing of this gross corruption.

Not to mention other lesser corruptions I've discovered just in just an hour or so of additional searching, several of them major.

[alhembd]

Just to put the nail in the coffin, the DLZ also contains the absurd, blasphemous corruption in Matthew 27:49 which says that Jesus was killed by someone with a spear instead of dying supernaturally as he promised, following B and Aleph, but nevertheless a blasphemy that not even the Critical Text was brazen enough to adopt.

Needless to say, the TRUE printed edition of Delitzsch knows nothing of this gross corruption.

Not to mention other lesser corruptions I've discovered just in just an hour or so of additional searching, several of them major.

Dear Scott,

My name is Albert Hembd. I work for the Trinitarian Bible Society. We are currently working on a revision of the Delitzsch Hebrew New Testament.

Regrettably, the Alexandrian corruption you mention in Matthew 27.49 is found in the DHNT. Delitzsch first translated using Codex Sinaiticus. At the insistence of the British Foreign and Bible Society of that time, he revised it to conform to the Textus Receptus. However, he did not successfully purge all the Alexandrian corruptions from his translation. Specifically, I am seeing the corruption you are speaking of in the "Streams in the Desert" Negev revision of the Delitzsch Eighth Edition, which follows the Eighth Edition very closely, only modifying it where words have changed their meanings in modern Hebrew. (For example, the word Delitzsch used for undergarment today means "underwear").

Delitzsch himself actually was an advocate of the Critical Text. Even after the British and Foreign Bible Society made him revise his text to conform to the Textus Receptus, he put brackets around the Textus Receptus readings to indicate they were not his preferred readings. Also, Delitzsch, as he got older, came to embrace higher criticism as well. For example, he totally embraced the "Documentary Hypothesis" that the Books of Moses were not written by Moses, but rather were written by four independent authors.

As you can see, the DHNT needs revision! Remember us in your prayers, please. The Delitzsch is a beautiful translation - written in a high, Tanakhian literary style. But there are 'bugs' in it that need to be purged, and Matthew 27.49 is only one of them.

Be advised also that the electronic edition of Ewan MacLeod abounds in pointing errors. It was a scan job, then revised with OCR. A lot of points ended up missing, or typed in wrong.

Al Hembd
Trinitarian Bible Society