Current situation
Why a new
Tanakh translation? Well, first of all this project is not yet off
the ground and is still in the planning stages. The reason though,
despite the many different translations out there, is very simple:
Every translation in English today has a doctrine to promote.
To state
it quite frankly, even without a doctrine to promote we would
promote a doctrine of some kind. Although we have very good
relations with the Jewish community and similar with some
Christian/Messianic, groups the English translations from their
midst are all flawed in one way or another.
Our
Father and Creator’s Name is omitted, degraded most often, whether
He is called, “LORD” or “HaSHEM” it is not His name that He Himself
declared to us. The Christians and Messianics like to read the
prophecies with their own rules and capitalise letters everywhere to
indicate they believe this is the one messiah they are expecting,
even though the actual text clearly indicates a different scenario.
We aim to
do the same as we have tried with the Afrikaans version currently in
progress, by removing ALL references like this. Capitals will be
used only for our Father YHWH and for personal names and places as
would be normal in English. Our Father’s Name will be printed in
Hebrew characters rather than Roman simply to allow the reader to
use his own conviction on pronunciation. Even from a Jewish
perspective this would fit in with the way the Tanakh is read in
Hebrew.
For
obvious reason the Tanakh will only include the Tanakh and no
Christian books!
Having
said all of the above, it is quite clear that there is some form of
doctrine present also here and it is true. It is the Doctrine of
Tanakh Only! Yes, the capitals are used here also to emphasise.
However,
when this project starts we will have on the web available for
reading. We trust that it would be as beneficial to all English
readers as what the Hebrew is to Hebrew readers!