[Avodah] saves a life, or a Jewish life?

[Simon Montagu]

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 1:48 PM, Michael Makovi <mikewinddale at gmail.com>wrote:

> > It sort of depends on the precision of the translation. Is it "as though
> > he saved all of humanity" or "all of the people" [ie the Jewish People]?
> > You quote the latter.
> >
> > R' Micha
>
> Of course, if anyone knows Arabic, please speak up; the website from
> which I quoted the Koran in English also has the original Arabic on
> the same page.
>

It would be an exaggeration to say that I know Arabic, but I know how to use
an Arabic dictionary, and "all of humanity" seems to be the correct
translation of "alnas aljamia`" (nas is cognate to Hebrew enosh and Aramaich
nash).

The translations of the Koran that I own also translate it this way: "he who
saveth a life shall be as though he had saved all mankind alive" (J M
Rodwell 1909); "hamehhaye [nefesh] ke'ilu hehhya et kol ha'adam yahhdav" (Y
Y Rivlin 1987)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20090819/fc1251f4/attachment-0002.htm>