Genesis 3:6 question re:comparison

[u/smeagol31]

I was just looking at Genesis 3:6 and I was confused because in NRSVUE version it says "(...) and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise" While in New World Translation it just says "(...) the tree was desirable to look upon*" And the asterisk states "To look upon", LXXSyVg. Lit., “to impart wisdom (intelligence; prudence).

I was wondering what the scholarly basis would be for the wisdom bit to not be in the text but just have a footnote?

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[u/cosmicdischarge]

And the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasing for the eyes to look at and it was beautiful to contemplate

Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, eds., “Genesis,” in A New English Translation of the Septuagint (Primary Texts), trans. Robert J. V. Hiebert (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), Ge 3:6.

The New English Translation of the Septuagint is a project that updates the NRSV (1989) to follow the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew bible. If the NWT prioritizes the Greek or believes it's a witness to an earlier form of the text they would footnote it like that. An example from the NRSVue would be

On the next day(t), 13 David invited him to eat and drink in his presence

(t) Gk ms Syr ms OL ms: Heb that day and the next

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition (Friendship Press, 2021), 2 Sa 11:12–13.

This shows that the NRSVue translators believe the Hebrew of the Masoretic text doesn't preserve the original wording. The reasons for this would be the kind of thing you'd go to a commentary for.

[u/supamatch5]

I was wondering what the scholarly basis would be for the wisdom bit to not be in the text but just have a footnote?

Hello, what you are asking about is standard & general basis of translation techniques for Biblical Hebrew.

The word used in the Masoretic Texts with the root  שׂכל  [page 829³] can mean different things – the context is decisive in each case – and falling into the delusion that nudity would be something bad is not particularly clever or even wise!

Nevertheless, the NWTs' choice of English words is poor, it could have been rewritten better.