Ade wrote:
Glas is only fine in this sentence if you're trying to translate directly from the English to Irish (which seems to be what PUL has done). In this case, however, that would be a mistake, as you would loose the original context, that these are trees with leaves and not evergreens. Even modern English bibles should probably avoid using "green" in this verse anymore, as it doesn't still have the same connotations as it did when the KJB was created. Glas, as a colour, can refer to the green of both deciduous and coniferous trees, but clearly the latter are intended to be excluded by this verse.
I don't know why there is a preference on this forum to argue about nothing. You appear not to know what an evergreen tree is: they have leaves too. In fact, the difference between evergreens and deciduous trees is that evergreens keep their leaves all year round. There is nothing in Jeremiah 3 that refers to the difference between evergreen and deciduous trees--or coniferous trees (which are trees that reproduce via seed-bearing cones, and are mostly evergreens). It is mystifying to me why you have inferred a detailed discussion of the difference between various types of trees into a simple sentence.
The Douay has (Jeremiah 3:13):
Quote:
But yet acknowledge thy iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God: and thou hast scattered thy ways to strangers under every green tree, and hast not heard my voice, saith the Lord.
There is no further discussion of trees in the chapter apart from "she hath gone out of herself upon every high mountain, and under every green tree" in Jeremiah 3:6. This is not a discussion of evergreens, deciduous and coniferous trees.
The Latin contains the word "frondoso" - meaning leafy (all the tree types above are leafy, as are all trees). Peadar Ua Laoghaire was a reader of Latin, and will have been aware of the Vulgate text, as will the translators of the Douay-Rheims Bible, who clearly felt "green tree" a more idiomatic translation in English. "Crann glas" does indeed mean "leafy tree" in Irish. You could also say "crann fé dhuilliúr", but "crann glas" is idiomatically correct here.