Dr. Bock,
First, I do appreciate the interaction, and I think it will benefit those who attempt to understand the implications of translation philosophies.

In relation to Genesis 6:3, you ask: “Is not the force of the translation the transience of the human in contrast to angelic beings? If not, then why the contrast with forever in the parallel line?”

My take on the meaning of bashar (Heb.) in Gen. 6:3 is that we are dealing with the difference between what is earthly and what is heavenly. The sons of God (Gen. 6:2) are angelic beings who, by impregnating human women, have transgressed God’s will that reproduction should be according to kind.

God has infused humankind with life and enabled them to reproduce and create new life. The transgression of the angelic beings has usurped this life-producing process and twisted it into a sin-producing process.

In my opinion, the contextual emphasis on transience has nothing to do with the nature of bashar (“flesh”); it has to do with God being disgusted and repelled by the abuse of the life he granted, so he decides when to put that abuse to an end. I reached back to Genesis 2's uses of bashar to demonstrate that there is nothing inherent in "flesh" that makes it either transient or affected by sin. Those associations are incidental and develop in biblical history subsequent to Genesis 2.

So, in summary, I see bashar as dealing with what is earthly with possible overtones of what has proven to be vulnerable to spiritual attack, first in the garden and then in many ways which are cut short by God’s judgment.

Sorry to waste so much space on my own interpretation, but I do so in answer to your question and to demonstrate that some interpretations do not necessarily lead to transience as the accurate interpretation of bashar in Genesis 6:3.

Please note that the interpretation you have chosen and the translation that results from it (“mortal”) work to foreclose any consideration by the reader of the interpretation I have described.

We could consider other adverse influences of dynamic equivalence. By replacing “flesh” (a noun) with “mortal” (an adjective), one unintended result is to make it much harder for average Bible students to do concordance studies of “flesh” in the Old Testament. On a similar note, how many times and where does the word for “Christ” occur in the New Testament? You cannot easily answer that question by looking at a concordance for the NIV, unless you select that concordance carefully.

I have also noticed that many literary touches accomplished through repetition of the same word in the original text are lost due to the freedom felt by dynamic translators to make the target language more readable and clear for contemporary readers. So, gains in clarity are matched by losses in identifying the author’s emphasis.

I respect those involved in translations based on dynamic equivalence, but those of us who prefer formal equivalence do so with reasons that are not easily swept aside.

-Barry