Original: The failure of past translations lies in assuming the work to be other than what it was intended to be. 

Paraphrase:

1. Older renderings of the work are not sufficient due to the idea that the work is something other than the original intention. 

2. An incorrect presumption about what the original was, has caused past rederings to be unsuccessful. 

3.  Renderings before this copy have been unsuccessful due to a lack of understanding of the original work. 

Original: These stories have been spun for centuries

1.  Hundreds of years have gone by as these tales have been created. 

2. These narratives have been repeated over and over again for many many years. 

3. This type of tale has been in creation for hundreds of years. 

I struggled a lot with this exercise. I quickly felt like I had exhausted all options for synonyms that accurately reflected the true meaning of the passage. I chose the first passage I paraphrased, because I thought the phrasing used was interesting and ambiguous. By going through the action of paraphrasing I was able to better understand the original intention of the sentence. I did this by paraphrasing with incorrect meaning multiple times, which helped me realize what those incorrect meanings were. I chose the second passage because I was intrigued by the use of the word “spun” . I think changing that world multiple times in search for different meaning and contexts was able to help me better understand the original purpose.