translation problems

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Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: translation problems

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Mark 12:35 could be an example, where you can think around, besides the fact, that the word order subject/predicate noun is not switched.
Πῶς λέγουσιν οἱ γραμματεῖς ὅτι ὁ Χριστὸς υἱὸς Δαυίδ ἐστιν
How say the scribes that the Christ son David is
Mark's argument seems to be, that in Psalm 110 (LXX 109) David - speaking in the holy spirit - subordinated himself to the Christ, identifying the Christ as the "second Lord" in that Psalm. Therefore the Christ can't be "son" of David, he must be his Lord. From Mark's point of view it seems to be a question of qualitativeness. The other question is, whether it's the same for the "scribes" in Mark 12:35. :scratch:
ficino
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Re: translation problems

Post by ficino »

Found this on a Jehovah's Witness website about the anarthrous predicate noun in John 1:1. This website acknowledges the "qualitative" force of the predicate but goes on to draw the consequence that the predicate is indefinite, sc. the Word is "a god" or "godlike."

How this is not polytheism, with a supreme god and lesser god/s, I cannot fathom. But that's not my problem.

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1001060096

I have to chuckle that the JWs refer to Harner's article, which I mentioned and Peter linked above. The Catholics also refer to the very same article in favor of their very different doctrinal position.
Last edited by ficino on Thu Mar 26, 2015 3:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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DCHindley
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Re: translation problems

Post by DCHindley »

The "rules" of NT Greek grammar have a tendency to come across, at least to me, as stilted and forced.

Here is an example, posted in response to an online essay about interpretative "rules" for biblical narrative, here:
http://www.postost.net/2010/05/narrativ ... m-theology
"It would be better to say that when ἐν + the dative expresses the idea of means (a different category), the instrument is used by an agent. When agency is indicated, the agent so named is not used by another, but is the one who uses an instrument.

Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics - Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, 373.

“According to our definition, if ἐν + dative is used to express agency, the noun in the dative must not only be personal, but must also be the agent who performs the action.

Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics - Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, 373.

“However, the slightly different phenomenon of ἐν + the dative is considered by many to express agency on a rare occasion. Yet no unambiguous examples are forthcoming. Thus what can be said about the dative of agency can also be said of ἐν + the dative to express agent: it is rare, at best.

Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics - Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, 375.
I have highlighted what I consider the special pleading and "color" commentary with underlining. Despite the discovery long ago, through excavation of papyrus fragments in Egypt etc, that the NT was written in koine (common, unsophisticated) Greek, sometimes I think that certain exegetes still treat the NT (and Septuagint) as "holy spirit Greek" with special rules that God has mandated. Hence all the "musts" (because theology depends on it) and the approval of "many" and the citation of "our (= right thinking Christians') definition" ...

DCH
ficino
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Re: translation problems

Post by ficino »

Yes, I questioned whether we should talk about "biblical Greek" as though the phrase designates, not simply the Greek idiom we find in the scriptures (LXX and NT), but also an identifiable and consciously stylized idiom.

Granted, one can talk about semitisms and imitation semitisms. But do we find a mixture of dialect forms, different morphological units, put together in an idiom like what is loosely called "Homeric Greek"? The latter was an artificial, stylized idiom used for oral delivery of high-culture poetry. I don't know that we can be sure that all the NT documents, at least, were written in a stylized idiom slated for oral delivery in ecclesial contexts, though they may have been. Certainly, there was not a canon at the time the NT docs were written.

Do extra-canonical gospels and the like share the features that traditionalists attribute to "biblical Greek"?
ficino
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Re: translation problems

Post by ficino »

DCHindley wrote:
ficino wrote:The JW interpretation really shouldn't work even for them, because it implies polytheism.
Then you must not know the JWs very well. An analogy might be to compare them to Arians. Arians had no trouble imagining the Father god created a son "out of nothing" to serve a special function for the salvation of mankind.
Just in case anyone is interested in new collection of essays on ancient "Arianism," a review:

http://www.bmcreview.org/2015/03/20150349.html
Bertie
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Re: translation problems

Post by Bertie »

DCHindley wrote:The "rules" of NT Greek grammar have a tendency to come across, at least to me, as stilted and forced.

Here is an example, posted in response to an online essay about interpretative "rules" for biblical narrative, here:
http://www.postost.net/2010/05/narrativ ... m-theology
"It would be better to say that when ἐν + the dative expresses the idea of means (a different category), the instrument is used by an agent. When agency is indicated, the agent so named is not used by another, but is the one who uses an instrument.

Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics - Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, 373.

“According to our definition, if ἐν + dative is used to express agency, the noun in the dative must not only be personal, but must also be the agent who performs the action.

Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics - Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, 373.

“However, the slightly different phenomenon of ἐν + the dative is considered by many to express agency on a rare occasion. Yet no unambiguous examples are forthcoming. Thus what can be said about the dative of agency can also be said of ἐν + the dative to express agent: it is rare, at best.

Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics - Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, 375.
I have highlighted what I consider the special pleading and "color" commentary with underlining. Despite the discovery long ago, through excavation of papyrus fragments in Egypt etc, that the NT was written in koine (common, unsophisticated) Greek, sometimes I think that certain exegetes still treat the NT (and Septuagint) as "holy spirit Greek" with special rules that God has mandated. Hence all the "musts" (because theology depends on it) and the approval of "many" and the citation of "our (= right thinking Christians') definition" ...

DCH
Sometime in the last year I remember reading a paper or book in which the author as a side argument argued that ἐν as a preposition in the New Testament meant only what it meant in classical times (as described in, say, Smyth's Grammar) and did not have any of the special meanings that New Testament scholars sometimes give to it. I don't quite remember where I read that, though.

In addition to Colwell's rule, there's also the "Granville Sharp" rule which also originated in Trinitarian defense; at some point I reviewed some of the literature surrounding that one and came away pretty skeptical of it.

Somewhere on my list of things to maybe read someday is BeDuhn's Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament, reviewed here, which may discuss some of these and similar issues.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: translation problems

Post by Peter Kirby »

Here's another famous crux interpretum, the verse of Romans 9:5 where we might find that "the Christ" is "God" (or do we?).

Image

So, is the current trend of calling "God, blessed to the age" (followed by "Amen") a separate doxology completely sound? Is the alternate reading sound? Is there any way to tell one way or another? And does the absence of a verb in "God, blessed to the ages" give any clue, or is that just a red herring?

(If you find it impossible to believe that Paul would call Christ "God," consider that Romans 9:5 might not be from Paul. Does that change your answer?)
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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DCHindley
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Re: translation problems

Post by DCHindley »

Peter Kirby wrote:Here's another famous crux interpretum, the verse of Romans 9:5 where we might find that "the Christ" is "God" (or do we?).

Image

So, is the current trend of calling "God, blessed to the age" (followed by "Amen") a separate doxology completely sound? Is the alternate reading sound? Is there any way to tell one way or another? And does the absence of a verb in "God, blessed to the ages" give any clue, or is that just a red herring?

(If you find it impossible to believe that Paul would call Christ "God," consider that Romans 9:5 might not be from Paul. Does that change your answer?)
Keep in mind that Greek had no formal punctuation or upper/lower cases in the time the NT was written and for centuries after. Very occasionally a manuscript used some sort of punctuation, but generally each copy with punctuation differed from the others. Basically that means that translators and editors, when punctuating for modern editions or translations, use their understanding of the "context" of the sentence, which, as you can see below, is a fairly subjective thing.

Here is an example from the 2nd ed. (1968) of the UBS Greek text (intended for translators)*:

(Rom 9:5) ὧν οἱ πατέρες, καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα˙[a] ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς[c] εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν [per Nestle 25th ed.]

a major, b none, c none [WHmg, Nes, BF2, RVmg1, RSV, TT, Segmg]
a minor, b none, c none [TR, Bov]
a minor, b minor, c none [WH, AV, RV, ASV, NEBmg1, Jer, (Seg)]
a major, b minor, c minor [ASVmg, NEB, NEB, Zur]
a minor, b none, c minor [RSVmg, Zurmg, Luth]
a major, b none, c minor [RVmg2]
a minor, b major, c none [RVmg3, NEBmg2]

Meaning of types of punctuation in modern Greek editions or translations:
major = period [Eng. period], raised period [Eng. colon or semi-colon], semi-colon [Eng. question mark]
minor = comma
none = none

TR = Textus Receptus (Oxford 1873)
WH = Westcott and Hort (1881)
Bov = Bover (4th ed 1959)
Nes = Nestle-Aland (NA 25th ed. 1963) this was the default punctuation for UBS2
BF2 = Btirtsh & For. Bible Soc. ed of Nestle (2nd ed. 1958)
AV = Authorized, or King James Version (1873, 1961-62)
ASV = American Standard Version (1901)
RSV = Revised Std Version (1946)
NEB = New English Bible (NT 1961)
TT = The Net Testament: A Translation for Translators (1966)
Zur = Die Heilage Schrifty (Zurich 1942)
Luth = Das Newe Testament (Luther revised text (1956)
Jer = Le Nouveau Testament (Jerusalem 1858)
Seg = Le Nouveau Testament (L Segond, new rev. 1962)

mg = punction of marginal reading (if only one)
mg1, mg2 etc = alternate punctuations in margin

DCH

* This was the edition of the Greek text we used in my old NT Greek class in 1976/77. I did not try to do this with the Nestle Aland 27th ed. (1979), which is the only other edition I own at the moment, because the apparatus would have driven me (even more) mad.
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DCHindley
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Re: translation problems

Post by DCHindley »

Personally, I take the part of verse 5 after ὧν οἱ πατέρες [to them belong the patriarchs] to be an interpolation by a later editor who merged the high Christology of the Christians of his day into a more or less genuine Pauline letter, which is here (vss 9:1-8) praising his own ethnic stock in spite of their periodic failures to show that ethnicity is not as important than faith that God will fulfill his promise to Abra'm that he would ultimately have many children who will inherit a promise land. The point is that "not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel" (RSV 9:6) In other words, Paul is saying that faithful gentiles of the kind he encouraged "belong to Israel".

(Nestle Aland 27th ed) 9:5b καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν. (paraphrasing Psa 40:14)
(RSV) 9:5b and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever. Amen. (paraphrasing Psa 41:13)
(Psa 40:14 Septuaginta) εὐλογητὸς κύριος ὁ θεὸς Ισραηλ ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος καὶ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα γένοιτο γένοιτο
(Psa 41:13 Brenton's translation of Septuagint) Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. So be it, so be it.

As you can see, the blessing at the end was the same as that directed to God in Psalm 41:13 (RSV)

If I am correct here about this section being an interpolation (and that is not a given) then the interpolator was equating the Christ with the God being blessed in Ps 41:13. It could probably be picked apart quite differently if one wants to exert some ingenuity, but if one does not want to think that the god being blessed in Ps 41:14 was Christ, but wants the whole kit and caboodle to be uttered by Paul, then there has to be punctuation that makes the blessing be directed to God (YHWH) alone and not to Christ. Easy ... :consternation:

DCH
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Peter Kirby
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Re: translation problems

Post by Peter Kirby »

DCHindley wrote:Personally, I take the part of verse 5 after ὧν οἱ πατέρες [to them belong the patriarchs] to be an interpolation by a later editor who merged the high Christology of the Christians of his day into a more or less genuine Pauline letter
I've been suspecting the exact same thing, DCH.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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