translation problems

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Re: translation problems

Post by ficino »

re: Philip B. Harner, "Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1," Journal of Biblical Literature 92 (1973) 75-87. This article is cited by Dixon in the M.A. thesis that KK linked. Harner argues what I remembered my seminary prof to have taken from Colwell, sc. that the anarthrous predicate noun before the copulative expresses an essential quality of the subject. Colwell's concern between definiteness vs. indefiniteness is, says Harner, of less importance. Maybe my prof had read Harner or similar studies and just didn't bother telling us of refinements over Colwell.

Note that Mark 15:39, as Harner says, is another instance where the anarthrous predicate is before the copulative verb. The centurion says, "Ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος Υἱὸς Θεοῦ ἦν." "Truly, this man/person was the son of God [as to his nature]." There would be no point to have the centurion say, "... was a son of God."

Harner gives as a parallel, Mark 2:28: "... κύριός ἐστιν ὁ Υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου.῀ The son of man is lord also of the sabbath. Harner notes that it makes no sense to construe this as "is a lord of the sabbath." Against emphasis on "lord"'s being definite, Harner argues that such would shift the tenor of the whole sentence. The point is not to identify who is lord of the sabbath but to state "what the nature or authority of the son of man is." Hence, the qualitative function of the anarthrous predicate noun.

Harner gives other examples.
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Re: translation problems

Post by Peter Kirby »

ficino wrote:Ernest Cadman Colwell did a study of anarthrous (i.e. without definite article) predicate nouns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Cadman_Colwell

Colwell concluded that "Definite predicate nouns which precede the verb usually lack the article ... a predicate nominative which precedes the verb cannot be translated as an indefinite or a 'qualitative' noun solely because of the absence of the article; if the context suggests that the predicate is definite, it should be translated as a definite noun." The upshot of this for John 1:1 is that the anarthrous predicate, preceding ἦν, indicates, not an entity, but a qualitative predicate: "the word was god as to his nature" was the way our seminary prof. explained it. This was in a discussion of the Jehovah's Witnesses' interpretation, sc. that the word was "a god."

Peter, is your pasted-in link to a JW bible?

The JW interpretation really shouldn't work even for them, because it implies polytheism.
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote:Paul Steven Dixon
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ANARTHROUS PREDICATE NOMINATIVE IN JOHN.
A Thesis - PDF
Above we see noted references to several distinct things:

- Colwell's views
- The way the seminary prof explained it
- the JW translation
- the JW interpretation
- Paul Steven Dixon's thesis

So, which are which, and how do they agree or not?

There seem to be three different categories by which people interpret "anarthrous predicate nominatives," which are definite, indefinite, and "qualitative." Scare quotes around "qualitative" following Colwell's own usage (it seems like it might possibly be a little wobbly and ad hoc as a category).

My summary:

- Colwell's views = DEFINITE
- The way the seminary prof explained it = "QUALITATIVE"
- the JW translation = INDEFINITE (or "QUALITATIVE"?)
- the JW interpretation = "QUALITATIVE" (or INDEFINITE?)
- Paul Steven Dixon's thesis = "QUALITATIVE"

About the JW interpretation (since this thread has gone there), this was interesting:

http://catholicnick.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... us-is.html
"The articular (when the article appears) construction of the noun points to an identity, a personality, whereas a singular anarthrous (without the article) predicate noun before the verb (as the sentence is constructed in Greek) points to a quality about someone." (Reasoning from the Scriptures, page 212)
"Jesus as “a god” merely reflects his Father’s divine qualities"
"In his article “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1,” Philip B. Harner said that such clauses as the one in John 1:1, “with an anarthrous predicate preceding the verb, are primarily qualitative in meaning."
"The Journal of Biblical Literature says [sic] that expressions “with an anarthrous [no article] predicate preceding the verb, are primarily qualitative in meaning.” As the Journal notes, this indicates that the lo′gos can be likened to a god. It also says of John 1:1: “The qualitative force of the predicate is so prominent that the noun [theos′] cannot be regarded as definite." (Should You Believe in The Trinity, pages 26-27)

That 1973 JBL article is here:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3262756

So it looks like the interpretation here is stressing "Qualitative" but not distinguishing it from "Indefinite," while the translation is using the "Indefinite" but is being interpreted as also having "Qualitative" import and interpretation.

But of course I wasn't really asking about whether the JWs are right or wrong (of course, they are wrong on many things), but about John 1:1.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that Colwell seems to cast a shadow of doubt on the idea of a "qualitative" category here, while others seem to be allowing that there is not much difference between "qualitative" and "indefinite" ways of interpreting it (the blogger and the quotes made).

I suppose the first question to ask is what we think about the category of "qualitative" anarthrous predicate nominatives in ancient Greek. This is a general question, and with a lot of possible data, you'd think there might be an answer or at least some kind of consensus. Is there?
Note that Mark 15:39, as Harner says, is another instance where the anarthrous predicate is before the copulative verb. The centurion says, "Ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος Υἱὸς Θεοῦ ἦν." "Truly, this man/person was the son of God [as to his nature]." There would be no point to have the centurion say, "... was a son of God."
I'm sorry, but this doesn't compute, at least not to me. What's so wrong with the centurion's statement having the indefinite sense? Didn't people believe in many sons of gods? I'm not completely sure, but if you pressed me, I'd lean the opposite way, that we should have the centurion rendered "a son of God" (or is it "a son of a god"??). Why not? And, indeed, why not the definite "the Son of God"? Can't we do better than relying on such a completely ambiguous example?
Harner gives as a parallel, Mark 2:28: "... κύριός ἐστιν ὁ Υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου.῀ The son of man is lord also of the sabbath. Harner notes that it makes no sense to construe this as "is a lord of the sabbath." Against emphasis on "lord"'s being definite, Harner argues that such would shift the tenor of the whole sentence. The point is not to identify who is lord of the sabbath but to state "what the nature or authority of the son of man is." Hence, the qualitative function of the anarthrous predicate noun.
What's wrong with definite-ness? It's not like we should think there are other lords of the sabbath running about. Here's where "Colwell's rule" ("Colwell's blunder"?) or something like it might seem to come into play as making a lot of sense.

Or not. Maybe more relevant is the Septuagint usage regarding such particular words as "Lord" and "God." Hmm... and this is also relevant here. (I'm not completely sure about the accuracy of these quotes...)

http://orthodoxengland.org.uk/septuag.htm
The Septuagint displays several very significant characteristics. Kyrios - Lord, is consistently used throughout the Septuagint without the definite article for the Divine Name Yahweh. Following its use in the Septuagint proper, it was used thus throughout the other books of the Greek Old Testament.
https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013 ... nuscripts/
P.Oxy. 76.5073 is a Christian amulet (palaeographically dated to late 3rd or early 4th century CE), containing Mark 1:1-2. It was used as a rolled up strip (25.2 x 4.5 cm) likely worn around the neck. Given the scarcity of extant manuscript evidence for Mark in the first three centuries, even this curious fragment is worth attention for text-critical purposes. The text witnesses to the opening line of Mark as “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (i.e., without “Son of God”). Both “Jesus” and “Christ” are written as nomina sacra (ιηυ and χρυ respectively), and, interestingly, the Greek definite article precedes “Christ”. The editors judge this as reflecting a tendency in the period from which the manuscript comes to emphasize the messianic claim. The text also witnesses to the reading “Isaiah the prophet” (in v.2).

P.Oxy. 77.5101 (Rahlfs 2227) comprises remains of a Psalms scroll (Psa. 26:9-14; 44:4-8; 47:13-15; 48:6-21; 49:2-16; 63:6–64:5), dated late lst or early 2nd century CE. As the editors note, “This is probably the earliest extant copy of the Septuagint Psalms.” An noteworthy feature of this Greek text of the Psalms is that the divine name (“tetragrammaton”, יהוה ) is written in archaic Hebrew characters (as also found in a few other manuscripts of the Greek OT, e.g., P. Oxy. 3522). It is the more interesting that these Hebrew forms of the divine name are preceded by the Greek definite article. This suggests that in the parent textual tradition “kyrios” was used, and it was replaced at some point. The use of the roll book-form, the unabbreviated θεος (line 2) and the use of the tetragrammaton all strongly indicate a roll prepared by/for Jewish usage. The informal nature of the hand suggests a copy for personal usage.
https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2014 ... eptuagint/
Further to my earlier postings and the (many!) comments elicited, especially those about the use of “kyrios” in the LXX, I point readers to an excellent essay by John Wevers:

John William Wevers, “The Rendering of the Tetragram in the Psalter and Pentateuch: A Comparative Study,” in The Old Greek Psalter: Studies in Honour of Albert Pietersma, ed. Robert J. V. Hiebert, Claude E. Cox and Peter J. Gentry (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 21-35.

First, he registers agreement with Albert Pietersma’s argument that the use of the Hebrew YHWH in some Old Greek manuscripts (as well as other devices, e.g., ΙΑΩ, ΠΙΠΙ), represents “a revision” that took place within the textual transmission of the Greek of the Hebrew scriptures. Then Wevers gives details of the use of “kyrios” as equivalents of YHWH and other terms in the LXX.

His particular focus is on the Psalter, but he prefaces that analysis with a helpfully detailed survey of data from the Pentateuch (book by book), confirming that YHWH is overwhelmingly rendered by forms of kyrios without the definite article (“anarthrous” forms). In contrast, forms of the word with the definite article (“articular”) are preferred to translate references to other figures who hold a lordly position in the narratives. As one example, check out Genesis 39:2-3, where the LXX has κυριος (without article) for YHWH consistently, and articular forms of κυριος to translate references to the human/Egyptian “master” in the narrative. The few exceptions, where an articular form of kyrios refers to God are translations of prepositional phrases and/or a very few cases where the Greek syntax requires a definite article (“post-positive” uses of the Greek δε, for Greek “techies”).

And remember that we’re talking about hundreds of instances on which to build the observation that the “anarthrous” forms of kyrios are preferred in the Pentateuch. This pattern suggests that in these texts kyrios is being treated as if it is a name, not the common noun for “Sir/Lord/Master”.

In the final part of his essay, Wevers also makes brief notice of the pattern of usage in the “former prophets” (called “historical books” often by Christians), and it’s the same clear overwhelming dominance of the anarthrous kyrios as substitute for YHWH.

But the main/middle part of the essay is given to the translation practice in the Psalter, and here the pattern differs somewhat. Wevers observes that it is “clear that the translator of the Psalter has not followed the strict pattern established by the translators of the Pentateuch. To be sure, Κυριος does continue to represent the proper noun, ‘YHWH’, and it remains unarticulated in the majority of cases, but this is not a hard and fast rule” (p. 33). And Wevers judges that in a number of instances the translator may be rendering the “qere” (the Hebrew oral substitute for YHWH that had become popular by the time of the translator, “adonay“), which the translator regularly renders with articular forms of kyrios.

As one example of the Psalter data, consider LXX Psalm 134 (Heb 135). The Hebrew “halelu yah” is rendered Αλληλουια (“hallelujah”), but cf. the translation of the same expression in v. 3, αινειτε τον κυριον (the articular form). It appears, however, that the translator didn’t take the “yah” to be the same thing as YHWH fully spelled out (as also the case in v. 4). For in the psalm otherwise, he tends to use anarthrous forms of kyrios to render YHWH (5 times in vv. 1-5). In vv. 19-21, however, the articular (accusative) forms of kyrios render Hebrew phrases with the particle signalling an accusative phrase, the Hebrew accusative phrasing here influencing the translator’s decisions (a translation-choice that we can observe in other Psalms too).

This clear dominance of the anarthrous kyrios as Greek equivalent of YHWH, a dominance exhibited already in the Pentateuch (which were the earliest Hebrew scriptures translated), suggests strongly that it had become a widely-used oral substitute for YHWH among Greek-speaking Jews. I.e., the anarthrous kyrios served as virtually a proper name for God, a reverential substitute for YHWH.
I can't find anything definite, though, about any similar treatment of "theos" by the Septuagint.

Back to this original subject, though, plenty find good use here of the so-called "Colwell's rule."

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/q ... in-john-11
However, in Greek, they would put case endings on the nouns and comprehend the same meaning even with the word order switched around. In the following example, I am using case endings here as an illustration. means subject, and [o] means object. In Greek there is no difference between "dog bites man[o]" and "man[o] bites dog." They mean the exact same thing. This works with action verbs, linking verbs are different, but the action verbs show how the Greek usually works.

The clause in question (which uses a linking verb) literally reads kai theos 'en 'o logos (literally "and God was the Word" but you won't find it translated that way for good reason). Notice that the word order is switched around with "God" at the front of the clause. Because the verb is a linking verb, the subject and object use the same case ending, the nominative. With a linking verb, the part of the clause that would be the object often drops the article (even though it would use it otherwise), especially when it is in front of the verb (as here). When the object of a clause is a noun like this, it is called the "predicate nominative" and Colwell's Rule allows the translation to indicate the definiteness of the word even when the Greek lacks the article.

In English, we don't put "the" in front of God to show definiteness. We capitalize it. That's what Greek scholars recognize in this verse.


This guy helpfully uses the same parallel verse, without relying on the idea of "rules" as his argument (same link):

This answer is supplementary to Frank Luke's, and supports it.

When someone makes a claim about an ancient language's grammar, it always helps me to believe it and internalize it when I can see parallel usages that illustrate the truth of the claim. Thus, I am glad that Frank Luke offered several examples.

I have another which is perhaps even more to the point that came up in my reading of the Greek New Testament: Mark 2:28. My interlinear:

ὥστε κύριός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου
so lord is the son the man even the sabbath
For those of you who don't know Greek, "the man" and "the Sabbath" are in the genitive, which is often rendered by adding an "of" in English. Now the one confusing thing about this verse is that the τοῦ σαββάτου goes with κύριός and not υἱὸς (to claim otherwise would turn the sentence into mumbo-jumbo, especially in context). Therefore, what is happening is that "Lord" has been moved forward in the sentence for emphasis, but the article has been placed only on "son" because that is the subject of the sentence. Thus, something to the effect of: "Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath!" To claim that the Son of Man is "a lord" of the Sabbath would be very odd, obscure the meaning of the wider passage, and raise other strange questions (who are the other lords? etc.).

Compare this verse now to my interlinear of the relevant portion of John 1:1:

...καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
...and god was the word
Notice the grammar of this sentence, though, slightly simpler than the above verse, is fundamentally that same: it is a predicative nominative construction (both major nouns in the sentence are in the nominative case and are joined by the standard copulative verb).


It seems we have two general questions here:

1) What do we think of the "qualitative" category of interpreting things?
2) What do we think of "Colwell's rule," in that it might allow definite-ness to the pre-copulative anarthrous predicate nominative?
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Re: translation problems

Post by DCHindley »

ficino wrote:Actually, I know them [JWs] fairly well, and have debated exactly this point with one, though decades ago.

They are not thinking systematically.

For the great Arian Christ to be "a" god implies polytheism. Hell, Catholics even have accused the Eastern Orthodox of the same, since the Orth. refuse to posit a godhead beyond the Father, of which, on the western view, the three Persons would be instantiations.
I'll agree with you that they are not thinking systematically.

In their minds, though, they are not being polytheistic, but simply expanding on the idea that created angels are often referred to as divine, in a sense, in the OT.

They engage in some special pleading, but no more than many Orthodox/Evangelical/Roman Catholic Christians do.

My 2 centavos.

DCH
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Re: translation problems

Post by ficino »

Peter Kirby wrote:
ficino wrote:Note that Mark 15:39, as Harner says, is another instance where the anarthrous predicate is before the copulative verb. The centurion says, "Ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος Υἱὸς Θεοῦ ἦν." "Truly, this man/person was the son of God [as to his nature]." There would be no point to have the centurion say, "... was a son of God."
I'm sorry, but this doesn't compute, at least not to me. What's so wrong with the centurion's statement having the indefinite sense? Didn't people believe in many sons of gods? I'm not completely sure, but if you pressed me, I'd lean the opposite way, that we should have the centurion rendered "a son of God" (or is it "a son of a god"??). Why not? And, indeed, why not the definite "the Son of God"? Can't we do better than relying on such a completely ambiguous example?
I would say what's wrong with the indefinite sense:
1. it goes against Mark's evident purpose in writing his gospel
2. it is not consistent with other passages in which the same construction is used. E.g. in the "lord of the sabbath" passage, despite what you suppose above, Peter, I think Mark does not want to suggest only that the SoM is "a" lord of the sabbath, as though other guys may be such, too. The indefinite construal implies as a usage of language that there may be others, just as to say Ἑλληνίς ἐστὶν ἡ γυνή suggests that other women are Greek, too.

As to whether there's something wrong with the "definite" sense, so far in this discussion it seems to me that that explanation doesn't go far enough, although as a translation, "the" is not wrong. The predicate states a key quality of the SoM, whatever we want to do with "the." It's not just identifying the lord of the sabbath.
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Re: translation problems

Post by Peter Kirby »

ficino wrote:
Peter Kirby wrote:
ficino wrote:Note that Mark 15:39, as Harner says, is another instance where the anarthrous predicate is before the copulative verb. The centurion says, "Ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος Υἱὸς Θεοῦ ἦν." "Truly, this man/person was the son of God [as to his nature]." There would be no point to have the centurion say, "... was a son of God."
I'm sorry, but this doesn't compute, at least not to me. What's so wrong with the centurion's statement having the indefinite sense? Didn't people believe in many sons of gods? I'm not completely sure, but if you pressed me, I'd lean the opposite way, that we should have the centurion rendered "a son of God" (or is it "a son of a god"??). Why not? And, indeed, why not the definite "the Son of God"? Can't we do better than relying on such a completely ambiguous example?
I would say what's wrong with the indefinite sense:
1. it goes against Mark's evident purpose in writing his gospel
2. it is not consistent with other passages in which the same construction is used. E.g. in the "lord of the sabbath" passage, despite what you suppose above, Peter, I think Mark does not want to suggest only that the SoM is "a" lord of the sabbath, as though other guys may be such, too. The indefinite construal implies as a usage of language that there may be others, just as to say Ἑλληνίς ἐστὶν ἡ γυνή suggests that other women are Greek, too.

As to whether there's something wrong with the "definite" sense, so far in this discussion it seems to me that that explanation doesn't go far enough, although as a translation, "the" is not wrong. The predicate states a key quality of the SoM, whatever we want to do with "the." It's not just identifying the lord of the sabbath.
E.g. in the "lord of the sabbath" passage, despite what you suppose above, Peter, I think Mark does not want to suggest only that the SoM is "a" lord of the sabbath, as though other guys may be such, too.
That's not what I supposed above. Actually, it's just about the opposite of what I supposed above. Pretty much the exact, explicit opposite...
Peter Kirby wrote:What's wrong with definite-ness? It's not like we should think there are other lords of the sabbath running about.
Keep in mind that I'm distinguishing between the interpretive ideas of the indefinite, the definite, and the qualitative. I myself am deciding against the indefinite here, but I am asking what makes us favor the qualitative over the definite. Notably, the "qualitative" allows that there might be others with that quality (because that's what it's saying: it's just a quality), while the definite tends to reserve the idea of the "Lord of the Sabbath" for a single entity. This (the difficulty of imagining that other guys may be such, too) would tend to favor the definite, not the "qualitative," if anything.

About the centurion's statement:
it goes against Mark's evident purpose in writing his gospel
Okay (I guess???), but it's still not the most unambiguous example, and it does nothing at all to help us with the 'qualitative' vs 'definite' muddle.

I don't understand why these guys take all their examples from NT Greek, and then use examples that could be quite ambiguous. It's weird. Why is it hard to come up with a completely unambiguous example? Or are they just not trying hard enough to do so? Do they too quickly assume that other examples, such as the centurion's statement, give us what we want to know? IDK.

There's also the general question, here, of whether what was meant in John 1:1 mirrors any other particular example exactly (it doesn't have to; it might instead mirror another example instead). At the very least, we'd want several examples to try to pin this down (the monograph from Dixon linked tries to do this, and it has some examples of the indefinite in the pre-copulative anarthrous predicate nominative, along with some examples of definite and "qualitative," by his counting).
As to whether there's something wrong with the "definite" sense, so far in this discussion it seems to me that that explanation doesn't go far enough, although as a translation, "the" is not wrong. The predicate states a key quality of the SoM, whatever we want to do with "the." It's not just identifying the lord of the sabbath.
Does it state a "key quality" of the Son of Man, or does it state the identity of the Son of Man? (Maybe both, maybe neither???)

Dixon makes very fine distinctions between stating qualities and using some kind of definitive sense of the noun (and thus "identity"?).

I guess I still have my questions.

1) What do we think of the "qualitative" category of interpreting things?
2) What do we think of "Colwell's rule," in that it might allow definite-ness to the pre-copulative anarthrous predicate nominative?
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Re: translation problems

Post by ficino »

Peter Kirby wrote: That's not what I supposed above. Actually, it's just about the opposite of what I supposed above. Pretty much the exact, explicit opposite...
Yes, I don't know how I misread "definite" as "indefinite." My apologies.


Does it state a "key quality" of the Son of Man, or does it state the identity of the Son of Man? (Maybe both, maybe neither???)

Dixon makes very fine distinctions between stating qualities and using some kind of definitive sense of the noun (and thus "identity"?).

I guess I still have my questions.

1) What do we think of the "qualitative" category of interpreting things?
2) What do we think of "Colwell's rule," in that it might allow definite-ness to the pre-copulative anarthrous predicate nominative?
I said "key quality" to try to be consistent with the proposed "qualitative" import of the anarthrous predicate before the copula.

I agree there seems to be a problem in insisting that we must decide between "definiteness" and "qualitativeness." I haven't studied this phenomenon in Greek in general. I also agree that NT scholars do well to bring in parallels from extra-biblical authors. I don't know whether anyone but old-time biblical scholars talks about "Biblical Greek" as though it forms a natural kind.

Just off the top of my head: perhaps there seems to be a problem betw definiteness and qualitativeness when the anarthrous predicate refers to something that the reader supposes is the only member of its class. It doesn't seem that θεός in John 1:1c can have the same reference as τὸν Θεόν in 1:1b, given that it is a predicate of ὁ λόγος, which in turn, with πρός + accusative, seems to stand in a non-simple-identity relation to "God" in 1:1b. Perhaps too with "lord of the sabbath," since we assume there is only one. So the predicate, according to the "qualitative" interpretation, states the nature or essential quality of the subject, but in these cases also refers to something unique. The difference between "lord of the sabbath" and "the lord of the sabbath" is not a difference of logic; that predicate is distributed over only one entity in the Markan verse, whether we pull "the" into the translation or not. I am sensing that the problem some people have with Colwell is that in these "F is the X" constructions, where "the X" is the subject, the authors' emphasis does not seem to lie on marking out F from everything else -- even though we know that F is the only member of its class -- but rather, on saying something about the nature of the X, that it is F. Since we're dealing with word order, could it be that we have to do with pragmatics more than with syntax?
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Re: translation problems

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Peter Kirby wrote:'m sorry, but this doesn't compute, at least not to me. What's so wrong with the centurion's statement having the indefinite sense? Didn't people believe in many sons of gods? I'm not completely sure, but if you pressed me, I'd lean the opposite way, that we should have the centurion rendered "a son of God" (or is it "a son of a god"??). Why not? And, indeed, why not the definite "the Son of God"? Can't we do better than relying on such a completely ambiguous example?
I'm not sure if your problem misses the point on which John insisted. It seems, that your problem is a "faith problem". But John's big point in 1:1 was clearly pre-existence in a divine beeing and maybe not more.
Peter Kirby wrote:What is the significance of the absence of the definite article before theos for the interpretation of this text?
John 1:1 καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος
Finally it could also mean: The article "ὁ" defined the subject "Λόγος", the absence of an article before "Θεὸς" the object, the preceding object could be emphasizing and rhythm.
Maybe more relevant is the Septuagint usage regarding such particular words as "Lord" and "God." Hmm...
Hmm... I think also relevant could be the use and nonuse of articles in the complete prologue and in the gospel (for example: John never used "Λόγος" without the definite article).

Clearly John alluded to LXX-Genesis 1. Maybe also to LXX-Genesis 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness". Maybe. It would be a good "according to the scriptures"
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Re: translation problems

Post by ficino »

Peter Kirby wrote: I suppose the first question to ask is what we think about the category of "qualitative" anarthrous predicate nominatives in ancient Greek. This is a general question, and with a lot of possible data, you'd think there might be an answer or at least some kind of consensus. Is there?
I searched over 600 entries in L'Annee Philologique, from 2012 back into the '90s. I did not see anything that looked like a discussion of our problem.

Basil L. Gildersleeve's Syntax of Classical Greek, First Part (1900) goes into this a bit.

https://archive.org/details/syntaxofclassica01gildiala

Paragraph 666, p. 324, on Use and Omission of the Article with the Predicate. "As the article serves to point out that which is supposed to be already present to the mind and the predicate generally introduces something new, the article is not much used with the predicate except in convertible propositions, that is, those statements in which the predicate may be the subject or subject predicate. Otherwise the article serves to quote or to refer."

By "to refer" I am guessing that he means in a deictic sense, as though it points to a particular and singles it out.

on p. 325 he gives various examples, some of which are like the NT examples we're discussing. Unfortunately, Gildersleeve does not develop distinctions between definite, indefinite and qualitative. I'm not sure whether he would have accepted that trifurcation.

A few examples where an anarthrous predicate noun precedes a copulative verb:

τῶν γὰρ ὄμβρων καὶ τῶν αὐχμῶν ... ὁ Ζεὺς ταμίας ἐστίν, Isocrates 11.13: "Zeus is (the) lord of rains and droughts." (G's translation and his parenthesis.) No one but Zeus is master of rain in Greek mythology, so ταμίας, literally, "steward," someone who is in charge of and doles out things, is in context definite. So far, consistent with Colwell, who said that context determines whether to take the anarthrous predicate before the copulative as definite or not. Is it also qualitative? Well, I guess ...

θάνατος ἡ ζημία ἐστί, Lysias 1.7. "The punishment is death." (my trans.) Not definite, because, although someone faces death, the sentence is not picking out that person's individual death for emphasis. Seems you could call this qualitative.

πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον εἶναι ἄνθρωπον, Plato, Cratylus 385e: "[saying that] of all things, man is (the) measure." Here the trans. and paren. are mine. There is debate in the literature over the anarthrous subject, whether Protagoras meant "a man," an individual, or "mankind." No one debates about measure. This predicate seems both definite and qualitative: there is no other judge of things than man, so man is the only measure there is. And to be a measure is an essential quality of man.

I won't multiply examples. So far, I am thinking that the definite-indefinite-qualitative interpretations do not form a true trifurcation. Rather, perhaps sometimes, definite-indefinite form a bifurcation, and a definite can also be qualitative; a qualitative, on the other hand, is sometimes also definite and at other times, not so.

I am interested how Gildersleeve seems to have anticipated the distinction in contemporary Functional Grammar between Topic, what the utterance is about, and Focus, the new thing said about the Topic. Greek will often but not always slot the Focus earlier in the sentence than the Topic, depending on how the speaker wants to structure the flow of communication. It will take me a while if I ever get any notions about help that functional grammar/pragmatic linguistics can offer to John 1:1.
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Re: translation problems

Post by Peter Kirby »

Thanks for all this interesting and hard work, ficino!

I appreciate it.

Thank you, also, Kunigunde!
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Re: translation problems

Post by ficino »

As to the trifurcation: I guess the issue about John 1:1, and by extension, the issue in general is whether "indefinite" is a valid option for anarthrous predicate noun before copulative. In what I've looked at so far (may have missed something in the papers linked above), it does not seem so, not even in this:

σὺ γὰρ νῦν γε ἡμῖν | ἡμῶν ἔοικας βασιλεὺς εἶναι, Xenophon Cyropaedia 1.4.9: "for now, at any rate, you seem to be our king." We could say that young Cyrus' uncle, who knows the youth is not yet king, wants to say "a king," but that ill fits the context established by "for/of us" (manuscripts differ). Cyrus is beseeching his uncle to let him, Cyrus, ignore the king his father's orders and take the consequences, if necessary. The uncle means, you're acting as though you are our king already. "Our" reinforces that it's definite; without "our" we would still need to say it's definite, given the context of the conversation.

Is "king" qualitative, too? Well, young Cyrus is showing that his character is royal, that he is kingly by nature. So I guess so, but I'm not sure that point is where the linguistic focus lies. The linguistic focus lies more, I think, on the relationship between Cyrus and everyone else, who defer to him.
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