Lost in translation ?

New Testament Greek

as a challenge for the interpreter

Table of contents

1) Space-Time Context

2) ○ NT Greek and its linguistic context

○ Translator’ tools: concordances,

ancient versions and commentaries

3) Word order

4) Verbal aspect and tense

I) What is Koine Greek?Space-Time Context

Main dictionaries: Liddell and Scott, Bailly

○ Over 2,200 pages ○ 1,300 years from Homer to the end of

Antiquity○ At least 6 different dialects: Attic, Ionian, Aeolic, Doric, Epic dialect

and Koine

Topolect and chronolect

Topolect: specific kind of language that is only spoken in a particular region

Chronolect: specific kind of language that is only spoken in a particular period

Space-Time Context:New Testament Greek

Near-Eastern Greek topolect,

under the influence of Semitic languages

(Semiticized Koine )

Middle Koine chronolect

(1st-3rd centuries AD)

Idiolects

Specific kind of language

that is only spoken or written

by a person

Koine language chronolects

Early Koine (3rd –1st centuries BC)

Middle Koine (1st-3rd centuries AD)

Late Koine (4th –5th centuries AD)

II) NT Greek and its linguistic context

Modern French translator: major task Transposing the text

Ancient Greek translator: major taskUnderstanding the text

Difference Modern / Koine Greek

Two languages that have become

quite different from each other

Compare the difference

between modern English

and the language of a tenth century poem

like Beowulf.

The translator’s tools.1. Concordances

Same topolect and chronolect:

Greek Bible (LXX and New Testament)

Writings from the Near East

(Justin Martyr, the Didachè, Theodotion’s translation, etc.)

Papyri texts

The translator’s tools.2. Ancient versions

Proto-bohairic > Bohairic version

Vetus Latina:

African edition > First Italian edition

> 2nd Italian edition > Vulgate

Diatessaron > Vetus Syra

Diatessaron > Peshitta

Jn 8,26 : Ancient versions

ταῦτα λαλῶ εἰς τòν κόσμον

Haec loquor in mundo (Vg)

b‘lm’ (Syriac versions)

Consensus of all the Syriac,

Latin and Bohairic versions

Construction of the verb lalw/

+ Dative : Rom 3 :19 lalw/ tini

Pro,j + Accusative : Lk 1,19 lalw/ pro,j tina

Meta, + Genitive : John 4,27 lalw/ meta, tinoj

Jn 8,26 : Modern versions

Virtually all English versions understand :

“and I speak to the world those things” (KJV)

Exceptions:

Douay-Rheims Am. Ed. (1899), from the Vg

Tyndale’s NT (1534), a translation that sometimes took into account the Vg

Jn 3,3.7 : Ancient versions

Different reception according to the linguistic community

a;nwqen (Jn 3,3.7) ‘again’ : Latin versions (denuo) Coptic versions (nkesop) Peshitta and Sinaiticus (mn drš ) ‘from above’ : Curetonian, Harkleian, Palestinian Syriac lect. (mn l‘l) Greek fathers of the Church

The translator’s tools.3. Ancient commentaries

St. John Chrysostom, Galatians Commentary

Paul went up to Jerusalem “not only to see him but also to ἱστορῆσαι him. This is the very word used by people who stare at huge and magnificent cities. This is why Paul thought it worth while going up to Jerusalem for the unique purpose of seeing this man.”

III) Word Order

Usual (or neutral) word order:

No particular stress on any word

Unusual word order:

Stress on the part of the clause

affected by the change

John 1,6 and 1,1

1 ἐγένετο: past tense copular verb

2 ἄνθρωπος: subject

3 ἀπεσταλμένος παρὰ Θεοῦ: predicate/ app.

1 καὶ Θεός: predicate 

2 ἦν: past tense copular verb 

3 ὁ Λόγος: subject

Some English translations of John 1,6

There came a man NA Standard Bible

New International version

A man came New Jerusalem Bible

There was a man King James Bible

Jerome, Epistles 57.5

[in] Scripturis Sanctis (…)

et verborum ordo mysterium est 

“In Sacred Scripture, even word order

encompasses a mystery”

Verbal aspect and tense

Tense: refers to the time in which the verbal

event takes place

Reference point : the time of speech

Verbal aspect:

refers to the dynamic of the verbal event,

either to its unfolding or to its performance.

Non limiting aspect

Unfolding action

λαλεῖν, act of “speaking”

as an event in progress, without taking into account its beginning or end

│——————···>········>·······>····

UNFOLDED UNFOLDING

Some examples

Mat 12:22 : καὶ ἐθεράπευσεν αὐτόν, ὥστε τὸν κωφὸν λαλεῖν:

“And he healed him, so that the dumb man spoke”

Acts 4:20 : οὐ δυνάμεθα γὰρ ἡμεῖς ἃ εἴδαμεν καὶ ἠκούσαμεν μὴ λαλεῖν:

“For we cannot but speak [on and on] of what we have seen and heard.”

Limiting aspect

The defining boundaries of an action have been

crossed

>│—>—│>

Beginning End

Then λαλῆσαι will express

the simple fact of “talking” or “having talked”,

without considering the unfolding of the action

By way of example

Lk 1,20

kai. ivdou. e;sh| siwpw/n kai. mh. duna,menoj lalh/sai a;cri h-j h`me,raj ge,nhtai tau/ta

And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass

 

Lc 11,3   to.n a;rton h`mw/n to.n evpiou,sion

di,dou h`mi/n to. kaqV h`me,ran  « Give us every day this bread of ours which is epiousios » Mt 6,11  to.n a;rton h`mw/n to.n

evpiou,sion do.j h`mi/n sh,meron « Give us today this bread of ours which is epiousios »

The Our Father

First etymology of evpiou,sioj

[ἡ] ἐπιοῦσα [ἡμέρα] : “[the day] coming after”.

ἐπιοῦσα : pres. part. of ἔπειμι: “to come after.”

“give us enough bread

to be able to get to the day after”

“give us the bread for everyday, the daily bread”

Second etymology of evpiou,sioj

ἐπὶ οὐσίαν, which means both

“[living] on means of subsistence”.

and “[what is] above the substance”

a) “give us the bread for our subsistence”

b) “give us the transcendent (or sublime)

Bread.”

Ancient versions

Lc 11,3   to.n a;rton h`mw/n to.n evpiou,sion

di,dou h`mi/n to. kaqV h`me,ran  Vg cotidianum Bohairic ethneou « coming » Mt 6,11  to.n a;rton h`mw/n to.n

evpiou,sion do.j h`mi/n sh,meron Vg supersubstantialem Bohairic nte rast « of tomorrow »

Epiousios bread: other traditions

Constancy Ancient syriac trad. ’amina’ (Sinaiticus, Curetonian)

Necessity Recent syriac trad. desunqonān, sunqonyān (Pesh., Harcl.)

Abundance Syropalestinian d‘tryn ou d‘wtr’ (cf. periousias)

Useful Bibliography: dictionaries

Liddell, H. G. and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1940 (9th edition, frequently reprinted)

J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament illustrated from the papyri and other non-literary sources, Hodder ad Stoughton, London 1914-1929.

Other tools

P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots. Paris: Klincksieck, 1999.

J. H. Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1906-1976.