Translating Mark 9:35

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Aug 10 06:54:16 EDT 1999


At 5:17 PM +1000 8/10/99, Dale & Emma Hamilton wrote:
>Bible Translation - http://BibleTranslation.listbot.com/
>
>In translating Mark 9:35 I have noticed that it is usual in English
>translations to translate the apodosis as hortatory ie. "...let him be first
>of all and servant of all".  Would it be better to translate this as a
>"condition-CONSEQUENCE" clause? ie. With the apodosis being the consequence
>of the action of desiring to be great - "If someone wishes to be great he
>will be last of all and servant of all."  Have I missed something here?  I
>can't seem to find anything in my Greek grammars that reject either
>translation.

Of course it is possible to look upon this verse in terms of classical
Attic syntax and see in it a simple future condition with nothing implied.
However, one of the more common Semitisms found in NT Koine is use of the
future indicative FOR an imperative; while I think this is more common in
instances of the second-person future indicative (e.g. the formulation of
commandments of the Decalogue in the LXX in both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy
5; it is curious that only Matthew preserves the future tenses of the LXX
in Mt 19:18-19, while Mk 10:19 and Lk 18:20 show these commandments
formulated in the more standard absolute injunction format as aorist
subjunctives. The Semitism of future indicative for imperative is not
universally present where the imperative seems involved, but it surely
seems to be at work in Mk 9:35, and that is the reason it is so commonly
interpreted that way by translators. Note that if one DOES attempt to
understand this as a simple future condition, it turns out to be a non
sequitur: "If anyone wants to to be first, he WILL be the servant of all."
As that hardly accords with our experience of the way human beings behave,
it surely makes more sense to recognize a Semitism here in the future tense
and understand it to mean "let him be ...." or "he must be ..." or "he
should be ..."


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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