MENOUN in Luke 11.28
Maurice A. O'Sullivan
mauros at iol.ie
Thu May 6 05:56:27 EDT 1999
At 00:41 06/05/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>Interestingly, two common Roman Catholic translations, the Rheims Bible
>and the New American Bible, both render MENOUN with "rather" as in "Yea
>rather" and "Rather" respectively. Indeed, the "Yea rather" of the
>Rheims agrees with the Authorized (KJV).
Stephen;
Two more R.C translations are in agreement ( contra the number of times the
NJB changes some very odd translations in the JB )
JB:
'Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep it!'
NJB:
More blessed still are those who hear the word of God and
OTOH, Fitzmyer, in his own translation for the Anchor Bible volume 28A, gives:
" Blessed rather are ........"
And on p. 928, he has an informative note, which I won't attempt to
reproduce in full.
Initially making the point that here MENOUN is used at the head of a
sentence, against classical Greek usage.
He then goes on to list three different usages:
(a) adversative
(b) affirmative
(c) corrective [ "yes, but rather" ]
Citing Thrall in " Greek Particles in the N.T", "for Luke the first two
uses are to be eliminated " , quoting Thrall's reasons.
He concludes " hence, the last corrective sense is to be preferred" and we
are referred to Moule's 'Idiiom Book'
Hope this is of help.
Maurice
Maurice A. O'Sullivan
[Bray, Ireland ]
"Be certain your feet are planted in the
right place before you decide to stand firm!"
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