Luke's Greek
yochanan bitan
ButhFam at compuserve.com
Thu Nov 9 04:42:20 EST 2000
>(mark nichols egrapsen:)
>> What I mean is, I get the impression that Luke's Greek is quite formal
and
>>precise. Should an English translation attempt to capture this underlying
>>form?
>(wayne lyman APEKRIQH:)
>Yes, translation from Greek to English should try to preserve stylistic
>differences among Biblical authors, within the stylistic resources of
>English (being sure not to use Greek style if it communicates the wrong
>meaning in English or does not have a formal equivalent in English style;
>instead, use the English style which is translationally equivalent to the
>Greek style).
While Luke's introduction is a classic 'period' and he uses some pieces of
Greek more freely than other gospel writers I wouldn't agree with the above
characterization.
Luke's style is very irregular, not formal or precise. It waivers in and
out of literal Hebraisms and Greek smoothing-outs.
The "real Lucan style" can probably be seen in Acts 16-28, including the
Hebrew speech of Acts 22, quite a bit different from the Gospel.
Tough on translators.
ERRWSO
Randall Buth
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