KJV Mt. 2:4

Maurice A. O'Sullivan mauros at iol.ie
Mon Jun 11 20:08:25 EDT 2001


At 22:57 11/06/01, Harry W. Jones wrote:

>The answer is that the KJV
>has mistranslated that Greek word, "EPUQAVETO". It should be translated
>as, "inquired".

I would question your use of " mistranslated" -- what is appropriate for 
a  21st. century understanding cannot automatically be applied to 
Elizabethan English, surely?.

For example, I can remember the time when a U.K passport carried a request 
from Her Majesty that  "the bearer be allowed, without let or hindrance " 
-- in 400 years, the meaning of " let " had changed completely from " 
prevent" to " allow " [ in fact, in tennis to this very day it retains the 
original meaning !! ]

So Ted is quite right to suggest  " or is this only a matter of changes in 
the English language over a span of 400 years? "

In the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary one definition of " demand " is:
 >> Ask, inquire, make inquiry of  a person etc. _arch_. LME."  >>
Note that  " inquiry of" and that it is listed as archaic.

Indeed, the SOED  gives an example for this very use from the AV
 >> AV Luke 3:14 And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And 
what shall we do? <<

Although you wrote: " I notice the KJV has "demanded," " -- in fact, it has 
" demainded of them ", which is precisely the construction used in the 
Lukan example.

P.S   Just to correct a couple of typos: the form in Mt. 2:4 is EPUNQANETO 
and the lexical form is: PUNQANOMAI



Maurice A. O'Sullivan  [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros at iol.ie






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