ANWQEN in John 3:3 ff

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Fri Dec 27 03:58:34 EST 2002



> >[Fritz said:] I am coming from a Bible translator's point of view,
working
> with Wycliffe
> >Bible Translators in West Africa. As such, I was confronted with this
> >problem a number of times.
> >
> >Who can say with certainty that Jesus used a word in his mother tongue in
> >the first place that meant "(born) again" and "(born) from above?"
> >Sometimes it would be really helpful to reconstruct what Jesus
> really SAID.
> >Is there even a Hebrew or Aramaic word of similar meaning which has this
> >spatial and temporal ambiguity?
> >
> >I have a hard time believing that there was a double meaning of "(born)
> >again/(born) from above" in the original word Jesus used which could be
> >rendered by a word with the same double meaning in Greek. For that to
> >happen, the two languages are too much apart. Plus even among related
> >languages the direct transfer of word plays VERY rarely happens.
> >
> >Talking with Nicodemus in his mother tongue, I think, Jesus did not use
> >a word with more than one sense. It was the evangelist John that did.

[Carl responded:]
> Well, here we go again, passing beyond the question that is clearly WITHIN
> the parameters of list-discussion, that is, what the GREEK text
> can mean or
> does mean, to matters that are speculative. For my part, I don't think we
> should rule out the notion that Jesus and Nicodemus may have held this
> dialogue in Greek, although I am aware that the range of opinions
> concerning Jesus' linguistic abilities is not very restrictive. Or it may
> be, as you suggest, that this is the evangelist's contribution to the
> narrative. But although that is arguable, I don't think it is definitively
> demonstrable, and in any case it goes beyond the issue of what the Greek
> text may mean.
> --

Carl, I believe my colleague, Fritz Goerling, is a very new member to the
list, so he may not be so familiar with the limits of list discussion.

He does have a point about the intended meaning of the Greek word ANWQEN in
this context. As Bible translators we always try if possible to enter the
mind of the speaker in order to figure out what was the originally intended
meaning. Although we could imagine that the conversation may have taken
place in Greek, I believe most people would consider this highly unlikely
from a sociolinguistic point of view. If we accept that the original
conversation probably took place in Hebrew or Aramaic, then it is relevant
for an understanding of the intended meaning of Jesus what Semitic word may
have been translated into Greek ANWQEN. Another relevant point is that
although John was writing in Greek, it was not his first language, and the
Semitic thought patterns and words are often discernable behind the Greek
words and constructions he used.

The point that Fritz is making is that it is highly unlikely for Jesus to
have INTENDED a double entendre, even though the Greek may be interpreted as
such. Judging from the Hebrew words translated by ANWQEN in the LXX, the
Hebrew word used by Jesus here was probably me'al or maybe mima'al. Both
mean "from above/up/the top" as far as I know, but I am not a Hebrew expert.
So, taking the Semitic background into account, the originally INTENDED
sense of ANQWEN in this context must be a sense that is also shared by the
corresponding Hebrew expression. If the Hebrew cannot mean "again", then
that sense is not what was originally intended. We have a problem with
English "again", because this can mean a repeat of the same action, and such
a sense is beyond the semantic range of the Hebrew and probably also the
Greek expression. The kind of spiritual birth Jesus is talking about, is the
generation of something new from God and not a repeat of a birth that has
already taken place. That Nicodemus tried to understand it that way, shows
his lack of understanding of the intended meaning. We cannot equate the
intended meaning with a misunderstanding of it.

As Bible translators we are sometimes forced to look "beyond what the Greek
says" to what was originally said and meant, since we are aiming at
translating the originally intended meaning as best we can. Of course, this
can be taken too far, and has been taken too far by some people that I won't
mention. We can try to reconstruct the underlying Semitic words, but we
cannot arrive at a supposed meaning that is at variance with the meaning of
the Greek text.

Iver Larsen





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