ANWQEN in John 3:3 ff

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Dec 27 07:58:41 EST 2002


At 11:58 AM +0300 12/27/02, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> >[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.

Iver, I don't question the principle, as applied by a Bible translator,
that an Aramaic (or Hebrew?) original formulation may underly the Greek
text which we may have under consideration. There are, however, several
other assumptions in your paragraph above which I consider disputable
rather than demonstrable. The problem here is that hermeneutical
assumptions--and perhaps theological assumptions too--are entering into
this discussion: assumptions about the authorship of John's gospel, about
the historicity of the incident being narrated, about probabilities of
Jesus' linguistic abilities. I don't assume that others share my
assumptions regarding these matters and we avoid discussion of them on this
list precisely because assumptions on these matters differ considerably
among list-members.

>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.

Here again there is an assumption: "it is highly unlikely for Jesus to have
INTENDED a double entendre." I really don't know why I should assume that,
although I can imagine that it may be convenient for someone to suppose it.
I prefer to understand that the story of this discussion is being told in
Greek by a writer who understands Greek well enough to say in Greek what he
intended to say. The story may reflect or reproduce a conversation that
actually took place between Jesus and a well-born Jew whose name is clearly
Greek and whom may, from the context, be assumed to have understood Greek.
On the other hand the story may be a vehicle for the evangelist's
expression of an understanding of the nature of spiritual rebirth. I'm not
going to attempt an explication of the narrative one way or another beyond
the terms in which the narrative, which is composed in an intelligible
Greek with what certainly looks like a double entendre, whether or not it
was meant to be one. It is our hermeneutical assumptions about the way the
text must be interpreted that incline or disincline us to one or another
conception of what is probable about the intent of the text in question.
But we don't discuss hermeneutics and we don't discuss theology on B-Greek
because we know very well that list-members hold views on these matters
that range across a broad spectrum; we restrict discussion to the
probabilities of what the Greek text as a Greek text may mean.

>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.

I think the current discussion, inasmuch as it has focused pretty much upon
what principles govern Bible TRANSLATORS, may perhaps be more appropriate
to the Bible-Translation list--although I suspect that hermeneutical
assumptions play a part there too.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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