Matthew 6:9

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jun 14 19:36:15 EDT 2002


At 7:06 PM -0400 6/14/02, rongordon at juno.com wrote:
>What is the compeling reason for translating OURANOIS (dative masculine
>plural) in the singular? I have only ever found one translation that
>offers "heavens."

The Greek noun OURANOS appears 183x in the singular in the GNT, 90x in the
plural--and 55/90 of those plural forms are in Matthew. Matthew generally
speaks of hH BASILEIA TWN OURANWN while the other Synoptic gospels more
commonly speak of hH BASILEIA TOU OURANOU The word means "sky"; the Hebrew
word SHMYYM is a dual and it's generally thought that the use of the plural
in Greek is derivative from the Hebrew number. An alternative view is that
the space above each planet (this in a geocentric universe) constitutes a
separate OURANOS and so there might be seven "heavens." If, however, by
OURANOS we mean "sky"--even when it appears in the plural in Greek, it
hardly makes much sense to translate OURANOI as an English plural. How many
"skies" do we normally count (when we're sober)?
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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