adverbial use of prepositional phrase in Luke 23:43?
Iver Larsen
iver_larsen at sil.org
Sun Sep 29 08:51:28 EDT 2002
>
> Yes, as Carl indicated in his response, MET' EMOU is in a more
> prominent position than EN TWi PARADEISWi. This would indicate that
> being with Jesus is the more prominent idea than being in paradise,
> although being in paradise is nothing to shake a stick at. Being with
> the person is more important than being in the place, as great as the
> place is. As far as serving to indicate something like antecedent
> condition, this, I think, is more a theological conclusion than
> syntactical.
>
> As far as preceding the verb or following, that does not change the
> meaning of the prepositional phrase, just its relative prominence in
> the clause.
>
> I'm guessing the reason English translations do not follow the order of
> the original is that it makes for unnatural English. It seems to me we
> would be more apt to say, "Today you will be with me in paradise," than
> "Today with me you will be in paradise."
>
> As a side note, there is something similar in 1 Th 4.17 (PANTOTE SUN
> KURIWi ESOMETHA, "always with the Lord we will be"), although with only
> one prepositional phrase. There we have adverb-prepositional phrase of
> association-future verb of being. The prepositional phrase indicating
> association is fronted here as in Luke 23.43. Could Jesus' words
> recorded in Luke 23.43 lie behind Paul's (and the early Church's)
> thoughts here?
May I intersperse a spin-off here?
The concept of prominence in different languages and how it relates to
translation is an intriguing one.
It seems to me that English is pretty much the OPPOSITE of Greek when it
comes to word order and prominence. Of course, English is far less flexible
than Greek in word order changes, but when changes are possible, it is my
impression that the later positions are more prominent in English. You
native speakers of English have a better feeling for this than I have, so
you can correct me if I am wrong.
The Greek word order in Luke 23:43 is:
Today with me you will be in (the) paradise.
I think the prominence is best captured in English by saying:
You will be in paradise with me today!
Similarly in 1 Th 4:17:
We will be with the Lord always/for ever!
As someone who works with idiomatic translations of the Bible, the
consequence of this is very interesting. It seems that the closer an English
bible translation follows the Greek word order, the further it is from
faithfully rendering the originally intended prominence.
Iver Larsen
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