[B-Greek] PRO DE THS hEORTHS TOU PASCA - John 13:1

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Apr 5 11:34:46 EST 2003


At 6:27 PM +0200 4/5/03, Roe wrote:
>Greetings B-Greeks,
>
>PRO DE THS hEORTHS TOU PASCA EIDWS hO IHSOUS hOTI HLQEN AUTOU hH hWRA
>[...] EIS TELOS HGAPHSEN AUTOUS
>
>(John 13:1)
>
>The text above is often translated something like: "Now (it was) before
>the feast of passover; Jesus knowing his hour had come ... loved them
>unto the end"
>
>Would the first part of this verse better be translated: "Jesus, knowing
>already before the feast of the passover that his hour had come ...
>loved them unto the end"?
>
>Or would such a translation require/prefer hO IHSOUS to be placed
>differently in the Greek text:
>
>hO IHSOUS PRO DE THS hEORTHS TOU PASCA EIDWS hOTI HLQEN AUTOU hH hWRA
>[...] EIS TELOS HGAPHSEN AUTOUS

I think what you're asking is more a matter of how best to English the
Greek rather than how to understand the Greek. Certainly the PRO + genitive
phrase is adverbial as is the participial phrase EIDWS hOTI ...; both
depend upon the main verb HGAPHSEN. Your suggested version is more literal,
but what you cite as "the usual translation" does not distort the sense so
much as rearrange it into a more intelligible or normal English word-order.
I don't think you should expect translations to convey literally the exact
construction of the Greek; I personally think it is enough to convey the
sense of the Greek original in clear and intelligible format in the target
language; that's difficult enough to do. But all this is really a matter of
translation theory, not of how the Greek text in this instance is to be
understood.
-- 

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


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