[B-Greek] Luke 3.14b

Patrick Narkinsky patrick at narkinsky.com
Sun Oct 26 23:13:10 EST 2003


Greetings.  I'm looking into the following text from Luke 3.14:

KAI EIPEN AUTOIS MHDENA DIASEISHTE MHDE SUKOFANTHSHTE KAI ARKEISQE TOIS 
OYWNIOIS.

As I read it, I the translation should be "And he said to them, do not 
shake or bring false charges against anyone, but be content with your 
wages."  The KJV translation is not too far from mine here: "Do 
violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with 
your wages."  However, the more modern a translation, the more 
liberties they seem to take.

So, I have a few questions:

[1] It seems clear that DIASEIW doesn't just mean "shake".  If we take 
a very narrow interpretation, it seems to mean "shake down for money" - 
i.e. try to rip someone off to get money.  If we take a more broad 
interpretation (as e.g. the King James) it means "to do violence."  Can 
anyone offer an opinion on this?  The dictionaries are little help, and 
I'm afraid that the contemporary translations may be theologically 
motivated.

[2] The RSV derivatives take a line like the following: "“Do not extort 
money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with 
your wages.” (NRSV).  This translation seems to take the narrow meaning 
of DIASEIW above, then conflate it with SUKOFANTHSHW to produce to 
limit both DIASEIW and SUKOFANTHSHW to narrow meanings focused on the 
act of stealing rather than the means of theft.  To me, as a very 
little greek, this seems like a stretch grammatically.  Comments?

Thanks for any comments!

Patrick Narkinsky
Student
John Leland Center for Theological Studies



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