[B-Greek] Semnatic domain of SARX

Kenneth Litwak javajedi2 at yahoo.com
Wed Dec 1 19:00:09 EST 2004


   I was reading an essay and it pointed out that,
unfortunately, Louw-Nida treat SARX as referring to a
psychological state in 26.7:  


psychological aspect of human nature which contrasts
with the spiritual nature; in other words, that aspect
of human nature which is characterized by or reflects
typical human reasoning and desires in contrast with
those aspects of human thought and behavior which
relate to God and the spiritual life - 'human nature,
human aspects, natural, human.' ouv polloi. sofoi.
kata. sa,rka 'few of you were wise from a human point
of view' 1 Cor 1.26; fanera. de, evstin ta. e;rga th/j
sarko,j 'what human nature does is quite plain' Ga
5.19; o` spei,rwn eivj th.n sa,rka e`autou/ 'he who
plants in the area of his human, natural desire' Ga
6.8. 
Some scholars understand the meaning of sa,rx as being
a person's 'lower nature' rather than simply 'human
nature,' but the distinction between lower nature and
higher nature seems to be primarily one arising out of
typical Greek thought rather than out of the Semitic
background which seems to be so pervasive in the use
of the term sa,rx in such contexts in the NT. There
are, of course, contexts in which sa,rx does refer to
that psychological factor in man which serves as a
willing instrument of sin and is subject to sin. 


Normally, if I want to actually see reasonable
translation options that are not colored heavily by
interpretive glosses, I don't even bother looking in
BDAG, and go straight to Louw-Nida.  However, this
"translation", which is supported in LSJ, is clearly
outside the semantic domain of this word, it seems to
me.  If you have a word that has a well-known meaning,
and you get to a NT passage, the seeming invention of
an otherwise-unknown sense, based upon someone's
interpretation of the specific text, hardly reflects,
it seems to me, what a native Greco-Roman listener
would think up while listening to, say, Romans or
Galatians.  Is there no resource to get translations
from (and I know that all translation is
interpretation, yada yada yada) that tries to be
faithful to senses of words available in the wider
culture, instead of inventing meanings based upon one
particular line of interpretation of a couple of
specific texts, which may or may not be valid?  LSJ
seems to go the same direction, not because they can
find an extrabiblical example but because they are
following a known interpretation of the biblical text.
 

    Wouldn't it always be better lexicographically to
give a normal "translation" than an interpretive gloss
that is clearly not really part of a word's semantic
domain from its original linguistic context?  Now I
don't know where to look for good translations for
words.  

Ken Litwak


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