[B-Greek] Letters of Paul and Polycarp to the Philippians
Noel Fitzpatrick
njfitzpatrick at eircom.net
Mon Dec 20 15:55:52 EST 2004
I am grateful to George Somsel and Iver Larsen for their replies to my
query about the Letters of Paul and Polycarp to the Philippians.
(1) George wrote "On checking Phil 1.7 in my NA-27 it was as you
transcribed it clearly "your heart" rather than "my heart." I therefore
brought up my electronic version of the ESV and found that, according to
my copy, they have translated it correctly as "your heart." It would
appear that either you have misread it or you have a faulty copy of the
ESV." I wrote "Whether it is translated as "You hold me in your heart"
(NRSV) or "I hold you in my heart" (ESV) seems to be matter of opinion."
I rechecked my versions and I do not think I have misread my versions
of Paul's Phil 1:7. There is a further possibility that George has a
faulty copy of the ESV.
(2) I again looked at all my translations and most of them have "I hold
you in my heart" (or close to this). So really I do nor think it is
clearly translated as "your heart".
(3) I wrote "Also in Polycarp's letter the principal interest possibly
revolves around whether EPISTOLAS (3:2) is best translated as "letter"
or "letters" in its context." George wrote "EPISTOLAS both here and
elsewhere is clearly an acc pl." I agree but can it be translated as
"letter", as Lightfoot translates it? In a footnote Holmes ("The
Apostolic Fathers" p 209) wrote "letters or possibly letter; see
Lightfoot's careful discussion of the phrase...when he demonstrates that
the plural can be used of a single document. Cf, also Schoedel, Polycarp
p 14-15." Also Berding (Polycarp and Paul p 62-63) considers the
possibility "to represent a single letter by the plural." In a footnote
he writes that "Greek literature has a number of examples of the plural
being used when in fact referring to a single letter." He concludes
that that "there does not seem to be enough evidence to resolve the
issue" of whether "letter" or "letters" is meant in this context.
(4) Iver wrote "For a discussion of Phil 1:7 and the question which is
subject or object of ME and hUMAS, you can look at the archives for
February 2001 (around 5-9th February)." I agree with him and I think
the conclusion of the discussion was that it seems a matter of opinion
which translation is preferred, as I said in my posting.
However I wrote "I would be very grateful to hear what other topics are
considered the main grammatical points of interest in these two
letters."
Regards,
Noel
(Dublin, Ireland).
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