[B-Greek] IOUDAIOS and metonymy

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sun Feb 1 04:08:24 EST 2004


Dear Dmitriy,

Just a brief comment.

> Iver, I can give an example. If I am an American during the Cold War, I
> could say "Moscow" meaning the Communist government. In the same way I
> could say "Russians" meaning Soviet authorities. Both would work. But
> imagine me being a Russian dissident somewhere in Siberia. I still could
> easily say "Moscow" meaning the evil government, but I would hardly use
> the word "Russians" being Russian myself. In our discussion you speak
> like that American who calls bad guys from Kremlin "Russians". No, you
> are not a racist, but you being foreign for Russia can easily call all
> bad Communists Russians. But for a Russian dissident such word usage
> would be insulting. You cannot identify yourself with a Russian
> noncommunist, otherwise you would not call bad guys simply Russians. You
> cannot feel what a Jew John at that time felt, otherwise you would
> understand how strange it is for him to call Jewish (or Judean)
> authorities simply Jews (thus excluding himself from the Jews). Maybe it
> is easier for me to understand him because I am a Jew myself (don't try
> to attribute biases to me only because of that).

It is helpful to know that you see the case from a Jewish perspective. I
honestly want to listen to that perspective.
When you talk about Siberia, that would still be inside the borders of
Russia (USSR) in the wider, old sense, and therefore different from the
situation John is in. His situation is more like a Russian living in the US
talking about former Russian leadership.

Now, I am from Denmark and identify myself as Danish. But I have lived in a
foreign country for more than 25 years (with regular visits to my home
country). Being in this African country, I can easily say: "I don't agree
with what Denmark did there." In my language, I can use the name of the
country as a metonym for its leaders or its government. (I could not use
"Copenhagen".) I can say like this even though I am from Denmark myself, but
it would not be appropriate to speak like that if I was at that time
speaking to fellow Danes, being in Denmark. Then I might say: "I don't agree
with what the government did there." Likewise, John is not writing for Jews,
nor staying in a Jewish country at the time of writing.
It would be a bit more unusual for me to say that "I don't agree with what
the Danes did there", but if I did, I would only distance myself from the
action talked about, not from my sense of being a Dane. And again, it would
only be appropriate if I at the time was living outside of Denmark. And it
is clear from John's gospel that he can talk about IOUDAIOS without implying
that he himself is not a IOUDAIOS.
One of the problems is that in NT Greek you don't have a specific word for
"Judea", the region, or for the whole country inhabited by Jews. One has to
use the same adjective, IOUDAIOS, for all of these.

> According to your view, the slogan "Jews crucified Jesus" is just right.

Definitely not. That would IMO be a very un-Christian view that I could
never endorse. In my view it was God who crucified Jesus. He only used human
instruments, including Pilate and some Jewish leaders, to accomplish his
plan. Jesus himself said: "Forgive them, for they don't know what they are
doing."

Part of the problem and background for such a misstatement is the tradition
of literal translation, which you apparently uphold and I don't.

> Anyway, I already told you that I agreed that IOUDAIOS can mean
> authorities, but the word itself doesn't mean "authorities", it should be
> translated either as Jew or Judean, and "authorities" can be added in a
> footnote if necessary. Can we translate "Russian threat" as "threat of
> Moscow" or even as "Kremlin threat"? It might be a good commentary but
> not a good translation. It would be a paraphrase.

Now we are into semantics, as well as communication and translation theory,
and you seem to hold to the traditional notion that a literal form-based
translation is more accurate than a meaning-based one. You also seem to
believe that a literal translation is a good translation. I am saying that a
literal translation is often misleading, because it miscommunicates by
losing too much of the intended meaning and it gives rise to
misunderstandings as the one you mention above about "Jews crucifying
Jesus". IMO the way forward is not to redefine and restrict IOUDAIOS to mean
Judean in order to be politically correct in current American society, but
to recognize and deal with the metonymy. That is one reason I reacted rather
strongly against Danker's re-writing of BAGD.

The distinction between translation and paraphrase is pretty obsolete and
quite misleading in light of modern communication and translation theory. If
the distinction is maintained, there is no agreement where the borderline
between the two is. As translators we talk about a whole spectrum from the
literal extreme at one end to the unduly free at the other. But even
"unduly" depends on your intended audience.

Sincerely,
Iver Larsen
SIL Translation Consultant




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