[B-Greek] Re: Mt 3:15 ? (Was Re: Hebrews 1:8 )

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Jul 7 11:09:23 EDT 2004


At 9:23 AM -0400 7/7/04, Oun Kwon wrote:
>The following is a summary of recent off-list exchanges with George:
>
>**** "George F. Somsel" <gfsomsel at juno.com> 06/29/04 wrote: *****
>> I find this translation a bit tendentious.  First, with regard to their
>> "with reference to":  .....  See, e.g. Mt 3.15 (and this is chosen
>because it was the
>> first example I noted and not for any other specific reason)  where it is
>stated
>> hO DE IHSOUS EIPEN PROS AUTON AFES ARTI, hOUTWS GAR PREPON ESTIN hHMIN
>....
>
>****  "Oun Kwon" <kwono at upstate.edu> 05 Jul 2004  asked: ****
>>>  ... I could not find the Greek text you were quoting at Mt 3.15.
>>>  Was it correctly transcribed? or am I in some quandry?  Can you give me
>help? ...
>
>****  "George F. Somsel" <gfsomsel at juno.com> 07/05/04  answered: ***
>
>Oun J Kwon, M.D.
>SUNY Uptate Med University
>Syracuse, NY
>*
>>>> ... but in this instance I believe I transcribed it correctly...
>
>OJK:   Thanks, George for pointing out it to me.
>
>When I checked again the text with the interlinear Gk at office, it was
>just as you wrote.  However, when I got home,  the Greek word PROS was not
>there in two interlinear N.T. I usually use.  Both turned out to be based on
>Wescott and Hort.  A textural variant got me in confusion to locate the
>text.
>
>Here a simple layman's question if I can bring up:
>
>With the basic meaning of 'towards', how and why anyone would translate
>PROS as 'in reference to; concerning" ?   (Though it may be better rendering
>when used in reference to inanimate objects)? (I note that some mentioned it
>having a sense of 'face to face' in Jn 1:1 'The word was with God'.)

With all due respect, I think you really need to do some more work in Greek
before seriously asking a question like this. It's not really quite
accurate to say that "towards" is the basic meaning of PROS, even if it is
one of the most common meanings it may take.

Although etymological derivation is not a clue to how a word may be used at
any period later in the history of the language, I think it may be useful
to note that PROS is formed originally from PRO + -S, "in front of" or
"facing" as EIS is formed originally from EN + -S, the effect of the -S
adapting the stationary adverb/preposition to functioning as an
adverb/preposition of motion used with accusative case to indicate the
object of motion. It may also be worth noting that one of Aristotles
"Categories" is TO PROS TI ('in relation to something'), which is usually
Englished as the category of "relation."
-- 

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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