[B-Greek] EPI TO AUTO
Jan Hoogland
hoogland at hawaii.rr.com
Wed Jun 30 16:02:00 EDT 2004
Dear Andrew,
Your curiosity about EPI TO AUTO is perceptive.
What is missing in a translation, obviously, as English grammar does not have such a device, is the force of the accusative. Generally, the case of a preposition indicates the direction of the action: the genitive answers to 'where from?', the dative to 'where at?', and the accusative to 'where to'. The (Greek) meaning of EPI remains the same in all cases ('upon'). An English translation may try to account for the case by translating the combination as 'upon', 'on', and 'on to' respectively but this is often inaccurate.
Compare for example the use of the accusative of EPI in Mat 10:29:
"And not one (sparrow) of them shall fall to the ground . . . ."
versus the use of the genitive case of EPI in Mat 6:10:
"your will be done on earth . . . ."
The prayer never made much sense to me until I realized that the direction of the action is the reverse of what the translation suggests. In this case it may be impossible to account for the genitive in a translation.
I would like to hear what your conclusion on EPI TO AUTO is going to be.
With apologies for being unfamiliar with the protocol,
Jan Hoogland
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list