[B-Greek] KRITIKOS

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Mon May 3 01:14:02 EDT 2004


>
> Are you saying Greenlee disagrees with the (NIV) usage
> he references? (As I look at it, that would not be
> apparent but certainly possible.) Also, let me now
> correct my answer to Dr. Conrad and say... at least
> one answer is the NIV committee; they see it as a verb
> here. So my question is: how can this noun be
> understood as a verb (as the NIV take it)?
>
> Eddie

No, I am not saying that. Greenlee's book is simply a summary of what
commentators and translations have done with particularly words and phrases.
He does not give his evaluation of one or the other.

>From your further comment it seems that you are still mixing translation
strategies with the grammar of the Greek text.
No one would "see" KRITIKOS as a verb in the Greek language, neither
Greenlee nor the NIV committee.

You apparently are used to what may be called "quasi-translation". This is
the kind of rendering commonly used in Greek classrooms and text books. It
talks about Greek grammar using English words, but at the same time often
uses abnormal English linguistic structures. In this kind of translation, a
verb in Greek is translated by a verb in English, a noun by a noun, a
pronoun by a pronoun, an adjective by an adjective, a participle by a
participle etc. (if at all possible without being completely nonsense).

A modern translation that aims to communicate the meaning of the Greek text
in normal English to a common readership rather than to students of Greek is
not bound by such restrictions. There is no problem rendering a Greek noun
with a verb or an adjective with a verb if that is necessary in order to
produce a clear and natural rendering in normal English of the Greek text.

In the case of KRITIKOS (in Heb 4:12) there is simply no adjective in the
English language that expresses the meaning of this word. That is why even
BAGD gives the gloss "able to discern or judge". The KJV used a verbal noun
to translate the adjective.

Iver Larsen




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