[B-Greek] Romans 6:3 - baptized into Jesus Christ, word order

Jim West jwest at highland.net
Sat Jan 1 12:00:20 EST 2005


At 11:40 AM 1/1/2005, you wrote:

>Romans 6:3
>Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were 
>baptized into his death?
>
>      Yet that leads to the question of why the Greek has the "Christ 
> Jesus" order, is there a difference in the way the languages "think" 
> about such issues as names ?

Its not really so much that as that here the practice of the Church has 
influenced the translation of the text, pure and simple.  it is not for 
grammatical, textual, or exegetical reasons at all.

Think, for instance, of the two exemplars of the Lord's Prayer- from 
Matthew and Luke.  The only one I've ever heard prayed in a congregation is 
Matthew's edition.  Because this practice of the church is so established, 
people tend to ignore Luke completely or harmonize by adding words to Luke 
(as some of those Byzantine scribes clearly did).

So, for baptism, one will ever scarcely hear a priest or cleric say "I 
baptize you in the name of Christ Jesus" but you will constantly hear "I 
baptize you in the name of Jesus Christ".  Hence, translators, not immune 
to custom, customarily render accordingly.

Best

Jim


++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD

http://web.infoave.net/~jwest Biblical Studies Resources
http://biblical-studies.blogspot.com Biblical Theology Weblog






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