[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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