[B-Greek] rom 8:17

George F Somsel gfsomsel at juno.com
Sun Jun 5 21:05:30 EDT 2005


On Sun, 05 Jun 2005 16:49:22 -0400 "nicholas runecrow"
<runecrow at hotmail.com> writes:
> "Carl has complained (well, I don't know that "complained" is quite 
> the
> correct word) that some such as Dan Wallace have overly 
> distinguished
> various usages of the cases.  Perhaps your problem is that you take 
> these
> distinctions too seriously.  Yes, we can distinguish various usages 
> for
> the genitive (please note the spelling), but to the Greek they would 
> all
> have been simply genitive.
> 
> george
> gfsomsel"
> 
> >>>
> 
> Thanks for the reply George. I am basically wondering if there is 
> something 
> in the Greek construct that pushes for two different distinctions of 
> the 
> genItives. When you say "to the Greek, they would all have been 
> simply 
> genitive" you seem to be echoing what I've said- that there really 
> wouldn't 
> be a reason to translate these two cases with different English 
> words.
> 
> This is why I am trying to determine why virtually all English 
> translations 
> do make this distinction between the two genitives. I am certainly 
> not at 
> the level of knowledge of Greek that most translators have attained, 
> and so 
> I am left wondering what they are seeing that I am not to cause such 
> a 
> distinction.
> 
> If I am understanding the thrust of your reply, you are saying that 
> there is 
> no reason for the use of differing English translations?
> 
> _________________________________________________________________

No, I am not saying that there is no reason to use two different English
words.   I'm saying that the Greek genitive has numerous usages which in
English use different words.  One usage is to indicate descent -- in Mk
2.14, e.g. we read

KAI PARAGWN EIDEN LEUIN TON TOU ALFAIOU . . .

There is no word here for "son" but that is clearly what TON TOU ALFAIOU
signifies.  The point being that you can't go through the NT (or even a
modern newspaper in another language) and simply use the word 'X' every
time you see 'A' in the other language.  You might use 'X' on one
ocassion, 'Y' in another and 'Z' in yet another case.  Nevertheless, in
the source language they are all one.

george
gfsomsel
___________


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