[B-Greek] GENNAW
Mike Sangrey
MSangrey at BlueFeltHat.org
Fri May 27 11:15:34 EDT 2005
On Fri, 2005-05-27 at 06:46 -0700, william zeitler wrote:
> For your consideration:
>
> John 3:3 EAN MH TIS GENNHQH ANWQEN, OU DUNATAI IDEIN THN BASILEIAN TOU QEOU.
>
> My question is about GENNHQH (GENNAW). The meaning seems rather
> straightforward. E.g. BDAG: 1) to become parent of, 2) give birth, 3) cause
> (something) to happen, bring forth, produce. Generally translated along the
> lines of 'to beget' when referring to the male activity in the reproductive
> process, and 'to give birth' when referring to the female.
>
> So why is John 3:3ff invariably translated along the lines of 'unless a man be
> BORN again/from above...'
>
> Why not 'unless a man be BEGOTTEN again/from above...'?
>
> And so on for the rest of John 3.
>
> I personally don't see any theology at issue with 'born' vs. 'begotten'. But
> it does put a different cast on the passage. And it might be more consistent
> with Jesus' characterization of our relationship with God as between child
> and Father.
>
> So, why 'born' and not 'begotten'?
There are two issues here: one is probably more appropriately addressed
on the Bible translation email list; the other is focused on the Greek
sense of the word in this context.
For the first I'll simply mention that when you ask a translation
question you are immediately dealing with TWO languages. The reason to
not use 'begotten' in that case is that no one uses the word 'begotten'
today. It's archaic. The vast majority of Bible translations done in
the world today go through a process called field testing where the
translation is proved out among the translation's intended audience.
Field testing 'begotten' would immediately show that it carries zero
information. In fact, *I* had to look it up since I thought it was a
perfect synonym of 'born'!!
Secondly, you raise an interesting question regarding the meaning of
GENNAW in this context. It appears to me that GENNAW has more a focus
on the procreative event of bringing someone into (say) a new world.
There's a creative thing happening! (2 Cor. 5:17 immediately springs to
mind as does Gal. 6:15). While a word like APOKUEW--which was NOT
chosen--has more to do with the actual action of bringing forth into
this new world. If it HAD been used, it would bend the meaning toward
the actual birthing process (which brings Gal. 4:19 to mind.)
The question then appears to be more along the lines of: why not
translate as "unless you're procreated again/from above"? Or possibly,
"unless you're recreated from above."
--
Mike Sangrey
msangrey AT BlueFeltHat.org
Landisburg, Pa.
"The first one last wins."
"A net of highly cohesive details reveals the truth."
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