[B-Greek] GENNAW

Iver Larsen iver at larsen.dk
Sat May 28 02:37:48 EDT 2005


>
> >The context of John 3 suggests that the
> > sense is indeed being born rather than being conceived,
>
> And your reasoning is....?
>
> So far the only textual reason proposed for 'born' over
> 'conceived' is from
> Nicodemus' reply in v. 4. But considering that Nicodemus was
> misunderstanding
> Jesus' statement, and continues to not understand Jesus as the passage
> unfolds, I question whether this is decisive for understanding
> what Jesus had
> in mind!
>
> I'm not interested in how to translate it, but whether there are
> grounds from
> the Greek and/or context for determining this. It's looking like
> "negatory"!
>
> best wishes,
>
> william zeitler

As far as I can see you are trying to understand the Greek text on the basis
of English rather than the Greek.

There is a word TIKTW that specifically refers to the event of a birth in
both a literal and extended sense. GENNAW is broader and includes both
conception and birth. This word in itself does not allow the distinction
that you seem to be looking for. The normal way in the NT to speak of a
child being born is by using a passive form of GENNAW. Of the 44 occurrences
of passive GENNAW in the NT, the interlinear I was checking glossed it with
"born" 43 out of 44 times. Only one was narrowed down by context to refer
specifically to conception. Now, some of these instances are ambiguous,
especially when used in the negative. If you say "It was better that person
had never been born" you could have said "it was better that person had
never been conceived". But GENNAW does not make that distinction. Other
words would have to be used to separate those two concepts. The passive of
TIKTW is only used two times, when the focus is on the actual birth event.
(Matt 2:2 and Luke 2.11)

In John 3, I am not saying that GENNAW means "be born" (like ETECQH) to the
*exclusion* of being conceived. If a child is born, the child first must
have been conceived. In John 3 we have the added complication that Jesus is
talking about spiritual birth (including spiritual conception). Nicodemus'
misconception has little to do with the meaning of GENNAW (or the
corresponding Hebrew/Aramaic word) , and all to do with the difference
between *physical* conception+birth (which may be the meaning intended by
TIS GENNHQHi EX hUDATOS)  and *spiritual* conception+birth (TIS GENNHQHi EK
PNEUMATOS). That difference is the focus of Jesus' explanation when he
contrasts being born (produced) of flesh/humans with being born (produced)
of spirit/Spirit.

In English, the broader term is "born" rather than "conceived" and that is
why "born" is the better rendering in John 3, although not perfect. I accept
that the English word has more focus on the birth event than the Greek word.
You can usually not find an exact word match in another language, so in real
translation work as opposed to "Greek class translation" one has to focus on
the main theme as well as clarity and naturalness. Another important aspect
in choosing words in a translation is the question of which words lend
themselves better to an extended sense.

Iver Larsen
SIL Translation consultant




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