[B-Greek] Translating Mark 1:8 (revised)

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Thu Nov 3 14:52:25 EST 2005


Dan, you've made perfectly clear that you intend to persist with this  
"interlinear" mode of transliteration despite the fact that several  
respondents have called attention to its inaccurate representation of  
the sense of the Greek. So here "immerse" for "BAPTIZW" has been  
faulted by several respondents as inaccurate certainy for the second  
verb form here (BAPTISEI), and while you might think "a Holy Spirit"  
accurately represents the Greek text PNEUMATI hAGIWi, what you're  
deriving from the Greek is pidgin-English rather than an equivalent  
of what the Greek text says. What's wrong with this "interlinear"  
style of "translation" is that it's based on an assumption that the  
"forest" of a sequence of discourse is no less and no more than but  
exactly equal to the sum of the "trees" of words inside that  
sequence. I think that's been stated in different ways in several of  
the responses to your idiosyncratic renderings of Marcan texts, but I  
felt it was worth reiterating "yet once more again," despite the fact  
that you've made it obvious that you intend to go on doing it this way.

On Nov 3, 2005, at 2:14 PM, Dan Gleason wrote:

> Translating Mark 1:8 (revised)
>
> EGW EBAPTISA UMAS UDATI
> I immersed you in Water ...
>
> AUTOS DE BAPTISEI UMAS EN PNEUMATI AGIWi
> but he will-immerse you in <a-Holy Spirit > correct to "a Holy  
> Spirit." .
>
> Is this translation accurate?
> ______________________
>
> Based on the feedback I have recieved re PNEUMATI AGIWi  (an  
> antherous noun modified by an adjective) my new translation is "a  
> Holy Spirit."
> In all similar circumstances I will never use "a-" and connect it  
> to the noun again.
>
> However, I don't think there is anything wrong with my use of the  
> hyphen for embedded words.
> I don't see anything wrong with this interlinear approach.
>
> I have read the feedback about why using "the" instead of "a" with  
> HS is preferred but I am not yet convinced.
>
> When I first posted, I gave the following reason for using the  
> indefinite article:
> The term Holy Spirit is being anartharously introduced for the  
> first time.
> Something like a character in a play who is making his first  
> appearance.
> The audience who are "in the know" know it refers to God ... but  
> for the
> pagans in the audience ...
> Is it possible that an indefinite translation was intended until the
> character was more fully developed in subsequent verses?
>
> Is there anything wrong with my reasoning here?
>
> Dan Gleason
>
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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