[B-Greek] Why Monotonic Greek. Was: Free Polytonic Uncial Greek Unicode Font?
Brian Abasciano
bvabasciano at gmail.com
Thu Aug 10 15:30:22 EDT 2006
I may be missing something here. It seems that you are saying that most
translations read Jn 1:17 with the word "or" in front of "grace" and an
article in front of "truth". Is that true?
But, most translations do not tranlsate as you claim, though a few do. Those
that do not include: NASB, NIV, YLT, ESV, NAB, NJB, NRS, RSV. The fact that
some do could argue that those translations actually did disregard the
diacriticals and chose what they thought was most appropriate. Tranlsations
need to make such decisions, reminding us that very translation is a
commentary.
God bless!
Brian Abasciano
----- Original Message -----
From: "Curtis Hinson" <curtis at curtishinson.com>
To: "Eric Weiss" <papaweiss1 at yahoo.com>; "B Greek"
<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 1:53 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Why Monotonic Greek. Was: Free Polytonic Uncial Greek
Unicode Font?
>I appreciate your willingness to engage and discuss, Eric. As to
> monotonic: I use the word, as I understand it, in the same way it's used
> in Greece. Meaning, without the set of diacriticals with the exception
> of the tonos, although sometimes even the tonos is omitted. For
> instance, the monotonic NT on my website does not even use the tonos.
>
> As to John 1.17, the text.
> 1:17 οτι ο νομος δια μωυσεως εδοθη η χαρις και η αληθεια δια ιησου
> χριστου εγενετο
> OTI O NOMOS DIA MOUSEWS EDOQH H CARIS KAI H ALHQEIA DIA IHSOU
> CRISTOU EGENETO.
>
> A quick translation of mine:
> "Because the Torah through Moses was given, grace and truth through
> Jesus Christ came to be."
>
> It occurs to me just now that the function of DIA is questionable, if
> anybody wants to talk about other ways that could function we should
> probably branch off a new thread on that subject. What's the function
> of OTI, and what connection might be drawn between EDOQH and EGENETO?
>
> "Because the Torah was given for the sake of Moses, grace and truth for
> the sake of Jesus Christ came about."
>
> It also occurs to me to wonder if the articles can be functioning here
> in a demonstrative way, which would be interesting:
> "Because the Torah through Moses was given, this grace and this truth
> through Jesus Christ came to be."
> That one makes it look like Jesus is a fulfillment of the Torah, which
> seems reasonable enough theologically.
>
> Also I note that the 2004 Metaglottisis modern Greek agrees with my
> understanding here of OTI in that it renders it GIATI, "because".
>
> Alright, most translations I see seem to do something basically like
> what Tyndale does here:
> John 1:17 For the lawe was geven by Moses but grace and truthe came by
> Iesus Christ.
>
> I'd take issue, on a side note, with translating NOMOS as "law" or
> "Law", because that English is not in my opinion an honest reflection of
> what TORAH means, and NOMOS is used in that LXX technical sense of TORAH
> here I will say. Where it gets really interesting here is that having
> thumbed through a bunch of different critical texts, none of them I saw
> so far show the spiritus lenis on the H on CARIS.
>
> It may be then I have not chosen the best example for the principle I'm
> illustrating here, but it looks to me like the vast majority of
> translations I've looked at are reading the eta in front of CARIS as
> spiritus lenis, then reading the eta on ALHQEIA as spiritus asper! The
> most logical reading of these I would say is to read them both as
> articles, because otherwise one has to wonder why one is anarthrous and
> with a disjunctive, even though CARIS and ALHQEIA are connected by
> conjunctive KAI. To get the understanding of most translations, this
> most improbable stunt needs to be performed somehow.
>
> So this particular example more easily makes the translators rather than
> the editors look like the ones using diacriticals to twist the text.
> But, at the least, it illustrates how diacriticals can be used
> dishonestly to slip under the radar screen, either in a critical edition
> or in a translation based on an eclectic text. And in this case, to
> justify a strange reading of a text, maybe with some replacement
> theology in mind.
>
> What sets my translation apart is that I'm challenging the disjunctive
> idea that most translations go with. It makes more sense, to me at
> least, to see NT writers giving Jesus the legitimacy of Torah
> fulfillment as opposed to making him a heretical Torah-replacer. I hope
> my intended point gets through here.
>
> Bless the Name
> Curtis Hinson
> http://curtishinson.com
>
> Eric Weiss wrote the following on 8/9/2006 7:20 PM:
>> Can you explain what you mean here? I.e., does monotonic
>> Greek mean "without the accents and breathing marks"?
>>
>> And - which word of John 1:17 is significantly affected
>> by the rough breathing on the eta? How do you read/translate
>> it without the aspiration?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Eric S. Weiss
>>
>>
>>
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