[B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:20

cwestf5155 at aol.com cwestf5155 at aol.com
Tue Aug 29 19:23:09 EDT 2006


  In addition,
 
 One of the pragmatic effects of contrastive conjunctions or particles is to place focus or prominence on the second item as the more important or more relevant phrase or clause rather than a contradiction. Therefore, it usually involves a contrast of emphasis if nothing else, all things being equal.
 
 In a MEN...DE construction, the first phrase is coupled with and explicitly grounds the second phrase.
 
 However, in this case there is a temporal contrast. The less salient "then" (PRO) couples with a remote (but important) event and the salient eschatalogical "now" (EP ESCATOU TWN XRONWN) that occurs with UMAS--a 2nd person reference to the readers that further engages their interest/attention.
 
 PROEGNWSMENOU MEN PRO KATABOLHS KOSMOU
 FANERWQENTOS DE EP ESCATOU TWN CRONWN DI hUMAS
 
 So in this case the contrast is temporal as well as one of focus.
 
 Cindy Westfall
 Assistant Professor
 McMaster Divinity College        
 -----Original Message-----
 From: roncfay at hotmail.com
 To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
 Cc: themuzicman at gmail.com
 Sent: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 8:00 PM
 Subject: Re: [B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:20
 
  

>Hi Michael,
>Those translations were indeed correct. The Greeks said MEN and DE with
>practically every second breath - they thought in terms of MEN and DE, but
>it is not often translated "on the one hand.. on the other hand" and is
>usually (properly) translated as "but", "yet" etc. That is, it should not 
>be
>translated "on the one hand.. on the other hand" but that helps non-Greek
>speakers understand it when they are learning Greek. It is taught to
>students as "on the one hand.. on the other hand" (although at the same 
>time
>they are warned not to translate it that way, rarely at any rate) just to
>give them the idea of the thinking, and to get them to look for the
>answering DE when they see a MEN, not so they will translate it into 
>English
>that way. Btw, a single word in Greek could well need to be translated by
>several words in English, and vice versa.
>Ann Nyland
>


In addition, MEN...DE is often used for lists of ideas or items, which I 
believe is a use later in I Peter (trying to recall from my teaching of it 
last year).

- Ron Fay

________________________________________________
Dr. Ron Fay
www.roncfay.com
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Deerfield, IL.
roncfay at hotmail.com


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