[B-Greek] John 5:29

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Wed Feb 1 06:54:49 EST 2006


The difficulty of the perspective represented below, I think, is that  
it confounds the distinct matters of understanding the Greek  
construction and translating the Greek construction into English or  
another target language. The problem throughout this thread has been  
confusion over what is being said about English and what is being  
said about Greek.

The summary of the cases, while it hits the high spots, is still not  
really complete, even with regard to the Genitive case, which is our  
focus currently. One canNOT translate adequately all instances of  
ancient Greek genitives simply with the prepositions suggestive of  
the original pertinentive ("of"), ablatival ("from") or partitive  
("some of") case-usages. A genitive of comparison (Mk 1:7 hO  
ISCUROTEROS MOU "the one stronger than I") is derivative from  
ablatival usage, but it cannot be idiomatically Englished with "from"  
in a phrasing such as "the one stronger from me."

There ARE instances in which context suggests that the relationship  
of the genitive noun in Greek is best represented by "for"; this is  
often the case in the so-called "objective genitive" constructions,  
e.g. (James 4:4 hH FILIA TOU KOSMOU, where we can say "love of the  
world" -- ambiguous because it could mean the world's love -- but  
would do better to say "love for the world.")

I personally have no objection to Englishing ANASTASIS KRISEWS as  
"rising for condemnation" if in terms of the context, that's the  
English meaning that seems to be suggested, but one must distinguish  
between the two distinct procedures: (1) understanding the Greek  
construction and its full semantic force within its context, and (2)  
giving expression to the meaning recognized in the first process in  
idiomatic English or whatever the target language might be -- and it  
not infrequently happens that the clearest representation of the  
meaning conveyed in the original Greek construction will best be  
represented in English or another language in a construction that is  
not at all parallel or even comparable to the construction of the Greek.

On Feb 1, 2006, at 6:31 AM, L. Harris wrote:

>> John 5:29
>>
>> Is it possible that the genitive in life and judgment here is  
>> rendered
>> "resurrection for life" and "resurrection for judgment" (denoting  
>> purpose)
>> instead of the possessive "of life" and "of judgment?"
>
>
> No it is absolutely not possible because the Genitive case dose not  
> denote
> purpose.
>
> The Genitive case has two separate basic functions.
>
> 1. It is used to make one noun limit or dependent on another. This
> relationship is usually shown by the English preposition "of" not  
> "for".
> 2. It can also be used to indicate motion away from or out of.
>
> If you want this to indicate purpose you are going to have to  
> change the
> inflection to the DATIVE case. That means you are going to have to  
> literally
> change the actual letters of the words in the text to make them  
> Dative. Then
> after you do that you can use the word "for" indicating denoting  
> purpose
> instead of the possessive as indicated by the preposition "of".
>
> SUMMERY OF GREEK CASES
>
> (1) NOMINATIVE: subject, predicate nomiative, naming things
>
> (2) GENITIVE: of; away from/out of
>
> (3) DATIVE: to/for; by/with/; in/at
>
> (4) ACCUSATIVE: shows the noun is being addressed directly
>
> It helps to really understand exactly why Greek is called an  
> "inflected"
> language. Then you would understand why you can not use the word  
> "for" when
> it's in the Genitive case.
>
> Linda Harris
>
> ---
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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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