[B-Greek] Mt 1:18 hEUREQH EN GASTRI ECOUSA
Iver Larsen
iver at larsen.dk
Wed Feb 1 14:09:06 EST 2006
> Now two weeks ago Wayne posted a discussion (http://
> englishbibles.blogspot.com/2006/01/can-you-stomach-this-translation-
> poll.html) of the phrasing in Mt 1:18 about Mary's conception of the
> infant Jesus, and conducted a poll on how best to English that phrase
> (the winner among options available, although the polling sample was
> pretty small, was "she learned she was pregnant." On Monday, Suzanne
> McCarthy, a pretty sharp young lady, posted further on this phrase
> (http://englishbibles.blogspot.com/2006/01/she-became-pregnant.html)
> and concluded, with pretty good reason, that the fundamental sense is
> simply "she became pregnant." Much of the focus in this discussion is
> over the verb form hEUREQH, and (obviously) that's what made me sit
> up and take notice. The traditional versions (even the generally more
> sensible NET) have the woodenly-literal "she was found to be
> pregnant" or some variant of "she was found to be ..."
>
> One of the questions regarding this verb-form and its meaning is
> whether we should understand it as semantically passive or middle.
> Despite what 20,000 Frenchmen may claim, it's hard to figure out who
> on earth, if not Mary herself, found out that she was pregnant.
> Peterson's "Message" says Joseph noticed (after all, the next verse
> deals with his quandary and decision regarding the embarrassing
> "discovery") and perhaps that protruding belly was beginning to be
> obvious, but I don't think that solves the problem. hEUREQH is middle
> and my own simple version was that Mary "found out that she was
> pregnant." Now in fact Suzanne McCarthy took the matter further and
> noted that French versions have forms of "se trouver" and German
> "sich finden" and that these reflexive verbs have the semantic force
> not so much of "find oneself (in x state)" as rather "become" or "get
> to be." Is that the case also with hEUREQH? Apparently so. And the
> meaning of our phrase, hEUREQH EN GASTRI ECOUSA, is in fact best
> Englished as "she became pregnant."
>
> BUT -- can we really say that hEURISKOMAI in the middle-passive forms
> is synonymous with GINOMAI? Well, it's not so simple as that. Of the
> 3 Middle forms of hEURISKOMAI in the GNT only one clearly has this
> sense (1 Cor 15:15 hEURISKOMEQA DE KAI YEUDOMARTURES TOU QEOU ...)
> and a second is a bit different, although clearly related (Heb 11:5
> ENWC OUC hEURISKETO "Enoch wasn't there" -- clearly the sense here is
> not that somebody or everybody went looking for Enoch and couldn't
> espy him, but rather that he "went missing" (to use the current
> police procedural jargon). There are 29 instances of the verb in the -
> QH- "passive" inflections; a few of these might best be understood in
> a real passive sense (Parable of the Prodigal Son Lk 15:24 HN
> APOLWLOS KAI hEUREQH); others seem to have the sense "was next
> seen" (Acts 8:40 FILIPPOS DE hEUREQH EIS AZWTON) or "proved to
> be" (Rom 7:10 EGW DE APEQANON KAI hEUREQH MOI hH ENTOLH hH EIS ZWHN,
> hAUTH EIS QANATON -- where the MOI is not an agent pronoun, I think,
> so much as it is an "ethic dative" or "dative of reference" --"in my
> case/so far as I personally was concerned").
>
> BDAG for our text notes usage derived from Heb. NiMTSa "be found,
> appear, prove, be shown (to be)" I rather think that the Hebrew verb
> (Niphal) is like the reflexives noted above, sich finden and se
> trouver. BUT I don't think this is quite equivalent to GINOMAI,
> which also is used in the sense of "become/get to be." Rather, I
> think that hEURISKOMAI involves a notion of surprise or -- yes,
> DISCOVERY of an unexpected fact or truth (Paul's realization that the
> commandment was "death-dealing"). So the sense of hEURISKOMAI is not
> so much simply "become/get to be" as it is "prove to be" or "turn out
> to be."
So are you saying that it means:
1. she became pregnant
or
2. she turned out to be pregnant?
I agree that the word "found" as found in the more literal English versions (including the fairly literal NET) has some
wrong connotations and does not sound natural.
In our Danish version we translated it "det viste sig, at hun ventede et barn ved Guds hellige Ånd" which translated
into English becomes:
"it emerged that she was expecting a child by God's holy Spirit."
The modified literal authorized Danish version uses the same expression "it emerged" (det viste sig, literally: it
showed itself).
According to Luke she probably became pregnant the moment she said: "Let it be to me according to your word" (Luk 1:38).
The next three months she stayed with Elizabeth, up to the time that Elizabeth was about to give birth. At that time
Mary would have discovered that she was indeed pregnant. It was apparent to her, and she must then have told Joseph, not
only that she was pregnant, but that it had happened by the power of the Spirit as the angel had told her. This is
implied by the rest of Mt 1:18. Joseph didn't believe her, so he had to be told by an angel.
I cannot see how the phrase in Mat 1:18 can be understood as "she became pregnant", since that happened at least three
months earlier. There was no way that Mary could know that she was pregnant, until some time after it happened. I see no
problem with the translation: "it emerged that she was pregnant", but it would be inaccurate to leave out the verb
hEUREQH completely.
Looking at English versions, I would disqualify the NLT, because it leaves out the verb altogether. GNB is not bad. It
takes the middle sense:
"she found out that she was going to have a baby."
NCV says "she learned she was pregnant" and CEV is similar, using "learned".
God's Word says "Mary realized that she was pregnant."
My preference would be "it became clear" or "it emerged", but the same idea can be expressed in various ways.
Iver Larsen
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