[B-Greek] NWT: Is it an accurate translation of the Greek?

Awohili at aol.com Awohili at aol.com
Thu Feb 23 15:29:54 EST 2006


In a message dated 02/23/2006 12:09:25 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
nebarry at verizon.net writes:

I researched  this some time ago, and contacted a coptic scholar (I can 
supply 
the  reference off-list, if anybody likes).  He simply said that in contexts  
such 
as this, the Coptic indefinite article is required, but does not  necessarily 
imply what the English indefinite article implies, so that the  Coptic 
indefinite 
does not have the same semantic range as the English,  any more than the 
English 
definite article has the same range as the  Greek.  He mentioned that he felt 
the 
standard English translations  of John 1:1 would be a fine rendering of the 
Coptic  version...................(snipped)...............
Greetings, Barry -- the Barry I had in mind when I mis-addressed  Harold.
 
It doesn't really matter, since scholars have theological presuppositions  as 
well.  Still, again we are dealing with the "does not necessarily"s,  which 
belabor the fact that the Coptic indefinite article can be  legitimately and 
accurately translated into English as an indefinite  article, and usually is.  
 
Also, as noted in my previous post,  John 1:1c in Coptic and John  18:40 in 
Coptic  have the same grammatical construction.  And no  one would quibble 
about John 18:40 being translated as "Barabbas was a  robber."  Whereas the Coptic 
indefinite article can be used qualitatively  in some cases, it also 
functions quite well as a simple indefinite  article.
 
Granted, long tradition works against rendering John 1:1c as "the Word was  a 
god/God," but is this a matter of grammatical accuracy or of theology?   When 
the topic question was "Is it an accurate translation of the Greek," my  
assumption was that grammatical accuracy was being investigated.
 
Best regards,
 
Solomon Landers






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