[B-Greek] John 1:1c
Awohili at aol.com
Awohili at aol.com
Wed Jul 5 13:37:07 EDT 2006
Another very early translation of John's Greek text is that of the Coptic
Sahidic version (probably 2nd/3rd century). The Egyptian Copts were quite
familiar with Koine, which was introduced to Egypt from the time of Alexander,
and was still a spoken language at the time, and were careful translators of the
NT. Many textual critics recognize the value of the Coptic NT for their
field of study, considering it to be as relevant as the Vulgate and the
Peshitta, for example..
The Sahidic Coptic translation of John 1:1b says,
auw p.SaJe ne.F.Soop n.naHr.m p.noute,
meaning, "and the Word was (existing) *in the presence of* the God."
Thus, they translated Greek PROS by their word *naHrn* (duly conjugated),
signifying that this One was in God's presence, or in intimate association with
Him.
Solomon Landers
.
In a message dated 07/05/2006 10:06:58 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
frjsilver at optonline.net writes:
Dear Friends --
Perhaps the crux of the matter isn't the anarthrous predicative construction
in 1c so much as the PROS in 1b, which has given us some food for thought.
I notice that Latin renders PROS as _apud_; Church Slavonic, a little more
literally, has _k"_ while Modern Russian renders this as _u_, much more like
the Latin. Yet Modern Greek versions (no stable translations of the
scriptures as yet) variously give the original PROS and -- to my taste -- the oddly
appropriated PARA.
Yet none of these languages suggests 'with' (or anything like it). Rather,
all of them, with the weak exception of Church Slavonic, have much more the
flavor of 'at'.
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