[B-Greek] Another example of a qualitative QEOS
Awohili at aol.com
Awohili at aol.com
Mon Jul 10 13:50:44 EDT 2006
Over the centuries there have been translators who took note of the omission
of the article in John l:1c, and translated accordingly in their language.
For example, roughly 1,700 years ago, Sahidic Coptic translators rendered
John 1:1c as:
auw ne.u.noute pe pSaje.
This Sahidic Coptic phrase ne.u.noute means literally, "was a god." The
entire sentence means literally, "and was a god the Word."
Coptic scholar George W. Horner ("<NOBR>The Coptic V <NOBR>of the New Te
<NOBR>in the Southern Dia<NOBR>Otherwise <NOBR>Sahidic and Thebaic," Oxford,
translated the Coptic of John 1:1c as "and [a] God was the Word," putting
unnecessary brackets around the "a." The Coptic word noute is not an abstract
noun nor any other category of Coptic noun that calls for the Coptic
indefinite article to be left untranslated. For example, Horner himself has no
brackets around the "a" where the same construction is found at John 18:40: Here,
ne.u.soone pe
is literally translated "was a robber": Horner has correctly "Barabbas was
a robber," with no brackets around the "a."
Thus, grammatically and literally, the Sahidic Coptic version of John 1:1c
translates the Greek anarthrous QEOS by the Coptic indefinite article: "a god"
or "a God."
The later (6th-8th centuries) Bohairic Coptic version also employs the
Coptic indefinite article to render the anarthrous QEOS, giving
ne ounouti pe: "was a god" or "was a God."
Solomon Landers
In a message dated 07/10/2006 7:38:23 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
furuli at online.no writes:
In John 1:1b we find hO QEOS with article, and in 1:1c we find QEOS
without article. It is this relationship that can tell us something, not
how John and others use the article in other instances. "The
Translators's New Testament," published by The British and Foreign Bible
Society in 1973 says: "In the second instance there is no article and it
is difficult to believe that the omission is not significant."
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