[B-Greek] (B-Greek) Two in one bed

CWestf5155 at aol.com CWestf5155 at aol.com
Fri Jul 21 18:05:30 EDT 2006


 
Daniel,
 
Again, the statement that it "cannot be two women" has to be  qualified.  Are 
we talking about translation into English or semantics: the  application 
and/or fulfillment of the prediction? 
 
I also agree with Carl that gender is not the point of the passage and we  
agree that the use of the masculine is the default gender. Why would there  be a 
qualification that it can't be two women?  
 
It would exclude two women if you take the statement as  predicting a 
specific event involving two specific people.  But If one  infers that it is more of 
a gnomic prediction, hypothetical or an  illustration of a point, the use of 
the masculine as the default gender  would not rule out its application to two 
women or the fulfillment of the  prediction as two women.
 
If we agree that this is the use of the masculine  as the default if this 
were translated into a hypothetical  language that had the feminine as the 
default gender, it would be appropriately  translated as two women.  I wouldn't 
translate it as two women in English  or Spanish.  But we shouldn't confuse 
translation with semantics  here.
 
Cindy Westfall
Assistant Professor
McMaster Divinity College
 
In a message dated 7/21/2006 2:29:14 PM Mountain Standard Time,  
dlc at multnomah.edu writes:

Iver,  you made some comments that virtually none of the English versions
use the  term "men." You also stated that DUO, in the absence of a  contextual
referent, must be understood as implying a modification of "the  most generic
noun." You then say "ANQRWPOI (people) is more generic than  ANDRES (men)."
Well, KJV, NKJV, NASB, Darby, Young, and ASV all specify  "men" in the
passage, so the history of English translation is hardly  conclusive on the
matter. I am not aware that any such requirement as "most  generic" may be
applied to grammatical referents; even if there were to be  such a
requirment, it is not all clear that ANQRWPOI is more generic.  The
distinction between ANHR / ANQRWPOS may not always be male  human/human
being, but husband/human male: in this case, each are specific  with regard
to relationships to woman (married to/other than). The point  is, the grammar
just does not answer the questions being asked,  here.

However, even though there are difficulties with the terms used  and the
translational equivalents desired, the rhetorical sense of the  passage seems
quite clear. I would have to agree with Carl, on two  points:

1) The gender of the persons does not appear to be the point of  the passage.
While each of these words is certainly masculine in form, at  least two
issues need to be recognized in terms of the gender expectations  raised by
the form. First, masculine is a grammatical "default" for Greek:  only if the
person referred to were specifically conceived of as a female  and NOT as
male, would there be a reason to use the feminine form. Second,  the
accompanying example speaks of women, and specifically NOT of men,  thus
using the feminine forms. The most we can say, is that the referent is  not
required to include a woman, and must include at least one man. The  persons
involved may be grammatically identified as man/woman OR man/man;  they
cannot be woman/woman.

2) The contrapositioning of DUO with  hEIS makes it clear there is one bed
being shared by two persons. The point  here is that the two persons involved
are alike in their day-to-day  activities and position. Such likeness serves
to highlight the drastic  difference in their ultimate experience.

Daniel


 



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