[B-Greek] All beds are not created equal (was KLINE)

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Jul 22 19:19:26 EDT 2006


Again, George has asked me to forward this response of his to the list:

> From: "gfsomsel at juno.com" <gfsomsel at juno.com>
> Date: July 22, 2006 9:36:15 PM EDT
> To: fjanzen at gmx.net
> Cc: cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] All beds are not created equal (was KLINE)
>
> Carl,
>
> Would you please do the honors once more?
>
> While it might be nice to be able to assign single-word glosses to  
> words referencing resting places (and to other words as well), I'm  
> not sure that this is advisable.  You state "If you could place a  
> light below the KLINE (sic !) (theoretically), it obviously wasn't  
> touching the ground (Luke 8:16)."  That may appear to be true  
> regarding the pericope regarding light, but it is not true  
> regarding Josephus' use of the word (Antiquities vii.40) where he  
> refers to a funeral bier using this term.  If one term is used  
> consistently for the same Greek word in all cases, there may be  
> some confusion introduced.
>
> george
> gfsomsel
> _________
>
> -- "Fridolin Janzen" <fjanzen at gmx.net> wrote:
> My main point was, that if I translate KLINE with a different word  
> than
> "bed", the questions that were discussed would not make such a big
> difference. Since there are at least 4 different words in Greek,  
> that are
> all translated as "bed" into different languages, shouldn't we try to
> differentiate between them in the target-language in order to  
> simplify the
> comprehension of the text for the readers? Couch for KLINE,  
> mattress for
> KRABBATON, pillow for KLINIDIO, and bed for KOITE, as  
> possibilities. If you
> could place a light bellow the KLINE (theoretically), it obviously  
> wasn't
> touching the ground (Luke 8:16), and it was in a public place for  
> the people
> to have its light or don't have it. Unless you had one room in the  
> whole
> house the KLINE would be located in an area where the guests would  
> commune.
> While the "object" upon which people slept at night was a KOITE  
> (Luke 11:7).
> By the way, Luke is the only writer that uses all four words. Since  
> sofa has
> something to lean on, and the KLINE did not, this word could not be  
> used.
> The technically correct word for KLINE in Portuguese would be our  
> word for
> DIVAN.
>
> I have the impression that in the given scenario, the two were not  
> lying in
> a bed. They were either reclining and having fellowship in the
> "living-room", or they were reclining at a meal, on a KLINE.
>
> Pastor Fridolin Janzen




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