[B-Greek] Acts 5.16 NASB using "OR" for KAI

frjsilver at optonline.net frjsilver at optonline.net
Mon Jul 24 20:33:24 EDT 2006


Dear Friends --

We're so used to sentences and clauses beginning with 'and' in some translations of the Bible that we've been anesthetized.  (Now *there's* a Greek word!)

Just below, I'm including a clip from a paper I wrote a dozen or so years ago re: translating the psalms from Greek into English.

I realize that this is more than was asked, but I beg your indulgence to allow me to address the question in a larger context.

In any event, I hope this helps a little to advance the question.

Peace and blessings to all.

Father James Silver

Monk James
Orthodox Church in America


BEGIN QUOTE:	
             HEBRAISMS

	An education in classical Greek affords us the pleasure of reading the original texts of the historians, poets and playwrights of ancient Greece.  Such an education also provides the apparatus needed to approach the Greek Bible.  But the scholar of classics is immediately confronted by the blind men's elephant:  What kind of Greek is this?

	The long and short of the problem is that the Bible is a Hebrew document;  its translation, especially into Greek, is an exercise in peculiarities.  The results, as we see them in The 70, are, to some extent, not Greek at all, but Hebrew in Greek clothing.

	Aside from a heavy reliance on the Greek aorist to convey nuances of aspect in Hebrew verbs, the grammar of The 70 is not all that unique.  What is unique to The 70, however, is the reproduction of Hebrew patterns of speech, calqued into relentlessly literal Greek.

	It is possible, for instance, to say in Greek ‘before one's face', and be understood as meaning ‘in one's presence';  this example shows that it might also work in English.  But Greek generally does not express this concept in this manner, while Hebrew does.  The superlative form of adjectives in Hebrew is produced by a construct of substantives.  A place might be ‘holy', but some other place, like the inner sanctuary of the Temple, might be considered ‘very holy', ‘most holy' or ‘holiest'.  In order to say ‘the holiest place', then, Hebrew employs a characteristic form: ‘the holy of the holies'.  This is rigorously calqued into Greek, in spite of that language's easily available comparative and superlative adjectival forms.

	Hebrew also uses ‘and' in far more versatile ways than Greek or English.  Unable to represent the many flavors of _waw_ successfully, or at least not feeling any need to employ more precise words, The 70 renders it as KAI in all contexts.  Latin and Slavonic dutifully follow suit, as do the more ancient English versions.  There is no question that _waw_ means ‘and', but this is excessively literal in many contexts and often distorts the true meaning of the words.  

	The various meanings of _waw_ (conjunctive, disjunctive, consecutive, sequential, consequential, etc.) demand a more sensitive and precise rendering in our own contemporary American English idiom.  What says ‘and' in literal Hebrew, then, must become for us ‘but', ‘then', ‘and so', ‘therefore', ‘in order to', and so on;  sometimes, it should not be expressed in English at all.  Its exact valence must be inferred from context, grammar and common sense.

	One particularly characteristic Hebrew figure of speech which is not successfully brought into English, and which is therefore avoided in the present translation, is the emphatic form of Hebrew verbs expressed as a construct of infinitive(participial)/kinetic forms.  In Psalm 117:18, for example, the literal Hebrew says ‘to discipline, He disciplines me'.  This is reproduced (with only a minor variation) in The 70: ‘disciplining, He disciplined me';  Latin and Slavonic follow the Greek quite literally, as did English several centuries ago.  The modern reader immediately perceives this as redundant and unnatural;  more importantly, such a literal rendering misses the point, which is emphasis rather than repetition.  This translation renders the phrase under 
discussion as ‘He disciplined me severely'.

	At the same time, phrases like ‘unto length of days' and ‘before one's face' are retained in Greek, Latin and Slavonic with no loss of meaning.  While they are clearly Hebraisms, and not at all representative of the modes of expression native to any of these languages, it is important to note that they were preserved anyway.  The present translation of the Psalms also preserves these somewhat quaint Hebraisms in a deliberately archaic English for the same reasons as its liturgical predecessors:  there is no loss of comprehensibility, and the Hebraism is preserved even in its foreign context.
END QUOTE

----- Original Message -----
From: kbent at comeoverandhelpus.com
Date: Monday, July 24, 2006 9:31 am
Subject: [B-Greek] Acts 5.16 NASB using "OR" for KAI
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org

> 
> Dear Friends:
> 
> 
> I a lurking novice, but I have a question nontheless. I noticed that
> the NASB in Acts 5.16 translates KAI as "or", presumably to emphasize
> the differentiation between those who were sick and those who were
> troubled by unclean spirits. What I am wondering is if there is
> anything in the text to warrant the change from the usual "and" 
> for KAI
> in this particular passage. Thanks for any and all insight!
> 
> Kenneth Bent
> Silsbee, TX. 
>



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