[B-Greek] John 12:2a
Iver Larsen
iver at larsen.dk
Sat May 6 03:38:17 EDT 2006
----- Original Message -----
From: <gfsomsel at juno.com>
To: <iver at larsen.dk>
Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 7:29 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] John 12:2a
Iver,
You noted youself that
"Greek does not have an indefinite pronoun or verbal affix, but it quite often uses the third person plural verb form in this extended impersonal or indefinite sense, and Greek does that much more often than English. (Hebrew also sues the third person plural in an indefinite sense)."
I tend to think that if the Greek lacks this feature, why should we then introduce it where it could not have been? The English "They" would seem to corespond quite well in both usage and form to the original.
george
gfsomsel
George, if you are thinking of Biblical English, I would agree with you, because Biblical English in the NT has a strong Greek flavour. I was thinking of ordinary English, and I am not saying that the indefinite 3rd person usage does not exist in English, but that it is less used in everyday English, and that it would be misleading in certain contexts to translate a Greek indefinite 3rd person plural with an English 3rd person plural. Our basic disagreement is in translation and communication principles, not the Greek text, so I'll leave it with that.
Iver Larsen
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