[B-Greek] Acts 16:25 praying and singing?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun May 14 20:14:25 EDT 2006


On May 14, 2006, at 5:28 PM, Craig Johnson wrote:

> In Acts 16:25, it says:
>
> PAULOS KAI SILAS PROSEUCOMENOI hUMNOUN TON QEON
>
> I would have thought that with the combination of participle and main
> verb this would be best translated something like this:
>
> "When Paul and Silas were praying, they sang hymns to God"
>
> However, all translations I've found seem to separate the praying and
> singing, rather than make the singing related to the praying. Why
> would that be? It seems to lose the meaning of the participle, or am I
> over-emphasising the meaning of the participle?

This is really nothing more than a matter of a Greek stylistic  
preference for subordination (hypotaxis) and an English preference  
for coordination (parataxis). All of the versions that you cite below  
are accurate English versions of the Greek text which you cited  
above. Your own version above ("When Paul and Silas were praying,  
they sang hymns to God") accurately conveys the content of the Greek  
but is not the "natural" idiomatic English way of expressing that  
content. One of the things that tends to surprise students of ancient  
Greek is the extent to which Greek subordinates elements that are  
commonly set forth in English as parallel to each other.

> Here are sample translations:
>
> (ASV)  But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing
> hymns unto God, and the prisoners were listening to them;
>
> (ESV)  About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to
> God, and the prisoners were listening to them,
>
> (GB)  Nowe at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sung Psalmes vnto
> God: and the prisoners heard them.
>
> (KJV)  And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto
> God: and the prisoners heard them.
>
> (LITV)  And having prayed, toward midnight Paul and Silas praised God
> in a hymn. And the prisoners listened to them. [Here Green even makes
> praying prior to singing!]
>
> (MKJV)  And toward midnight Paul and Silas prayed and praised God in a
> hymn. And the prisoners listened to them.
>
> (NET)  About midnight Paul and Silas were praying98 and singing hymns
> to God, and the rest of the prisoners were listening to them. [Note:
> Grk "praying, were singing." The participle προσευχόμενοι
> (proseucomenoi) has been translated as a finite verb due to
> requirements of contemporary English style.]
>
> (Vulgate)  media autem nocte Paulus et Silas adorantes laudabant Deum
> et audiebant eos qui in custodia erant [Here keeps participle but uses
> adorantes instead of orantes!]
>
> (F F Bruce) At midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns
> to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
>
> --
> Craig Johnson
> Brisbane, Australia
> Blog Experiment: http://bloggledegook.blogspot.com/
> ---
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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