[B-Greek] Hebrews 1:1-2 EN

Jonathan Robie jwrobie at mindspring.com
Thu Dec 20 14:36:29 EST 2007


Alderman, Jim wrote:
> For many years Zondervan's Greek and English NT with Nestle's 21st and Rev. Marshall's literal translation, along with H.K. Moulton for parsing, met all of my needs.  I was pleased with Marshall's accuracy, especially verb tenses.  Recently, a Bible study group I lead began working Hebrews.  We start, as always, with "what does it say" and after that is established move to "what does it mean."  Marshall translated the EN of EN TOIS PROFHTAIS as "by" and of EN hUIWi as "in."  I didn't really notice the difference until I made the sentence tree diagram of the first two verses that I referenced previously.
> It seemed to me that I had found an uncommon instance of Marshall failing to achieve his stated goals of "avoiding interpretation" in favor of a "literal translation." 

Hi Jim,

The problem here is that language is not mathematical, and translation 
can't be done by simple rules. Whatever the Greek text says, it says it 
in Greek. As C.S. Lewis put it:

> The very  
> formula, "Naus means a ship," is wrong. Naus and ship both mean a  
> thing, they do not mean one another. Behind Naus, as behind navis or  
> naca, we want to have a picture of a dark, slender mass with sail or  
> oars, climbing the ridges, with no officious English word intruding.

Here's the article that quote comes from:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2007-June/043358.html

The semantic range of the Greek EN is quite different from the semantic 
range of the English "in", the important thing is to find an English 
phrase that conveys as closely as possible the meaning of a Greek 
phrase. And that's different from mechanical substitution of words. All 
translations are traitors, including Marshall's, and all translations 
involve interpretation, including Marshall's. The very claim to 
translate without interpreting ... is just plain silly. It can't be done.

And that's why people have given you examples that illustrate the 
futility of trying to use this mechanical approach.

Hope this is helpful ....

Jonathan



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