[B-Greek] The value of reading the NT in Modern Greek
Jerry Austin Reimer
jerry at lsm.org
Tue Aug 5 13:54:45 EDT 2008
If there is a Modern Greek NT translation (I say "if" because I do not know
Modern Greek in any form) which is in modern Demotic Greek (colloquial,
contemporary, current in Greece right now) and if ("if" again) that Demotic
is the kind of Greek that is closest to first century Koine (as compared to
Kathareuousa or some other artificial literary creation that no one speaks
and maybe never did speak), then that is what I want.
If (there it is again) I am not misunderstanding Caragounis, what he calls
Neohellinic is Modern Demotic and that Neohellenic is the closest to Koine.
I want to see in the Modern Greek text whatever is the closest equivalent to
first century Koine but is still real spoken Greek today. I am not asking
for a modern equivalent to NT Koine (because, if Caragounis is correct, you
do not go to the NT to discover the typical Koine configuration for the 600
year period of Koine but that the NT is nevertheless classified as Koine;
the NT is Koine but Koine is not the NT).
In short, I want a Modern Greek NT which will best exhibit the developed,
spoken language (whatever that is called). Since some of the changes now
seen in Modern Greek are beginning to be present in the NT (EIS pushing EN
out of the language, for example) I want to see what finally happened to
these incipient changes as they now appear in Modern Greek so as to
understand some of these developments that are moving out of first century
Koine into Modern Greek. Of course, if there is no such Modern Greek NT then
that is the end of that.
There are a lot of ifs in this entry because I am not certain that my
assumptions are correct or if I am correct in my understanding of
Caragounis.
Please excuse such a circuitous entry based on ignorance of Modern Greek and
other things as well. Hopefully, you who are knowledgeable about these
things can instruct me.
Jerry Reimer
-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of vasilis tsialas
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 12:24 PM
To: B-Greek Lists
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] The value of reading the NT in Modern Greek
What is the best translation in modern Greek?
It depends on what someone wants from a translation.
Vamvas translation (1850) keeps many of the Common Greek forms. It's in
"kathareuousa", an artificial language never used in vernacular except in
official papers. I cannot really say that it is a translation, because what
Vamvas did was to substitute the words of Common Greek which were totally
unknown the educated readers of his days with modern words or with old words
with modern meanings.
The so-called New Testament of the Four Professors (1969) is again in
kathareuousa but pretty much closer to the vernacular speech. It is a
conservative and literal translation that helps much more the modern reader
to understand the text. Because of its being too conservative, it doesn't
reavel all current scholarly understanding of the text to the reader. For
instance, many things remain hidden to the modern reader behind obsolete
syntactical structures with datives and laconic renderings. But it is a
translation that can be trusted for being faithful to the original text.
The so-called New Testament of the Six Professors (1985, rev. 1989, rev.
1997) is a totally fresh approach of translation, in really vernacular
speech. It is a living, dynamic equivalence translation with many beautiful
expressions and renderings that take advantage of the power of the
vernacular speech, but on the other side, as it happens with this king of
translations, some times it adds things the original text doesn't say,
especially for doctrinal reasons in support the Orthodox Church.
Finally the Greek version of New World Translation (1993, rev. 1997) follows
closely the pattern of the English one, but it is revised by Greek scholars
aside with the original text so that the problems "of the translation of the
translation" may be eliminated, as far as this is possible. I believe that
it is the best available translation in Modern Greek as regards its
accuracy.
There are few other modern translations, but I haven't worked much with
them, and I cannot give any opinion.
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