[B-Greek] Matthew 16:13

Susan Jeffers susan at read-the-bible.org
Mon Jan 21 15:09:53 EST 2008


Hi Matthew --

What you're noticing is, in my view, an ambiguity present both in the 
Greek and the Engish:
Who is the Son of Man?  TINA EINAI TON hUION TOU ANQRWPOU;
(a) Given that Jesus is also known as "the Son of Man", who is he? 
where'd he come from? what's he up to?
vs (b) Which of the people walking the planet nowadays, if anyone, is 
the long-awaited Son of Man? Is it Jesus? Is it someone else?  Who is 
the Son of Man?

One of the frustrating things about Mounce's workbook is that he gives 
short sentences out of context, and the answer key gives only the one 
answer that makes sense if you look at the whole passage. In this case, 
check out the passage as far as verse 15 or 16; it becomes clear that 
Jesus and his disciples are referring to Jesus himself as Son of Man.

I notice that the KJV for Matt 16:13 says "Whom do men say that I the 
Son of Man am?" -- I don't know if the "I" is coming from a textual 
variant -- I would think so.

Blessings,

Susan Jeffers

Matthew Blair wrote:
> Greetings all,
>
> As mentioned before, I am a beginning self-study student using Mounce's
> BBG.  I am working through the workbook as well, was presented this fragment
> from Matthew 16:13.
>
> TINA (accent over iota) LEGOUSIN hOI ANTHRWPOI EINAI TON hUION TOU
> ANTHRWPOU;
>
> I parsed this as: who they say the people to be the son of man?
>
> And translated it as: Who do the people say is the Son of Man?
>
> However, the NIV translates this as: Who do the people say that the Son of
> Man is?
>
> The difference between my translation and the NIV does not seem small.  In
> my translation, the question is almost one of identification of the Son of
> Man (who among these is the Son of Man?).  In the NIV, the question is one
> of identification of the Son of Man with something else.
>
> My question: what did I miss when translating this quote?  In other words,
> why didn't my translation come out similar to the NIV? :-)
>
> Thanks for your assistance,
>
> Matthew Blair
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>
>
>   



More information about the B-Greek mailing list