[B-Greek] Translating Hebrews 11:11
Daniel Buck
bucksburg at yahoo.com
Tue Apr 28 22:39:01 EDT 2009
Thanks for the links, Tom. I'm still a bit confused, so please bear with me on some questions.
On B-Greek Tom wrote:
<<I don't think there are any substantive differences in the variants listed.>>
Are all of the variants I listed okay with Abraham as the subject of ELABEN and Sarah stuck in a parenthetical clause? Certainly that's how it comes out in the various translations, all done by competent translators of apparently varying skill; just about all the recent versions list an alternate translation in the footnotes, but can't seem to agree whether Abraham or Sarah goes in the text--even in revisions by the same team of translators.
<<Based on this, I would translate the verse as: By faith—and Sarah herself (being) barren—(he) received the ability to impregnate, and (she being) past the time of her prime, since (he) deemed him faithful who had promised.>>
Why italicize? The various versions insert all kinds of helping words (notably 'the'), and what about all the texts with H and OUSA? And isn't 'her' prime implied at best?
<<(A problem with the CSBm translation is that hHLIKIAS is fem., so it must be Sarah that is past her prime.)>>
In what way? The word's gender would always be feminine, wouldn't it--even when in a prepositional phrase modifying a verb of which the subject is a male?
Daniel Buck
> -------Original Message-------
> From: Daniel Buck <bucksburg at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [B-Greek] Translating Hebrews 11:11
> Sent: Apr 28 '09 20:08
>
>
> The translator of Hebrews 11:11 is faced with a few textual problems, but primarily with the choice between Abraham and Sarah as the subject. My question is, which, if any, of the textual variants in the Greek text settle the question?
>
> The main variant is the presence or absence of words modifying SARRA:
> καὶ αὐτὴ Σάρρα στεῖρα kai auth sarra steira] p46 D* Ψ
> καὶ αὐτὴ Σάρρα ἡ στεῖρα ka auth sarra h steira] D1 6 81 88 424c 1241 1739 1881 1962
> Σάρρα ἡ στεῖρα καὶ αὐτὴ sarra h steira kai auth] 0150
> καὶ αὐτὴ Σάρρα στεῖρα οὖσα kai auth sarra steira ousa] P 075 104 256 263 365 436 459 1319 1573 1912 1984 2127 (2495 Σάρα sara) l596
> καὶ αὐτὴ Σάρρα kai auth sarra] p13vid א A D2 K L 33 181 326 330 424* 451 614 629 630 1175 1852 1877 2200 2492 Byz Lect
>
> There's another variant which I can't locate in a ms but is given as a marginal reading in WH, which is to change the accents put αὐτὴ Σάρρα auth sarra in the dative case.
>
> ἡλικίας ἔτεκεν hlikias eteken] א2 D2 Byz I won't get into this variant because the NLT translates 'have a child' even without it.
>
> So, which of the above readings would render which of these translations impossible?
>
> By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the
> age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. ESV
>
> By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was
> barren--received the ability to procreate since he considered that the One who
> had promised was faithful. CSBm
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