[B-Greek] PASA GRAGH QEOPNEUSTOS KAI WFELIMOS--2 Timothy 3:16

Mark Lightman lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Sat Jul 25 09:45:27 EDT 2009


Leonard,
 
Your parallel of Mk 2:28 with 2 Tim 3:16 is not a perfect one
for the reasons George and Aaron noted.  You need a more
perfect parallel.  How about Iliad 25:319?
 
Πας βασιλευς αγαθος και σοφος.
PAS BASILEUS AGAQOS KAI SOFOS.
 
This does not mean "Every king is good and wise" but
"Every good king is also wise."  Except there is no Iliad
25.  I made this sentence up.  The question is, if a sentence
like this exists in Greek literature, how would you find it?
I'm pretty sure nothing like this is in the NT, but I would
think you could find something like this somewhere 
in Greek literature,  but I don't know
enough about the search tools to know how to do it.
It would be tough because the key word here is KAI,
which would give you millions of hits, unless you could 
program it to look for the word sandwiched between
an attributive and predicate adjective and meaning
not "and' but "even, also," but I don't think
computers are that smart, yet.  So we all need
to help you by trying to find a construction like
this as we do our reading.  When is the deadline
for your article?
 
If you can't find something better than Mk 2:28 I would go
ahead and use it.  Parallels are rarely perfect.  Normally, you
don't have to show that a construction exists in the NT or
elsewhere to argue for a given rendering, but since there
is a simple way to take this passage, it would help to
have some parallel for the more unusual way you want to
construe it.
 
I have a rule that I never use Greek to make theological
points.  I love Greek and I love theological points but
the combination always strikes me as creepy.  Better off
to stick to the English and to the history of doctrine.  Paul
has established that the law is nullified in Jesus Christ, so the
question naturally arises if the Old Testament has any use.
This is Paul's point, that it's useful as far as it goes for reproof
and training, [Some?] scripture still has some lingering God breath in it, but
that is incidental to his point. 


Mark L
Φωσφορος


FWSFOROS MARKOS

--- On Fri, 7/24/09, Leonard Jayawardena <leonardj at live.com> wrote:


From: Leonard Jayawardena <leonardj at live.com>
Subject: [B-Greek] PASA GRAGH QEOPNEUSTOS KAI WFELIMOS--2 Timothy 3:16
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Friday, July 24, 2009, 3:25 AM





In his "Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties," Gleason L. Archer writes, under the entry "2 Timothy," as follows:

Quote


So far as I am aware, no twentieth century English translation has followed RV and ASV in rendering [QEOPNEUSTOS] as an attributive adjective, whether their translators were liberal or conservative in their theological outlook. The reason for this is that no other instance can be found in New Testament Greek where an attributive adjective is connected with a predicate adjective by means of a [KAI] ("and"). The verb "to be" is omitted in this clause; therefore it must be supplied either before or after [QEOPNEUSTOS]. But since [QEOPNEUSTOS] is followed by [KAI] and a second adjective, [WFELIMOS],which everyone agrees is predicate, it necessarily follows that [QEOPNEUSTOS] also is predicate. Hence the only legitimate translation is "All Scripture [ or 'Every Scripture'] (is) God-breathed and profitable..."

Unquote


Is is it a valid argument to say that translation "X" is not legitimate because such a structure is not found in New Testament Greek? With my limited knowledge of Greek, it seems more grammatically regular to translate the words hWSTE KYRIOS ESTIN hO YIOS TOU ANQRWPOU KAI TOU SABBATOU in Mark 2:28 as "so that the son of man and of the sabbath is Lord" rather than as "so that the son of man is Lord also (or even) of the sabbath," as they are always rendered in NT translations, but the latter translation is required (a) by comparison with the parallels in Mt. 12:8 and Lk. 6:5 (though a variant reading has the same wording as Mark 2:28); and (b) because the former translation makes no sense. But if these Greek words stood alone and you had never come across the phrase "son of man" before, how many of you would translate them as "so that the son of man is Lord even of the sabbath"? Note that the two genitives of Mk. 2:28, which are joined by KAI, are
 separated, with the first mod
ifying the subject and the second becoming a part of the predicate. A similar separation happens to QEOPNEUSTOS KAI WFELIMOS when the former is rendered attributively. 

Is there a parallel to Mark 2:28 elsewhere in NT Greek or is it unique? If latter, wouldn't that vitiate Archer's argument that QEOPNEUSTOS should not be rendered attributively because "no other instance can be found in New Testament Greek where an attributive adjective is connected with a predicate adjective by means of a [KAI]..."?

I would much appreciate readers' comments on both Archer's objections to an attributive translation of QEOPNEUSTOS and my critique of them. Also,is anyone aware of an even better example to counter Archer's argument than my example from Mk. 2:28?


Leonard Jayawardena
Sri Lanka

P.S. In a private correspondence quite sometime ago, a member of this forum raised a similar objection to my translation of 2 Timothy 3:16, which incidentally is "Every God-breathed writing is also profitable, etc.," and this post will serve also as a response to that (if he still reads this forum).
_________________________________________________________________
Share your memories online with anyone you want.
http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/windows/windowslive/products/photos-share.aspx?tab=1
---
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