[B-Greek] Romans 8:3
Leonard Jayawardena
leonardj at live.com
Fri Sep 4 01:26:05 EDT 2009
In the earlier post, I asked: "Am I right in thinking that the usual translation of Romans 8:3 goes with the sense "impossible" and the alternative translation (where TO ADUNATON is treated as an "accusative of general reference") goes with the sense
"incapable" or "weak"?"
To put it another way, Is it correct to say that a translation of the type "For what the law could not do in that ..., God did..." is required when the meaning "possible" is assigned to the word ADUNATOS and the alternative translation discussed under the recent thread on the subject verse ("For in regard to the inability/impotence of the law...) is required when the meaning "weak" or "incapable" is assigned to that word? I can't think of a translation of the type "For what the law could not do in that ..., God did ..." when the meaning of ADUNATOS is "weak" of "incapable."
If I am correct, doesn't the meaning you assign to this word decide what form the translation should take? If I understood the discussion correctly, the question was raised as to how one decides between the two possibilities of translation. The meaning of the word ADUNATOS could be the deciding factor. In Galatians 3:21 Paul writes, EI GAR EDOQH NOMOS hO DUNAMENOS ZWOPOIHSAI, ONTWS EK NOMOU AN HN hH DIKAIOSUNH. Here the participle DUNAMENOS means "capable" or "having the strength," which sense
corresponds in an opposite way to the sense TO ADUNATON bears in Romans 8:3 in the alternative translation. Since in both passages Paul deals with the impotence of the law by itself to bring about righteousness in man, this makes it likely that he used ADUNATOS in Romans 8:3 in a similar sense, i.e., "weak" or "incapable," rather than in the sense of "possible."
I also mentioned that it might be instructive to compare the phrase TA ASQENHMATA TWN ADUNATWN in Romans 15:1 with TO GAR ADUNATON TOU NOMOU EN hW HSQENEI DIA THS SARKOS in Romans 8:3. We have ASQENHMATA and ADUNATWN in 15:1 and
ADUNATON and HSQENEI in 8:3, which collocations again seem to point to both ADUNATON and ADUNATWN having the same basic sense.
Leonard Jayawardena
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