[B-Greek] Ambiguity
Timothy S. Nelson
wayland at wayland.id.au
Sat Feb 6 22:50:00 EST 2010
On Sat, 6 Feb 2010, George F Somsel wrote:
> I think the usual German term is Wiedergeburt.
>
> The term "born again" dates at least to the time of John Wycliffe who
> translated (from the Latin) rendered Jn 3.1-7 as
Something slightly similar, from earlier.
Where Wycliffe has:
> 3 Jhesus answerde, and seide to hym, Treuli, treuli, Y seie to thee, but a
> man be borun ayen, he may not se the kyngdom of God.
An Old English version (probably 600-700ADish):
http://wordhord.org/nasb/john.html
Says:
: 3 Se Hælend him andswarude and cwæð, ‘Soð ic þe secge, buton hwa beo edniwan
: gecenned, ne mæg he geseon Godes rice.’
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Old English, it would be
something like this in a literalistic slightly Modern English:
3 The Healer him answered and quoth "Sooth I thee say, but who be again-new
born, not may he see God's reich"
I mostly went with the most related-appearing word, even in semantic
drift had changed the meaning; for example, the dictionary suggested both
"healer" and "saviour" for Hælend, and suggested both "but" and "without" for
buton.
Anyway, my point is, "edniwian", which I've rendered as "again-new",
is definitely on the "again" side of the "again"/"above" line. Presumably
this is also from the Vulgate, although I have no reason for thinking this
other than that it was the right era.
(Not often I have a use for the smattering of Old English I've picked
up; hope I didn't get /too/ far off-topic).
:)
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| Name: Tim Nelson | Because the Creator is, |
| E-mail: wayland at wayland.id.au | I am |
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