[B-Greek] The Elephant on the List
John M. Linebarger
jmlineb at comcast.net
Thu Feb 18 15:45:05 EST 2010
The interpretive process is wonderfully multivalent, and surely one of those levels must be "what is the range of interpretive options allowed by the original language?" A subsequent level is "which of those interpretive options (or which set of interpretive options) is most likely?"
If your point is that linguistic considerations are rarely used in the subsequent interpretive level that I have described, that's one thing. However, if your point is that such a subsequent level does not depend on the first level I described, then I take issue with you. No one translation--or even a set of translations, taken together--can do as well as the original language itself in delimiting the set of interpretive options that is allowed.
Any interpretive process that respects authorial intent needs to address the first interpretive level I described, IMHO. Otherwise, we're swimming in the subjective soup of reader-response ...
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Lightman
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org, John M. Linebarger
Sent: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:12:50 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] The Elephant on the List
--- On Thu, 2/18/10, John M. Linebarger <jmlineb at comcast.net> wrote:
<I'd like to gently challenge one of the statements in Mark Lightman's post:
> The English Translations, taken as a whole, are always MORE clear than the Greek; they always convey MORE information about the underlying Greek text than the Greek text itself does.
How is this possible? If a translation is more clear than the original, surely it is because the translators have chosen one of the interpretive options allowed by the original and reflected it consistently in their translation. However, clarity is not the same as accuracy, and only an inspection of the original will reveal other interpretive options that are available. I would contend that in those situations, the "clear" translation is actually achieved by *reducing* the amount of information present in the original.
This phenomenon, in my mind, by itself justifies the heavy investment in learning Greek and studying
the text in the original.
What say you?
John M. Linebarger
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA> Great question, John, I did not say that a translation is more accurate than theoriginal, I said several good translations, (and of the GNT theyare all good) taken a a whole, are more precise than theoriginal, and can almost never be proven to be inaccurate. Let me give you one quick example taken from Oun Kwon'srecent excellent post on 1 Cor 11:32, whether UPO TOU
KURIOU goes with KRINOMENOI or PAIDEUOMEQA orboth. I do not have access to the translations right now,but Oun is absolutely right; some versions go one way,some the other, some leave it ambiguous. The ModernGreek makes it definitely go with both by switchingto the active with two direct objects. Taken as a whole,the translations cover every option. But you say, "yeah, but we need to know the original todetermine which translation is right." WRONG! Nomatter how well you know Greek, the Greek will almostnever settle this. How often do we agree on the List?I honestly do not think knowing Greek makes anydifference in this and maybe most passages.The general meaning is established,The precise meaning cannot be established:,Certainly it can not beby discussing the Greek in English. Plus, as I have said, the "interpretive options," touse your phrase, almost never effect the meaningin any important way. We mess around around themargins. And if the range of possible meanings isimportant, i.e.. theological, well, then we all agreethat you should not use the Greek to settle this.We don't anyway. Our preconceived theology settles this,as it should. But again, great question. Mark L
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