[B-Greek] Arthur Way and 1 Tim 2:15

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Wed Nov 17 23:47:47 EST 2010


How many have heard of Arthur Sanders Way (1847-1930)?

Wikipedia has a good description of him as a Greek scholar, teacher and 
translator. Let me quote a bit from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Way

Way's versions give accurate renderings of the meaning of the originals 
expressed in vigorous verse. The list of his translations in Miller's Australian 
Literature includes Odyssey, the Iliad, Euripides, Æschylus, Sophocles, the 
Epodes of Horace, Vergil's Georgics, the Nibelungenlied, the Chanson de Roland, 
Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, the New Testament Biblical letters of Paul and 
Hebrews entitled, The Letters of St. Paul to Seven Churches and Three Friends 
with The Letter to the Hebrews, Aristophanes, Hesiod, Virgil, Lucretius, The Lay 
of the Nibelung Men, The Song of Roland and others. Way was also the author of 
Homer (1913), Greek through English (1926), and Sons of the Violet-Crowned, a 
Tale of Ancient Athens (1929).

End of quote.

What is of most interest to me is his excellent translation of Paul's Letters 
from 1906. In the preface to his translation he says the following which may 
ring a bell for those of you who teach Greek:

"Conceding all that is urged in praise of the dignity and beauty of the 
Authorised Version, and the charm of its rhythm, it can hardly be denied that, 
if the first requisite of a translation is that it shall convey with absolute 
clearness the meaning of the original, that version is in many parts of the 
Epistles far from adequate. If a student handed in such a rendering of a passage 
of Thucydides or Plato, as the Authorised Version supplies (to give but one 
instance) of 2 Corinthians, 10:13-16, he would be told by his tutor that he did 
not understand his author."

One famous passage where all English versions that I know off (except Way and an 
NLT and CEV footnote) have failed to understand the author is 1 Tim 2:15, and 
they therefore present non-sensical translations. The reason for their failure 
is the lack of awareness or recognition of metonymy (and synecdoche) which is 
much more common in NT Greek than it is in English. Some commentators, like D. 
Moo, have understood Paul, as quoted by the NET bible note: "“It is not through 
active teaching and ruling activities that Christian women will be saved, but 
through faithfulness to their proper role, exemplified in motherhood” (Moo, 71). 
In this view τεκνογονία [TEKNOGONIA] is seen as a synecdoche in which 
child-rearing and other activities of motherhood are involved."

Way translates: Yet through her motherhood shall woman be saved, if your women 
swerve not from faith and love and self-consecration, coupled with virtuous 
self-control.

Arthur Way's translation of Paul's letters may be found at:

http://www.archive.org/details/lettersofstpault00londuoft

Iver Larsen




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