[b-greek] Re: go AND make

From: dixonps@juno.com
Date: Fri Mar 09 2001 - 19:49:06 EST


On Fri, 9 Mar 2001 11:45:31 -0600 "Carl W. Conrad"
<cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu> writes:
> At 11:16 AM -0800 3/9/01, dixonps@juno.com wrote:

 <snip>

> >On another front, it does seem the KJ translators tended to render
> > the aorist participle with a main verb as denoting action antecedent
to
> > the action of the main verb, while modern translators are tending to
> > minimize that significance. Acts 19:2 comes to mind (among others).

>> The KJ has, "Have ye received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?"
Here
> > the aorist participle does follow the main verb, ELABETE
PISTEUSANTES.
> > Is that significant, versus preceding it? At any rate, most modern
> >translations render the aorist participle here coincidentally with
> > the action of the main verb, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when
you
> >believed?" (NASB, NIV), or "when you became believers" (NRSV,NAB),
> > etc.
> >
> >Thoughts?
>
> It seems to me that we discussed this at length a couple years ago
> in connection with an adverbial participial phrase--where? in 2 Peter?
> I should look up the thread; my observation was that these adverbial
> participial phrases (with aorist ptc. esp.) do tend to fall
preponderantly
> BEFORE the main verb and to indicate action antecedent to the main
> verb, while those falling AFTER the main verb tend more to be
explanatory.
> I'll check and see if I can find that thread.
>
> On the other hand, I really doubt that the KJV translators were much
> (if at all) less sophisticated in their understanding of the Greek they

> were translating than moderns. They may have been working with an
> inferior Greek text in terms of the witnesses on which it was based,
> but I suspect that they knew their Greek far better than most of us
> today know it (who deal with it regularly, that is) and I am absolutely

> sure that they formulated the meaning in far, far better English of
their
> era than most of us can do in our own era.

If your suspicions are right that adverbial participial phrases falling
after the verb tend more to be explanatory, and if the KJ translators
found the same to denote antecedent action, as in Acts 19:2, would you
be willing to say modern translators may be more sophisticated (more
because of the accumulated wealth of knowledge and information) than the
KJ translators, at least in this area?

Paul Dixon

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