[B-Greek] Ephesians 2:3

Mark Lightman lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Mon Mar 22 21:35:10 EDT 2010


<Is a literal rendering necessarily misleading in this case?>
 
No, it's not.  I'm glad you caught that.  I should not have
said that "children of wrath" is misleading.  Both
translations are good, is what I meant.
 
If you look up TEKNON and hUIOS and a few other
words in Kittel, you will find whether "son of X=characterized
by X" is found in Greek writings independent of the Hebrew.
I think I did that one time and found that it is, but I don't remember
for sure.   

Mark L


FWSFOROS MARKOS

--- On Mon, 3/22/10, rhutchin at aol.com <rhutchin at aol.com> wrote:


From: rhutchin at aol.com <rhutchin at aol.com>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Ephesians 2:3
To: lightmanmark at yahoo.com, b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Monday, March 22, 2010, 6:26 PM



OK, I see the basic rationale.  Son of iniquity means a bad guy.

Thus, children of wrath can mean the objects of God's wrath.  The lost are the objects of God's wrath.  I can see that.  So, v 4, But God...even when we were the objects of His wrath...

But, would we say that being the object of God's wrath is, "By nature."  It appears to me that FUSEI could just as easily extend the description of the lost that we read earlier in this verse perhaps meaning that their nature is that of wrath (or hate) as opposed to love (per the nature of God).  Then, v 4, But God...even when we hated Him...  As son of iniquity refers to a person ruled by sin, could not children of wrath refer to people ruled by wrath (wrath is their nature)?  Is a literal rendering necessarily misleading in this case?

Can a grammatical analysis sort this out or does it end up being one person's exegetical position against another's?

Roger Hutchinson




-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org; rhutchin at aol.com
Sent: Mon, Mar 22, 2010 2:56 pm
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Ephesians 2:3







Roger wrote:
 
<Ephesians 2:3 has, in part:

...KAI hHMEQA TEKNA FUSEI hORGHS...

NIV translates this as "...we were by nature objects of wrath..." while KJV has "...and were by nature the children of wrath..."

The two translations convey entirely different concepts to me.

Are the NIV translators providing an accurate translation of TEKNA as "object"?  If yes, what is the rational for the translation?>
 
Hi,Roger,
 
We have to do with a Hebrew idiom.  ben X can mean not 
the son of X but something characterized by x.
Son of Iniquity means a bad guy.
 
So, I think NIV hit this one out of the park.  Another example
of where a literal rendering is more misleading.

Mark L


FWSFOROS MARKOS

--- On Mon, 3/22/10, rhutchin at aol.com <rhutchin at aol.com> wrote:


From: rhutchin at aol.com <rhutchin at aol.com>
Subject: [B-Greek] Ephesians 2:3
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Monday, March 22, 2010, 12:25 PM



Ephesians 2:3 has, in part:

...KAI hHMEQA TEKNA FUSEI hORGHS...

NIV translates this as "...we were by nature objects of wrath..." while KJV has "...and were by nature the children of wrath..."

The two translations convey entirely different concepts to me.

Are the NIV translators providing an accurate translation of TEKNA as "object"?  If yes, what is the rational for the translation?

Roger Hutchinson







      


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